Complicity and Knowledge

Faida Hamdy was a municipal inspector in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. She was not a very respectful municipal official. So when she found that a young fruit vendor did not have a license, she slapped him. She humiliated him in front of others. The fruit vendor set himself on fire, and this set the Arab world on fire, because the same sort of disrespect from government officials was felt throughout the Arab world. Disrespect is a very powerful thing. And so is respect.

I had a conversation with a developer the other day, which got me thinking in what I think are interesting ways about unwritten land use rules.

Pressures on Developers

Local party committees have a great deal of power. Most of the people we vote for have been selected and, where allowed by law, endorsed by local party committees. Most of the people who are appointed to boards and commmissions have also been approved by local party committees. In most places, they determine who runs our communities.

Oxytocin is a hormone released by the hypothalamus portion of the brain which, among other things, makes people trust each other more. In other words, one could argue that local government ethics seeks to increase the release of oxytocin in the brains of people when they think about their local government.

I recently read a book by Stanley Cavell called Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life (2004). Despite its title, it is not about cities; in fact, much of the book uses movies to discuss this Harvard professor's ethical philosophy. What is relevant about this book to government ethics is Cavell's idea of "moral perfectionism," which isn't about being perfect, but about constantly seeking improvement in how one thinks and acts.

I find it fascinating that, although kickbacks (also known as "thanks giving") are one of the central elements of unethical conduct in local governments, I have only mentioned them three times in my blog posts.

When it comes to government ethics, too often lawyers are nowhere to be seen, unless they are the ones saying that unethical conduct is legal. Far too often, lawyers do not use their knowledge, their strong, independent personalities, and their professional obligations to stand up to, or at least question, those acting unethically.

This week saw the opening of the trial of former New York state senate majority leader Joseph Bruno for honest services fraud. According to the assistant U.S. attorney presenting the case, as quoted in the Albany Times-Union, although a criminal trial, "this case is about conflicts of interest. It's about failure to disclose conflicts of interest, and it's about concealment of information that might have exposed conflicts of interest."

It should come as little surprise to people involved in local government that a New York Times article about bullying among ten- and eleven-year-olds has a great deal of relevance. I said for years about my town's government that its major participants were like ten-year-old boys on a playground, taunting, playing games of intimidation, spreading false rumors, keeping communal secrets, excluding whoever doesn't go along, and staying loyal to those in control so that they aren't excluded themselves

There is a bright side to the British Parliament expenses scandal. For one thing, many M.P.'s had the fortitude to walk right by that enormous parliamentary trough and eat at home instead.

Second, Parliament showed the world how a failure to do the right thing and do it transparently — seek larger incomes — and instead to take public money clandestinely and then, when news started leaking out, to deny and obfuscate, can completely undermine trust in a public institution.