Ducks in a Row: It’s Only Wrong If You’re Caught
by Miki Saxon
From religious leaders to politicians; corporate titans to everyday folks; glitterati to moguls; intelligentsia to idiots; there seems to be no action that elicits societal condemnation, let alone punishment, for anyone except getting caught.
That’s right, getting caught.
If a societal no-no, first vehemently deny it and/or claim you didn’t realize anybody actually minded. If that doesn’t work, apologize profusely using language that changes the focus from what you did and who you hurt to you, i.e., how sad you are for them and how your big sister broke your GI Joe when you were a kid, so it’s not really your fault.
Another approach is to buy their silence, but if that doesn’t work, you can claim that the devil led you astray, you were weak, but you’ve preyed a lot, God forgave you and so should those you mislead/hurt.
Enterprise and Internet companies emote about how important user privacy is and how hard they try to protect it every time they’re hacked or their hands are caught in the cookie jar.
Worse, repercussions of serious criminal actions, especially murder, are relativity easy to avoid as long as you’re white and well-healed — or in law enforcement.
It used to be that people talked of someone having a “strong moral compass.” I suppose many still do, but that’s not worth much when “true north” is portable, shifting with the trends on social media and shoved around by rigid ideologies.
Image credit: Tim Cigelske
