Corruption can uproot trust and limit future peformance. Unchecked corruption harms
all of society for the benefit of a few and thus should be avoided. We have
been using a hypothetical philosophical example to explore how hate, corruption
with lack of checks n balances could rob systems of excellence. We are still in
Stage 3: Where Victims must accept the social order where there are no avenues
of recourse (hypothetically).
Corruption in this learning example can be seen as
intentional waste of society's resources for gain through the misuse of public
position.
In this learning example a connected group of people known
by some as "The Clan" are represented in a number of local institutions
and at times engaged in formal and informal coordination in bullying and self-gain.
Due to these social connections investigations into complaints of misconduct
were blocked while investigations into whistleblowers and out-group members
opened. Out-group members seen typically as people not in The Clan,
racial/religious minorities, not "local" (not always hinged to
actual locality), and those who tell Clan members "no" or obstruct
them in some way (frustrating a group or not following expectations can further hate based behaviors).
What is most interesting about this constructed worst case
example is that even though they violated most major laws to target people and
protect their coordinated network (semi-coordinated with the wider social
group) multiple complaints about some of the members came forward related to
things such as sexual exploitation, rumor spreading to dehumanize,putting kids in harmful situations, alleged rape/sexual extortion, encouraging suicide, questions on missing drug
money, corruption, threats of violence/intimidation, targeting, violations of
human/civil rights, employment blocking, evidence tampering, preference of Clan members within the courts, conflicts of interest, illicit financial gain, mistreating veterans, etc. (All the bad stuff you can think of! Yikes!)
While not all members knew what the other members were doing,
they acted formally and informally to help each other and essentially influence outcomes. It was intentional, shortsighted and in some cases criminal. The wider
members just followed each other in behavior without any real thought. They might call the later flying monkeys that have no real insight.
If you go back to the beginning of the example several years
ago you will find language to be a major issue that signals to other group
members how to act and how to treat people, they don't like and/or reject.
Often these are people they don't know well and shouldn't have much of an issue
with based on normalized social etiquette behaviors. The
vast majority of loyal and faithful officials that disagreed with corruption
were pushed into silence for fear of retaliation (We need this in the example to discuss culture later that can form from social influencers).
(Just notice that bad behaviors impact a wide range of
difficult to calculate costs ranging from economic to employment
interest.).
What we accept and agree with is often based in a group's
use of language. If you listen for a while to lead clan members conversations,
you often find their disdain and dehumanization of others. They prompt each
other to act on those misplaced perceptions and are typically rewarded socially
and financially for inappropriate behaviors. In other words, if you want to keep yourself clear of the watering down of your values consider the type of friends you keep, which social forums you belong, what you read, so on and so forth. Language can impact your thought processes without strong anchoring around central values and we can discuss that later as well.
José Incio, Manuel Seifert, How the Perception of Corruption Shapes the Willingness to Bribe: Evidence From An Online Experiment, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Volume 36, Issue 3, Autumn 2024, edae035,
https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edae035
