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Today, i will mostly be bitching about.. dishonesty.
i'm not talking about theoretical questions of 'white lies' or
technicalities of 'lying' vs 'misleading' or whether deception is inherently wrong or any of that shit. i'm talking about straight out shifty, unscrupulous, self-serving cheating - the sort of thing where people don't think they should have to pay their share of tax, not because of any philosophical objections to the government or whatever, but because they just don't want to, where faulty speed cameras are an opportunity to get out of fines where you know you were speeding, or where it's okay to rip off an insurance company for something you know you're not entitled to because you don't want to pay for it yourself. Perhaps dishonesty isn't the exact word to describe what i mean - perhaps it's more a simple lack of ethics.
i got thinking about this recently, after a casual conversation with a couple of people at my taekwondo club. During the course of the conversation it happened to emerge that none of us would consider cheating on a tax return. It was no big deal, just something that none of us could see the point of. But what struck me wasn't that attitude, but the fact that i found it *surprising*. It made me realise that i had almost come to take it for granted that it was something *unusual* for someone to not cheat on something like that. It really got me that such a small thing seemed like a breath of fresh air to me, and i began to notice just how much the dishonesty around me was really starting to shit me. Everything from the tax agent who says "let's just put it down as twice that" to insurance fraud and wriggling out of speeding fines.
Now, i know nobody's totally honest or ethical, as we're all 'just human'. i often find i'm thinking of myself as some goody-two-shoes Ned Flanders type (so much that it shits me sometimes), despite things like this drawer next to me full of copied CDs that i have no intention of buying the originals of, or all those pens that somehow find their way home from work. But i realise, apart from a certain level of cutting slack for 'human weakness', it's also because that seems like nothing in comparison to the cesspool of rampant, self-serving dishonesty that i seem to be immersed in so much of the time, that makes me feel like a frigging saint by comparison. Or a sucker.
It does make me wonder though - do i have expectations set too far to the Ned Flanders end of the scale, or am i just noticing whichever arseholes are more dishonest than me? Is it worth giving a shit, or should i just get over it? Is most of the world like this, or do i just need to find a new job?
i'm not talking about theoretical questions of 'white lies' or
technicalities of 'lying' vs 'misleading' or whether deception is inherently wrong or any of that shit. i'm talking about straight out shifty, unscrupulous, self-serving cheating - the sort of thing where people don't think they should have to pay their share of tax, not because of any philosophical objections to the government or whatever, but because they just don't want to, where faulty speed cameras are an opportunity to get out of fines where you know you were speeding, or where it's okay to rip off an insurance company for something you know you're not entitled to because you don't want to pay for it yourself. Perhaps dishonesty isn't the exact word to describe what i mean - perhaps it's more a simple lack of ethics.
i got thinking about this recently, after a casual conversation with a couple of people at my taekwondo club. During the course of the conversation it happened to emerge that none of us would consider cheating on a tax return. It was no big deal, just something that none of us could see the point of. But what struck me wasn't that attitude, but the fact that i found it *surprising*. It made me realise that i had almost come to take it for granted that it was something *unusual* for someone to not cheat on something like that. It really got me that such a small thing seemed like a breath of fresh air to me, and i began to notice just how much the dishonesty around me was really starting to shit me. Everything from the tax agent who says "let's just put it down as twice that" to insurance fraud and wriggling out of speeding fines.
Now, i know nobody's totally honest or ethical, as we're all 'just human'. i often find i'm thinking of myself as some goody-two-shoes Ned Flanders type (so much that it shits me sometimes), despite things like this drawer next to me full of copied CDs that i have no intention of buying the originals of, or all those pens that somehow find their way home from work. But i realise, apart from a certain level of cutting slack for 'human weakness', it's also because that seems like nothing in comparison to the cesspool of rampant, self-serving dishonesty that i seem to be immersed in so much of the time, that makes me feel like a frigging saint by comparison. Or a sucker.
It does make me wonder though - do i have expectations set too far to the Ned Flanders end of the scale, or am i just noticing whichever arseholes are more dishonest than me? Is it worth giving a shit, or should i just get over it? Is most of the world like this, or do i just need to find a new job?
