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ARE ETHICS AND EXPEDIENCY INCOMPATIBLE?

By Subroto Mukerji

Can the decline of the West be ascribed to eroded values?

Few concerns have so engaged the attentions of philosophers

down the centuries as the quest for the mythical Higher Truth, an elusive
absolute ethical standard that constitutes the decisive yardstick against
which the rightness or otherwise of all human conduct can be measured. But
whatever be its real nature, a critical study of philosophy, religion and
ethnology opens our eyes to the (often diametrically opposed) different moral
and ethical values adopted by various cultures over various periods of time.
One observation that emerges from such study is that what holds good for
one era does not necessarily work in another; what was acceptable in the
Middle Ages may not be suitable for our times.
There are societal reasons for this apparent inconstancy in
human affairs, occasioned by a host of factors including the impact of a new
spirit of scientific enquiry, globalization, social churn, the rise of materialism
and permissiveness (freedom?), and the erosion of age-old institutions such
as marriage. Shocking revelations of clerical amorality and consequent loss of
ecclesiastical goodwill have led to an all-pervasive cynicism across cultures
and climes. The malaise is exacerbated by the economic shakedown that
followed the OPEC cartel’s drastic upward revision of petroleum prices, an act
of economic warfare that has slowly but steadily eaten its way into the vitals
of western economies, crippling America’s energy / gas-guzzling economy
and played havoc with its core industries—as it was meant to do. US
adventurism in Iraq and other theatres is just one of the symptoms of the
energy crisis, with its myriad repercussions.
The Arab world has always
positioned itself diametrically (and
belligerently) opposite Semitic cultures, the
tragic outcome of Abraham’s defenestration
of Hagar and her son Ishmael. Ever since that
distant but unforgotten event, the Arab
world’s avowed (Ishmael swore that his
descendants would forever wage war against
the perpetrators of the injustice meted out to
him and his innocent mother) hostility to
Judaism and Christianity has repeatedly
manifested itself, mainly in the struggle to
control Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy
Land―the crusades being just Act One in a
drama that continues to the present day.
Unfortunately, the struggle for
Bible Country seems akin to schoolboy rivalry as compared to the dimensions
that Arab hostility to the west has assumed today. It may not be immediately
visible to the casual western observer, but it is important to remember that,
like the Chinese, the Arab has a perspective of centuries and even millennia
when it comes to international affairs, unlike a west that cannot see beyond
Quarterly results or a four-year Presidential term.
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As already mentioned, the OPEC low-blow to the Semitic world

has sapped western economies, the after-effects now becoming clearly
visible in every sphere of life including the decimation of the US automobile
industry, military intervention in Iraq ostensibly to oust dictator Saddam
Hussein by OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberation), the collapse of US financial
institutions and the weakening dollar giving a welcome boost to the emerging
Asian ‘Tiger Economies’ while denting budgetary allocations to the military
and a clamp-down on scientific research including hobbling or scrapping of
most of NASA’s programs. Today, NASA is a shadow of its former self, and
can no claim to spearhead US scientific endeavors. This last is enough of a
signal to futurologists that the US is a civilization (I use the term loosely here)
on the wane.
It also handed China the opportunity to use its vast manpower
and technical resources (not to mention its reverse engineering know-how) to
establish itself as a major trading/ manufacturing hub that has the US totally
at its mercy (China has a USD 800 billion stake in US Treasury Bonds, which
makes it well nigh impossible for the cash-strapped US to do more than growl
at it impotently, while doing everything in its power to keep the Dragon
happy).
And so the Dragon gobbles up Tibet, casts covetous eyes on
Arunachal Pradesh in India and makes regular inroads into the region
including pulling off incredible engineering feats such as building roads in
Tibet’s near-impenetrable terrain and commissioning the world’s highest
railway track linking Beijing with Lhasa. Those who have eyes to see, let them
see; those who have grey cells, prepare to exercise them now…not that it
needs much intelligence (personal or covert) to figure out what the Dragon
wants. Where is GloboCop? Uhhh…he’s hemorrhaging.
While Russia and USA have disarmed themselves to an alarming
degree, the Dragon is going from strength in her attempts to build up an
unassailable position. She already has ICBMs, nuclear submarines with ICBM
underwater launch capability, over 55 missile bases, indigenously made
multi-role, all-weather fighter aircraft that will soon match the US F-18A, she
has a blue-water navy that is producing warships the way Indians make
babies…with utter abandon. Her fleets go on 'Flag Cruises' to distant ports in
the Pacific and the Atlantic. She has the world's largest standing army, and
each soldier is drilled to robotic perfection by use of the most rigorous
training any soldier ever had to undergo. The SEALS and the Marines look like
pansies when compared to an ordinary People's Republic of China rifleman. If
might is right, is it not ethical to fight? Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Wake up, guys! You're running scared!
The abject surrender of the US to the Chinese manufacturing
behemoth spells the emergence of a new era of hypocritical pusillanimity in
US Foreign Policy, signaling as it does that expediency and mammon are
more important than principles or peoples. US policy makers have seen no
option but to turn a Nelson’s eye to the fact that Western Capitalism is
ethically and morally incompatible with a hybridized bastard form of
autocratic, capitalistic Communism. Yet, this unlikely partnership is strong
enough to withstand the test of the genocide – backed by a variety of
draconian measures – unleashed by the Chinese leadership to crush the
democratic urges behind internal dissent in China. The US leadership knows
when to look the other way and keep its mouth shut. Inaction is also a form of
action, says the Bhagawad Gita.
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Such seemingly unethical and ‘immoral’ compromises have

increased the cynicism of the common people who are directly affected by
such opportunistic behavior on the part of their political leaders, further
eroding the sanctity of Government and undermining the very concept of
democracy. It is no wonder that the US continues to indulge itself in its
traditional tactics of jingoism, saber-rattling, and gunboat diplomacy, wooing
Pakistani public opinion while propping up complaisant Pakistani political
leaders or toppling those who threaten to step out of line, i.e., do a Beckett
on them.
Seen in this light, there is much room for speculation about the
elimination of Benazir Bhutto, the ouster of Nawaz Sharif, the political
emasculation of Asif Zardari and the dismissal of Musharraf. Meanwhile, the
US wages a futile (and costly) war against the Frankenstein it helped create –
the Taliban – while mouthing empty platitudes meant for India’s
consumption. US industry is thrilled, because war brings trillions flowing into
their coffers.
Dear old India, with her bumbling political leadership constantly
putting its feet in its mouth, always preoccupied with internal security at the
cost of the external variety! What a sweet little Miss Goody Two-Shoes she is
in the arena of international politics. Everyone humors her and throws her a
crumb or two from time to time while she sits there demurely like a debutant
at her High School prom. Uncle Sam leads her a merry dance, all the while
keeping her aspirations on a tight leash by denying her real scientific or
monetary aid. Good Old Bill and Melinda, how sporting of them to give away
millions of Trust dollars to India before anti-trust lawsuits can take them
away.
Everyone knows who’s actually behind the terrorist attacks on
India (it’s the world’s worst kept secret), yet the US government chooses to
shoot its mouth off but do nothing. Perhaps it’s because the US has at last
realized that it’s a toothless tiger bleeding freely from internal as well
external injuries. India is the world’s largest democracy and so, paradoxically,
it doesn’t need free access to US aid; it doesn’t need to be rescued, you see,
as badly as 'democratic' Pakistan does. So trillions of US dollars are pumped
into a failed state to prop up the US-sponsored puppet military dictatorship
that always returns stuffed into one or the other general’s uniform because
the US just cannot stomach a democratic leadership of the Pakistanis, by the
Pakistanis, for the Pakistanis. Hard luck, Honest Abe! The times they are
a'changing'.
Thanks to US political intransigence and the debilitated
condition of its discredited political economy, those US citizens who can think
for themselves have lately become aware of a massive betrayal on the part
of the Establishment, including selling the common man’s interests down the
river while bailing out an incompetent (and undeserving) car industry while
gently rapping the knuckles of ‘Bad Boy’ banking and Big Biz moguls granting
themselves astronomically-high bonus payouts. Aw c’mon, pardner! Can’t
you see that in the next US Presidential elections, those big bonuses are
gonna play a decisive role? One good back scratch deserves another.
In this dismal scenario, is it any wonder that the common man is
thoroughly disillusioned? He’s lost the mortgaged house, his job, his BMW, his
Palm Springs weekends—everything—and all because Freddie Mac and
Fannie Mae fell sick. John Doe now knows for certain that America is ethically
and morally bankrupt, as well as broke in the conventional sense. This has
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made a deep impact on the already damaged psyche of a nation traumatized

since the 60’s by one reverse after another including the crushing ignominy
of Vietnam, which destroyed the myth of American invincibility and saw Old
Glory doing round-the-clock duty as a shroud for the corpses of hundreds of
thousands of young and innocent US citizens who did not want to fight a war
they did not understand and morally rejected.
In this world of celluloid icons, mindless violence, single
motherhood, promiscuous Berlosconis and rutting Sarkozys, the latter so
amorously preoccupied as to keep poor old Elizabeth Windsor waiting for an
audience recently (another fine example of a global decline in values), John
Doe has lost contact with the touchstone of truth. Everything is skewed;
nothing seems to make sense any more. What seemed right and proper
yesterday is under serious threat today. The foundations of his world are
crumbling, as if about to be swept away by a new order. He no longer knows
the difference between right and wrong. The two seem to be trading places
all the time.
Who knows, this may actually be good for him. He may see in
this shifting quicksand the message that nothing is forever, that it depends
how HE looks at it. This might make him more tolerant, resigned or militant,
depending on his situation or attitudes. He may realize that some things are
all right HERE and NOW, but may not be considered right THERE and THEN ―
i.e., in another time or place. Value systems, he seems to perceive, are not
immutable. Then why does it feel all wrong? Were Pa and Grandpa talking
through their hats when they drummed principles and scruples into him? Will
it be right to keep the extra $50 note the cashier gave him by mistake?
How come Bill Clinton stayed on as US President when he
admitted he lied under oath—committed perjury? Swore on the Bible he'd tell
the truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God. God helped him, even
though the man from Arkansas turned out to be a pervert, a womanizer and a
cold-blooded liar. Yet Bill was not impeached. He said sorry, finished his term
and slipped off to make millions selling his worthless books, yapping on
Oprah's show, promoting Hillary and golfing with other millionaires.
Meanwhile, John Doe has become a nervous wreck trying to persuade the
bank not to foreclose and sell off the old farm. Is there no common decency
any more?
What Bill knows – and John Doe doesn't – is that ethical and
value systems change over the millennia, as indeed does the Pole Star itself;
about five or six stars keep playing a game of musical chairs, shifting in the
role of Pole Star every six or seven thousand years relative to which of them
is aligned with Earth’s geographical North Pole. So even Julius Caesar bites
the dust; he can no longer state truthfully that he is as constant as the
Northern Star. Et tu, Shakespeare? Then fall, John Doe.
Yes, history tells us that what may be right in one culture or
latitude may be absurd in others. An Arab would (and still does) lock (or
cloak) his women out of sight of others, especially strangers. This custom
began because the times were not good in Medieval Arabia, and frequent
internecine wars and invasions meant that women, the first targets for
invaders, had to kept out of harm’s way. An Inuit, however, would offer a
stranger his igloo for the night— with his wife thrown in for good measure—to
help ward off the cold if nothing else.
In time, both these opposing conventions attained the sanctity
of law and came to be recognized as correct behaviors! It’s all a matter of
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perspective. Both the Arab and the Inuit were acting ethically…but if they had
ever happened to meet, confusion if not convulsion would have been the
inevitable outcome.
To plead that ethical conduct— whatever be the local
interpretation— is inconducive to material success is to presume that all
successful people have been unethical in their conduct. Such a position is
patently untenable. The reason is simple: if only ‘unethical’ people were able
to succeed in life, and—in a Darwinian extension thereof—were the sole
survivors of such a system, then in course of time, society itself would
collapse under the weight of suspicion, doubt and the collective outcome of
actions judged as ‘unethical’, being seen to be inimical in both content and
scope to the larger objectives of such a society. Since no such thing has
happened in historical times, with the possible exception of ruthlessly
despotic systems of governance such as that of Pol Pot’s, it urges us to
conclude that what survives is, ipso facto, ethical.
To ascertain the veracity of this hypothesis, it needs to be tested
in live business situations to see if it holds water. The crux of the matter is
whether commercial enterprises need to adhere to ethical ways of behavior
in order to survive. A study of one of the largest and most competitive
industries, the automobile industry, brings to mind several instances where it
has resorted to what is commonly regarded as ethical behavior. Several
marques have withdrawn models from the market after major design defects
surfaced and, rather than risk a public outcry, voluntarily recalled thousands
of cars from owners who had no personal experience or inkling of the
potential hazard.
Though such moves entail heavy losses for car makers, they are
seen as timely interventions that, if ignored, could have colossal
repercussions in terms of their market reputations, not to mention having to
suffer heavy fines resulting from lawsuits filed by irate buyers. Bridgestone,
the Japanese tire manufacturer, was late in withdrawing tires supplied to Ford
as original equipment for one of its SUV models: but an unusually large
number of fatal and near-fatal accidents attracted attention to the defective
tires, which were thereafter withdrawn but not before Bridgestone’s
reputation as well its financial status had been adversely affected. It has
been convincingly demonstrated by these as well as other instances that —
far from being a leading cause of bankruptcy — ethical conduct makes good
business sense.
Then again, if what we refer to today as ‘despotisms’ had
succeeded and thrived, better than have capitalistic systems that prevail
today, then such political systems would have been accorded the sanction of
history. Nothing succeeds like success. Eat or be eaten is the law of the
jungle, and all those who can’t stand the heat had better stay out of the
kitchen. In fact, they’ve already left. They are extinct. So are men who were
‘ethically’ out of step with the prevailing norm. Socrates chose to be one of
them rather than abandon his beliefs. He perceived that his standpoint was
inconsistent of the society he lived in and so, rather than compromise, he
decided on quaffing the cup of hemlock. Society invariably fails to recognize
the ‘unique individuality’ of, say, human cannibals and drives them to the
wall, putting them out of business as it were. They were unsuccessful
precisely because they were ‘unethical’ in their thoughts and actions vis-à-vis
the prevailing norms!
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To further obfuscate matters, we see that we have a paradox

here: if everyone acts ‘unethically’ then everyone is displaying perfectly
ethical behavior, since that is what that particular society has adopted as its
acceptable standard of behavior! Only actions that violate this code of
conduct would be termed ‘unethical’, leading us to the unavoidable
conclusion that what is ethical for one is what works for one. As in the
Einsteinian relativistic model adopted by quantum physics, change or
variance from a laboratory norm is obvious only to an independent observer,
i.e., one who stands outside the system and—unaffected by it—observes
certain prevailing phenomena from which hypotheses can be proposed, and
from which theories can finally emerge.
In other words, it is suggested that it is: (a) impossible to
convincingly define an objective standard of ethical behavior, and (b) quite
clear to a member of a particular society that the prevailing ethical
construction is one which his society finds acceptable and hence sanctions—
by law, convention or diktat. The very fact that that particular society even
exists is itself proof (Q.E.D.) that success and ethics can co-exist peacefully.
To extrapolate this line of reasoning, unethical persons would be
those who did not subscribe to the code of ethical conduct and were not
considered fit to participate in a free manner. They would therefore be
‘restrained’ through artificial means involving legal action leading to
incarceration (loss of liberty or freedom of unfettered movement) or even
capital punishment (loss of life), depending on the degree of severity of
prevailing laws. It is not surprising that the much-honored ‘Freedom Fighters’
— diehards who fought back against British imperialism — were labeled
‘revolutionaries’ and ‘mutineers’ by the British of pre-independence India.
During the Reign of Terror that followed the storming of the
Bastille and the overthrow of the French monarchy, the normal laws of French
society were kept in abeyance by anarchic conditions that gave rise to
several demagogic leaders who fought amongst (and murdered) each other.
In time, the conditions threw up a Bonaparte, whose Côde Napoleôn again
reinstated laws that prescribed norms of ethical (i.e., socially acceptable)
behavior. But since the needs and conditions of society had altered during
the interregnum, this legal system was markedly different from the one that
it replaced. For example, it was no longer considered right (i.e. ‘ethical’) to
pack aristocrats into tumbrels and cart them off for guillotining sans a fair
trial!
But the foregoing is not to make out a case for spurious drug
manufacturers, gun runners or human traffickers, lest an impression gain
ground in the reader’s mind that this exposition is in favor of unethical
conduct! Perhaps true ethical conduct will emerge in the next social
upheaval, when a new spirituality will reveal to men that all life is
fundamentally one, and that another person is none other than oneself.
Such unification of consciousness may lead to a resurrection of
the basic teaching of all great masters: do unto others as you would want
them to do unto you. Perhaps the Holy Grail of ideal ethical conduct lies
concealed within this two thousand year-old message from the shores of the
Sea of Galilee, patiently waiting for a New Society to rediscover and
reinterpret it for all time to come.

 
Subroto
 Mukerji 