SIN > Unmasked: sneaky tricks

“It’s only wrong if you get caught.”

or

Does the end really justify the means?

In an age of relative truth, relative morals and relative ethics, what used to be the province of the criminal underworld has become mainstream, even to the extent that national leaders now act as if they believe “It’s only wrong if you get caught.”  Indeed, it seems that it is the fate of getting caught that is the ‘sin’.

Whereas it used to be a joke: “Be good.  And if you can’t be good, be careful”; it seems it is now a way of life, a mantra, an ethical code – and even a business plan.

From people spying on those spying on citizens with electronic detection devices designed not to help them stop speeding but avoid being detected speeding; to politicians separating their three domains of believing, saying and doing into silos of ‘truth’ they call upon separately and independently as the need arises – for expedience, gain or votes.

A notable feature of the news in 2019 is the repeated story of the ‘whistleblower’ – the citizen who takes a “public interest” view of wrongdoing in his/her field of employment and uncovers and exposes that wrongdoing in an attempt to end it, often out of frustration at not being able to do that via normal channels of reporting and responsibility.  If you follow the news, you will no doubt have noticed the repeated use by various authorities and employers of the cry of embarrassment when one of their own goes public on a matter they are wanting to keep from the public gaze.  The main concern does not seem to be that they were doing something wrong, but that it was exposed, causing them shame, embarrassment, reputational loss and particularly financial loss in some way or other.  ‘Commercial in confidence’ has been breached – shock; horror; prosecute; sue!

Then at times, this embarrassment is ‘spun’ in the media in such a way as to make over the wrongdoer as being a “disgruntled former employee”, as wanting to protect a third party or the public, or even accuse the whistleblower of putting others in danger by their exposé.

The case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is perhaps the largest and most notable of such situations where all of the elements have come into play, not the least being the claim by the US government that their exposure of wrongdoing in Afghanistan put military lives at stake.  In the process, the embarrassed/shamed party seeks to discredit the whistleblower in any way possible and seeks to embarrass him/her in a ‘return of serve’ kind of way by bringing counter-accusations against the whistleblower.

I’m not trying here to analyse any particular case or cases but rather to shine a light on the moral and ethical questions around the matter of ‘wrongdoing in high places’ and the rampant panics of obscurantism and obfuscation – the lies – that have become the cities of refuge for perpetrators who steadfastly maintain the notion that the end always justifies the means; and if it doesn’t, they can always manufacture consent for the “public interest” argument whatever that might be at the time.

It always seems to become an argument of a clash of trusts: public trust in an institution versus public trust in a treasured idea or hope or aspiration.  Expressed another way, it seems invariably to come to the matter of whittling away people’s basic freedoms allegedly in the name of being good public stewards of ‘national security’ and of protecting citizens’ safety – all without getting citizens’ prior permission to do so, assuming they have a political mandate for their actions from the last election.

An Official or an Institution does a few ‘naughty’ things that they think the public will forgive them for on the basis of a) the risk in not doing them is (allegedly) grave; and b) the loss in doing them is a little bit more surveillance and increased security measures.  It’s as if the public trust Official is told “mollify our fear and we won’t object or complain about our loss of freedom”.  We don’t seem to get that, most times, the fear is largely manufactured in order to achieve precisely this reduction of personal freedom to allow for much greater freedom for a corporate interest.  In the era of social media, traditional news media no longer have to be used to get the message out.  The old motto ‘never let the truth get in the way of a good story’ becomes a media strategy and the cornerstone of the business plans of many a media outlet.

If you factor in the theory that humankind as we know it is the result of an extended biological and cultural evolutionary process, it is incredibly easy to flick off, like a bug on one’s sleeve, the idea of God or (therefore) of His having any influence on our existence or the moral and ethical fibre of our ‘civilisation’.

I don’t.  I take the view that we are all unique creations of a sovereign God; and that central to God’s intention in creating us is that we each reflect that sovereignty.  Trapped as we might be in a straight-jacket, or cornered into a snarling mess of hubris, we are kind of “born to be wild” – to be free and sovereign beings.  The old covenant was neither designed nor  destined to achieve that, with its insistence on rules and law; but, as Paul well noted, God’s intent in that law régime was that it would point us to (and ‘deliver’ or courier us to) Jesus Christ.  Largely, humankind has chosen to stay with law – mostly because freedom seems too hard.  And it is – if we pursue it via more and more ‘law and order’ and ‘rule of law’.

In our world, what sins are being committed and by whom ceases to be an issue of importance in the light of the embarrassment, shame, loss of reputation, financial loss – real or imagined – being experienced.  Loss to the whistleblower is invariably of much lesser import and consideration, primarily because of the legislative lack of protections for citizens in general and whistleblowers specifically.  What chance does one individual citizen – waged or unwaged – have against the might (and the budgets) of the monoliths of governments, corporations and their legal strategists?

An old testament reference from earlier in this blog is once again illuminated: the prophet rages against the administration of Israel that they have made lies their refuge:

You boast, “We have entered into a covenant with death, with the realm of the dead we have made an agreement.  When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by, it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place.”

So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic.  I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place.”

The precious cornerstone in Zion is a reference to Jesus.  God’s people – in every generation – are supposed to trust in Jesus the cornerstone; instead, they’re trusting in the manufactured lies of human government and administration.  And one lie always requires another, often greater, lie to overcome the one before it.

The ‘ultimate pragmatic’ so favoured by the US is that the end justifies the means.  I have several problems with that position, not the least being that what they think is the “end” never is the end; it’s just a watering station on the way.  To me, the means justifies (or renders credible) the end, not the other way around.

On a more local or national level in Australia, the cases of the ATO and whistleblower Richard Boyle, and Murdoch University overseas student dilemma come to mind; or the case of the St Kevin’s School students in Melbourne singing their sexist chant.  We seem to have a great deal of trouble admitting wrong – it’s s sign of weakness, they say.

‘It’s only wrong if you get caught, so make sure you don’t get caught.’  Why are we having so much trouble staying away from sin, error, wrongdoing?  The most common answer will be money, pure and simple.  “The love of money is the root of all evil.”

And the great scourge of our time as far as I am concerned is this thing we call “commercial in confidence”: we can’t be open and transparent, because that might give ‘competitors’ an advantage over us.  So, to me, the even greater scourge is this creature we call competition – when it is done for competition’s sake.  The true endgame of competition is not lower prices or better service as the myth goes, but monopoly, or, at least, a secret edge that grants an advantage, preferably permanently.  It might not be monopoly, but it is the next best thing: duopoly.  It’s not actually about honesty, truth, justice, righteousness, love, mercy, compassion, is it – honestly?!

“After all, we’re here to make a profit; we’re not a charity; nobody wins if we don’t make a profit.”  And all manner of sins are excused and become part of the business plan that is its own justification.

Now if you take that thinking just a bit further, you end up where we went in the earlier post about sodomy – true biblical sodomy.  The sin of Sodom is NOT homosexuality; it is arrogance, gluttony, greed, careless ease, disdain for poor and needy people and being haughty – the outworking of which is committing abominations, including all sorts of sexual abominations.  That’s what the biblical record shows us.  Our recent history backs that up.

We could have a world where people with any kind of ‘public trust’ (and I think that’s actually all of us) made it their business to do two things: 1) not act against another person’s interest to benefit your own interest – i.e. sin as transgression [see earlier post]; and 2) treat as a friend the one who seeks to call out our transgression in the interests of all, and of public trust and respect for the dignity and sovereignty of each of us as human beings.

In other words: stop doing the wrong thing by other people; and stop trying to punish those who just want us to stop doing the wrong thing by other people.  Practise righteousness.  Imagine a world where our competition was the first apostles’ approach: “outdo one another in showing honour [or kindness in some translations].”

We are in serious serious trouble if money is our measure of success and not honour, respect and trust towards each other.  We are on a non-stop train to the sin of Sodom.  As far as God is concerned, there is a ‘right’ way to live (and it isn’t Right as against Left); and it is right regardless of whether it is rewarded and regardless of whether those who do not so live get caught.

Conversely, there is a wrong way to live and it is wrong even if you don’t get caught.  When we break the code of honour, respect and trust, we break it for everybody – it’s not just a personal choice or decision.  Most especially, we break it for those who have built their life around not breaking it – those who opt for honour, respect and trust even when it is not returned to them.  We destroy their lives as far as their capacity to live their lifestyle choice is concerned.

Laws to rein in law-breakers have a devastating negative impact on those who do not need them.  A popular myth goes something like, ‘if you’re not doing the wrong thing, you have nothing to worry about’, but it is just that: a myth.  Law snares everybody in order to trap the few law-breakers.  We call it “rule of law” – and it stinks to high heaven.

I have some friends who once managed a 3,000 acre cattle property in Queensland.  It was, as you would expect, thoroughly fenced and the fences regularly inspected.  The family home also had a strong fence around it, demarcating ‘domestic’ from the rest.  It was generally considered ‘safe’ for domestic life to happen inside the homestead fence and progressively unsafe outside it the further one moved away from the home to the boundaries.  That’s a fine display of conservatism; and it really works well for children and for domestic workers whose job is to accommodate “domestic bliss”.  But those safety rules cannot and must not apply to those who job is to manage the cattle and attend to their wellbeing, nor those whose job it is to inspect and mend the fences, the dams, the fodder pastures, etc., etc.

Those boundaries and safety laws are worse than useless if they do not allow, permit or encourage us to learn how to go beyond them safely.  And that is precisely what conservatism – and particularly religious conservatism – does to us.  It teaches us “un-faith” (unbelief, distrust) and teaches us to sin by means of that thing I pointed to several posts back: living by sight, instead of living by trust; or living by reason, instead of living by insight, intuition and perception.

Somebody has to go and inspect and repair the fences and the dams and the fodder fields; and somebody has to mange the stock’s wellbeing and administer the whole operation – that’s the nature of a cattle (or sheep) property.  And it is likewise in this thing the New Testament calls the ekklesia – the Body of Christ.  Indeed, that is the very purpose of the various spiritual gifts.  And if mature people cannot go past the domestic boundary, the whole operation comes to a grinding halt and no one is able to “be obedient to the heavenly vision” as apostle Paul put it.  We are all accountable for our obedience to what the Holy Spirit reveals to us.  There is no excuse for disobedience because “they wouldn’t let me”.  “They” are as accountable as you and I.

But what would really work is for “They” to get out of the way – to stop taking over God’s role and allow Jesus to be the Head, the Spirit to be the guide and teacher and the Father to be – well: Father.  And, of course, for each of us to take up our place in the family.  To do otherwise equals the sin of disobedience.

Jesus and the first Apostles teach us that we are “not under law”; that there is a simple higher law – the law of love.  And for me, love is the overlap of honour, respect and trust; those who live by this law do not need ‘rule of law’ imposed on them by a state or a corporation, a legal institution, a ‘church’, or a pastor or priest.  If that’s what we’re looking for, we are joining “them” in their “adventures in missing the point”.

This does not, however, make one ‘a law unto himself’; rather it tells us that keeping the law of love is – de facto – keeping the law.

The fact that love makes a terrible business model ought not be telling us that love is futile as a way of life, but rather that business plans and models are the worst imaginable lore code, and they generally bind us to a strategy of ‘kill or be killed; ‘eat or be eaten’; ‘play or die’; ‘trample the weak – hurdle the dead’ and so on.

Sometimes it’s wrong whether you get caught or not – simply because God sees; and knows; and understands; and disciplines His children.

Next: the problem of Job (is suffering the result of sin?)