Culture of Deceit is Not Confined to the White House or USA
The culture described in today’s NYTimes is merely a clumsy, cartoon caricature of what public life has becomein Western cultures. The modern era of electronic social media has exposed the extent of the dishonesty and, to survive it, those who profit most have had to become smoother, slicker and more cunning. They need to represent the world in a way that they may benefit from and they have become good at it. We see examples of this in business, finance, public service, as well as politics.
Perhaps we are all inclined to construct the world in a way that suits us and, most probably, there have been times when we all have participated in the advantaging of ourselves, a group we are part of or someone we know, at the expense of someone else. We may have huddled in the lunch room gossiping or plotting with others about how we can keep what we have got or get what we want. Who cares that othersare unhappy when we are entitled. We find ways to justify it but in the end it is an ethical or moral choice that is made by each of us, and there is no excuse for going along with bad stuff. Nevertheless we take the rewards, or continue our affiliation to the peers of our choice and move on. It is not so different really.
The problem is that there are checks and balances in the lunch room, but we no longer appear to have the capacity to have a wealthy class of people account for their disadvantaging of others, for their profit. Even when POTUS45 tells the world that he has a made a fortune borrowing millions of dollars with no intention of paying it back in full, there is no accounting. How many times has he done this? How many businesses have been ruined and people made homeless? Why would he not do it again? Similarly, if you have met with the Russians in the hope of fixing a national election, and then denied it, without consequence, what would stop you thinking that you are not accountable to anyone.
This is not a culture of the White House, it is much more pervasive than that. The reprehensible entitlement and arrogance of the Trump family has been exposed and the corruption of a class of people have been exposed with them.
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NYTimes article here.
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