On Solipsism: It’s the complete inability to consider - or indeed care - that your actions have effects on others, people you don’t and will probably never know, that depresses me about people today.
Damn straight. Let me add a few more from my own perspective to Meg’s screed:
It’s thinking the company you were hired to lead is your own personal piggy-bank, to do with as you will.
It’s thinking the people and companies who supply you with goods and services are disposable, easily replaced, and of even less value than your own employees.
It’s thinking that the people who buy goods and services from your company are brainless dupes, good only for the cash you can dig out of them.
It’s thinking that lying to save yourself from the consequences of your own action or inactions is an acceptable practice.
It’s avoiding conversations and not returning phone calls because you don’t have the integrity, honesty, or bravery to directly deal with confronting an issue.
After the past year of Enron and Worldcom and all the rest, we’re used to thinking of these sorts of behaviors as the unethical, nefarious behaviors of big corporate CEO’s, and they are. They’re also, unfortunately, the same behaviors I see every day out of managers, sales people, engineers, and accounting clerks and companies of all sizes. I’ve seen it from people who will, in casual conversation, rant and rave about the Bernie Ebbers of the world, and how the actions of super-star CEO’s have damaged their personal 401k accounts, but will then turn around and do the same sort of thing, in their own petty way.
It’s even sadder, though, because it is so petty. The only thing sadder than being a weasel that defrauds people of tens of millions of dollars and wrecks the lives of hundreds of thousands, is being the weasel who does the same thing for a couple of thousands of dollars and impacts ten people. Even worse is doing not for the money, but because you just don’t have the balls to do anything else, or just don’t care.
Everyone wants to see the corrupt CEO’s get their just desserts, and Ghu knows they should. I suspect, however, that there’d be a bigger positive impact on everyone’s fortunes and lives if we’d all take a little while to examine our own actions, and consider how what we’re doing measures up.
