Idioms

 

It’s pretty apparent idioms take center stage for those pursuing political positions of power: “By hook or by crook,” “by fair means or foul,” “whatever it takes,” “at any cost,” and the time-honored catchall, “the end justifies the means.”

In politics and government, lying and then justifying it through the ends vs. means philosophy of behavior is a favorite pastime of politicians. A pasttime that, to our detriment, has contributed to a problem of moral hazard.

Dr. Steven Mintz, often referred to as The Ethics Sage, and whose credentials, it follows, would include dozens of research papers published on ethics, writes in his latest book, Beyond Happiness and Meaning: Transforming Your Life Through Ethical Behavior, June 2019, “The statement that ‘the end justifies the means’ can be traced back to Niccolò Machiavelli, an Italian Renaissance diplomat, philosopher and writer, best known for The Prince, written in 1513 as an instruction guide for new princes and royals.

Machiavelli writes, “Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you.”

Mintz explains, “In this quote from Chapter 18 of The Prince about keeping faith, or being true to your word, Machiavelli is instructing a Prince on how to behave and how to keep up appearances. He says it’s very important to appear merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. He also says that one must be prepared to act in a manner contrary to the appearance to keep up the appearance. This is because everyone can see what you appear to be, and only a few will get close enough to touch you and actually find out what happened.

“These people (each with slightly different reasons and motivations),” continues Mintz, “are all about appearing as they wish people to see them. Even if it is nothing like what they really are, even if they are saying the exact opposite of what they will eventually do, they know that few will see through their appearances. So, for Machiavelli, to appear to be doing something is good enough even if the actor has no intention of doing so, for achieving an end result far outweighs how he got there; what road he took; and whether his behavior was ethical or not.

“It is not that most people are inherently unethical,” suggests Mintz. “Instead, the problem is that many people are unconscious of the fact that nearly everything that they do has an ethical dimension.”

That, in my humble opinion, is a fundamental truth many wish to brush off or, at least, reconceptualize.

Mintz concludes, “The pattern of a person’s judgments made spontaneously under pressure is the best sign of a person’s moral compass. My inspiration is a deeply held conviction that individual decision-makers and our leaders–both in business and government–have lost their moral compass.”

In a subjective world, where we are willing to accept idioms that suggest that morality is relative and that “the end justifies the means,” we will continue to encounter deception. A well-delivered message, which has had the correct amount of proper primping and emotional spin applied to it, will allow the audience to remain unaware that any such fabrication has taken place.

Controversial American author Robert Greene brings to light in his book The 48 Laws of Power, “People’s perceptions are filtered through their emotions; they tend to interpret the world according to what they want to see. Feed their expectations, manufacture a reality to match their desires, and they will fool themselves. The best deceptions are based on ambiguity, mixing facts and fiction so that the one cannot be disentangled from the other. Control people’s perceptions and you control them.”

It’s quite evident for some, in the words of Niccolo Machiavelli, “Politics have no relation to morals.”

Former Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble is writing this ongoing column about the various ways government works, as well as other topics. At times the column is editorial in nature.