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Corruption & Its Effect On Society


paigetheoracle

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A corrupt society doesn’t want the best people employed by it. This is because thorough people will solve problems and that means digging deep in the dirt, to get to the root of why something isn’t working, hence the hatred of whistle-blowers and protesters. Lazy and cowardly employees (the ignorant) are already corrupt and therefore will only touch the surface of difficulties i.e. treat them cosmetically.

 

Force is trying to take a short cut, passed the route of understanding. It is kicking open a door, rather than than trying the handle because you don’t think you’ve got the time to figure things out. Criminals use force – the law abiding use patience. Speed is therefore an addiction and tolerance cold turkey.

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Good and apt aphorisms, Paige. Practical politics and government science seems to me mostly built of little observations and epiphanies, not what many mathematical physicists would acknowledge as science at all, but as the linguistic root of the word “science” is simply “knowing”, I think the political has as much a claim to the word as mathematical and experimental.

 

I’ve a couple of contrary ideas to add.

 

First, corruption – the origin of the word coming from the linguistic roots “corp”, meaning “together”, corpse, the physical body, and “rupture”, broken apart, and a practical synonym of “rotting” – presumes that what is being corrupted is “pure” and good to begin with. Corruption of something that isn’t good can be a kind of quiet, transforming revolution. For example, the genesis of the bourgeois revolution was corruption of minor functionaries in feudal Europe, with motives no more high-minded than personal enrichment.

 

Even in political system that seems good to most of their citizens, such as present day republics, arguably can’t function without some corruption, because principles and laws that are acceptable to the People are not always practically usable, but must be compromised and bent to actually work. Attempting to fully, publically codify rules replacing this benevolent abuse with absolute, pure applications of the rules can result in such complexity that they can’t be understood by most people, or even any single person, or appear bad and be rejected by the People. So corruption – again, often selfishly motivated – can be and in IMHO in fact is, necessary in even an essentially good society.

 

In short, I think it’s simplistic to say corruption is, innately and always, bad.

 

Lazy and cowardly employees (the ignorant) are already corrupt and therefore will only touch the surface of difficulties i.e. treat them cosmetically.

Lazy and cowardly employees aren’t always ignorant. Successful employee laziness requires sufficient effective practical knowledge of ones employer to get away with it. Cowardice requires knowledge of what to be afraid of.

 

Force is trying to take a short cut, passed the route of understanding. It is kicking open a door, rather than than trying the handle because you don’t think you’ve got the time to figure things out. Criminals use force – the law abiding use patience.

I can’t find much to be contrary with in this. I’ve read many credible analyses concluding that criminal behavior is negatively correlated with understanding skills – in short, that crime is in large part due to a failure to understand how to successfully follow laws and rules, and consider this to be sound and supported sociological theory.

 

In Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, psychologist Fritz Perls described a continuum of personalities I’ve long remembered and found accurate and useful, with the following endpoint/extremes, characterized by an individuals misperception of personal responsibility and power:

  • The criminal personality believe they cannot control things they can, and blame others for their bad deeds.
  • The neurotic personality believe they can control thing they cannot, and blame themselves for the bad deeds of others.

Food for thought.

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  • 5 years later...

Society is running after money. Today, money is defining all relations. Even people are joining government jobs not to serve the society but to make money by misusing authority. For example, people work hard to join civil services  and after entering best job they start thinking about making money.

 

Corruption can be cured by value education not only by the school but by the family and politicians.

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Society is running after money. Today, money is defining all relations. Even people are joining government jobs not to serve the society but to make money by misusing authority. For example, people work hard to join civil services  and after entering best job they start thinking about making money.

 

Corruption can be cured by value education not only by the school but by the family and politicians.

 

Welcome to the forum gobjob.

 

While this thread is old I suppose some things never change, they only get more sophisticated.

 

I read the following thesis paper around 5 years ago and was surprised that two retired senior police officers (that I went to primary school with) were well aware of its contents. It covers Corrupt Organisations (CO) and Organisations of Corrupt Individuals (OCI).

 

http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/3519/

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