Ethics Newsline®

In last week’s commentary, Rushworth Kidder speculated on three things that must change in order for the perception of the nation’s moral barometer to rise. He also invited readers to share their suggestions.

Well, share you did. We received many thoughtful letters, some quite lengthy, and it would be difficult to present them in their entirety. What follows are some of the areas for improvement you suggested, edited down to bullet points with an extracted sentence or two for context:

• “Increased respect for human life.”
• “More and improved role models in society. They could be parents, employers, politicians, teachers, coaches, whatever — but the world really needs them now.”
• “Increased number of absolutes that the majority can adopt. This would facilitate agreement on what is moral and what is not.”
• “A government of the people and for the people, and government leaders/politicians who truly represent us and not work only to gratify their own ego and pocket book.”
• “A paradigm shift toward: ‘We are all Brothers/Sisters and there is enough to go around for everyone of us, and we don’t have to hoard and grab.’ “
• “Demand that companies pay their CEOs in accordance with their value, not an over-inflated salary with huge stock options, etc.”
• “Place more value on honesty and ethical behavior by refusing to bow to popular culture.”
• “Greater personal responsibility. We are still blame-shifting, everything from frivolous lawsuits to paying our bills.”
• “An honest free press. Our media seeks the sensational. They build mountains of controversy in order to sell more air, more paper.”
• “Our lack of unity. We are boxed into reds and blues, young and old, black and white, or believers and nonbelievers. Our common ground is rarely, if ever, articulated by our leaders, our press, our educators, or our parents.”
• “Corporate Ineffectiveness. Corporations have fallen back into the rut of a ‘command and control’ mentality (to borrow the expression from Margaret Wheatley). This mindset treats people as ‘things’ and human beings only relate to corporate executives as ‘cost to serve’ margins.”
• “Allow mistakes. Leaders in all arenas — schools, the community, politics, the media, corporations, police departments, parents, whatever — must allow the people/children whom they lead, mentor, or are developing to make mistakes.”
• “Value people who contribute every day to our society as a whole and its future.”
• “Return to traditional moral codes. Our nation continues to drift away from a common definition of morality, and as long as divergent measures of morality exist (and replicate), surveys will continue to show a large block of disenfranchised Americans with a falling moral barometer.”
• “Affirmation of the reality of absolute truth. Our government education system is force-feeding a new generation of Americans with the fallacy that a pluralistic society requires all members to affirm truthfulness of conflicting systems of belief, eliminating their ability (and will?) to discriminate between truth and error.”
• “Be honest enough to be willing to learn more; self-righteousness is a dead end, detrimental to one’s own well-being and also to collective good. Especially learn more about all religions; the effect would reduce fear and promote respect for and appreciation of others.”
• “Be intelligent about the difference between that sense of fairness that benefits all equally, and religiously biased opinions that tilt the balance unequally when allowed to insidiously influence the actions of those in positions of power and authority.”
• “More honesty at the top [in government].”
• “More honesty in business.”
• “More honesty in our personal relationships.”
• “A societal emphasis on collaboration instead of competition. By its very nature, competition not only sends the message that the most important thing is to win, but winning always comes at the expense of another — someone has to lose for me to win.)”
• “Increased tolerance of Christians. While not all who state that they are Christians do not maintain a high moral code in their own lives, true Christianity as taught and practiced by Christ and as observed today by Christ-followers does in fact embrace a very high moral level. Increasing, as a minimum, the media’s tolerance of Christianity would go a long way to encourage greater moral behavior indirectly, if not directly.”
• “Congress must make earmarks transparent to all, instead of having the gall to continue to play earmark hide-and-seek with the public.”
• “Congress must consent to having an external committee monitor its ethics instead of fooling itself that it can correct misdeeds internally.”
• “Greater financial equity.”
• “Comity, which goes beyond civility.”
• “Relativism. We need a ‘dash’ or ‘pinch’ of it. While recognizing the difficulty of creating a line not to be crossed off of an absolute, the strength of a group is in the conversation to define that softer line.”

There were many overlapping responses, some of which were embraced in the list above. To give you an idea of the relative weight of the responses: Several readers cited adherence to the Constitution, in various contexts, as something in need of improvement. Financial equity, especially in terms of executive compensation and corporate greed, was repeatedly cited and woven into at least half a dozen replies. A sizeable percentage of readers cited integrity and truth telling as an area in need of improvement, along with tolerance, both in terms of others’ political beliefs and religions. Topping the list was civility, a quality seen as lacking in entertainment, politics, and the workplace.