Watching corrupt politicians defend one another is most disconcerting. Their behavior so poignantly invites the question “Have you no shame?” And the very poignant answer to that question is a very unabashed: “No”. Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel provide us with one of the latest example of corruption on the part of politicians, to say nothing of the past actions of New York Governor David Paterson with his personal chauffer David Johnson and, in particular, Johnson’s domestic abuse of Sherr-Una Booker (Johnson’s ex-girlfriend).
What stuns me more than anything is just how indifferent politicians have become to moral appearances. People are doing things that are clearly and manifestly inappropriate; and they have no shame at all. Indeed, if anything is true, politicians have mastered the art of claiming that an obvious wrongdoing is not so obviously a wrong after all. That is rather analogous to a high school teacher having sex with a student and then claiming that she or he did not do anything inappropriate at all.
The most obvious question that arises is this: How did this moral climate come about? How did it come to pass that people can do what is obviously wrong and claim, without an ounce of shame, that their behavior was not morally unacceptable? Indeed, people are no longer concerned with even the very appearances of morally inappropriate behavior.
Trips down memory lane have their limits; for such “trips” may simply tell us no more than that times have changed. Not so in this case, however. Time was when at the very least people were very much concerned making sure that things looked the right way. And the fact that this might not be the case was often enough a reason to refrain from the behavior in question. The following is a simple example.
I know a number of married couples. In each of these cases, though, my primary communication is with the husband and not the wife. The explanation for this unbelievably simple: appearances. The issue is not whether women and men are equals on all accounts, both morally and socially. Of course, they are. Rather, by maintaining my primary communication with the husband, I thereby show a deep and fundamental respect for the basic intimacy that is a defining feature of married couples. Most importantly, my behavior keeps even the suspicion of wrongdoing at bay. Such is the significance of appearances.
In the case of marriage, we can pretend that appearances do not matter because after all we are rational creatures. But the journey from the heights of pure rationality to the cluttered and ever changing road of reality makes it unequivocally clear that appearances do matter.
Just as appearances matter in a basic matter of social interaction between women and men, where marriage is involved, it is equally true that appearances matter in all aspects of life where exhibiting morally right behavior is a matter of great significance.
So we have Charles Rangel using his position as Chairman of the powerful House tax writing committee using in his position in obviously inappropriate ways. And then we have Nancy Pelosi showing him unequivocal support. Then we have David Paterson preventing or derailing the prosecution of his aid David Johnson for Johnson’s domestic abuse of a Booker (the aid’s ex-girlfriend). In both cases, what we have is a brazen show of indifference to moral appearances. In particular, what is made manifestly clear is that individuals are much more committed to maintaining power than doing what is morally right. I hold the following very simple principle: It is impossible to be a morally decent person and, at the very same time, be indifferent to how things appear. And so the utter indifference to appearances that we are seeing on the part of politicians reveals the depth of moral corruption that exists among them.
The obvious question that presents itself is this: Why have individuals become so indifferent even to moral appearances? The answer, I believe, is a painfully simple one, namely the move to moral relativism. If anything is a reason not to set our moral sights high, surely moral relativism is. Of course, moral relativism is perhaps not the outright rejection of moral values. Just so, moral relativism undermines the idea that there are moral ideals to which all individuals should subscribe. Thus, moral relativism undermines a sense of public accountability that fully animates the behavior and thought of all.
Moral objectivity places a deep and inexorable conception right and wrong in the public space. Accordingly, all are reminded in countless ways, both explicitly and inexplicitly, of the standard of moral excellence that are expected of us. It is the very rare person who does not stand in need of such reminders. Or, to put the point another way, the absence of reminders in the public space will result in the weakening of resolve for all but the strongest of individuals.
In a way that most of us would never have imagined: We are reaping what we have sown. Moral excellence in general requires a moral climate. To suppose otherwise is rather like supposing that children will come to have an excellent vocabulary although they rarely interact with anyone who exhibits such excellence. Not happening.
