Robert Reich: Difference Between Private and Public Morality

[kpete]

Robert Reich
The Difference Between Private and Public Morality

Republicans have morality upside down. Santorum, Gingrich, and even Romney are barnstorming across the land condemning gay marriage, abortion, out-of-wedlock births, access to contraception, and the wall separating church and state.

But America's problem isn't a breakdown in private morality. It's a breakdown in public morality. What Americans do in their bedrooms is their own business. What corporate executives and Wall Street financiers do in boardrooms and executive suites affects all of us.

There is moral rot in America but it's not found in the private behavior of ordinary people. It's located in the public behavior of people who control our economy and are turning our democracy into a financial slush pump. It's found in Wall Street fraud, exorbitant pay of top executives, financial conflicts of interest, insider trading, and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign "donations."

THE REST:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-difference-between-pr_b_1344690.html

[Igel]

1. Lots of public actions originate in private morality.

"We don't want their morality to affect us. Their morality is evil, and why should we have to be responsible for either accommodating their evil or forfeiting any of our wealth or time because of it.

"Our morality is generally good, although we, too, are human and may make mistakes. When our private acts, good or accidentally less than perfect, lead to public needs, it's incumbent upon others to accommodate the public implications and even forfeit some time or wealth."

It's the mantra on both sides.

One side preaches critical thinking, but can't apply critical thinking to its own views and actions because critical thinking is a weapon against the enemy. The other side preaches Xianity and can't apply Xianity to its own views and actions because Xianity is a weapon against the enemy.

It's an achievement that both sides now use the language of morality--when I was a kid you couldn't legislate morality. Then those who said this to their parents and their parents' leaders found that they had really wanted to legislate morality all along. Morality is usually a cultural norm and there are at least two dominant strains of American culture. It's an ingrained habit of bearers of culture to not be able to step outside of their culture. I'm not talking about the four Fs, the minutiae of culture, it's outward window-dressing (food, festivals, folklore, and fashion) but about culture as a pattern of behaviors and norms for interaction between members of a cultural community.

Many of the "moral rotters" on Wall Street started out as teenagers in public schools; most aren't from 1% families. They didn't learn their rotten morality in Harvard--still considered a good school, after all. Nor did they learn their rotten morality only upon reaching 30 years of age. Any more than Mafia bosses only became criminal after joining the Mafia and being in the Cosa for 15 or 20 years. But a good tree can't produce bad fruit--put in the language of the Xian right but an idea that permeates Reich's thinking (and many others') so that he has to find an excuse for the bad fruit.

I've taught in a rather bad area and in a very nice area. The students are very similar. Just as the Wall Street and corporate-America problem is short-sightedness, no planning for the future (with a dollop of contempt for everybody, esp. the future), so most of the kids can't plan for the future (with a dollop of contempt for everybody). No, that's wrong. They probably could plan for the future. They don't just think it's unnecessary. They see it as cramping their style and therefore any attempt to get them to plan for their future is an imposition of a corrupt moral stance.

Then again, that was what led to the subprime crisis, which wasn't just a Wall-Street-produced doggle. (No boon in it whatsoever.)