Corruption Rooths: Collectivism, Plutocracy, and Favoritism

The word corruption connotes negativity, but if we reflect for a moment on the metaphysical or biological necessity of corruption we understand that it is a permanent condition in the human being and a necessity for the manifestation of the real and the continuity of life.

Certainly, the corruption and fall of empires is what allows new paradigms, new systems, and new empires to give way to new political bodies or, in short, new sclerotized forms of social organization. We cannot avoid, by our own psychological constitution, associating destructiveness with the undesirable, however, the birth of new living beings is impossible without the death and putrefaction of other organisms.

Corruption is a form of destruction, but it is not the only form of destruction. The dissolution of a given order can occur not only through a gradual dissolution but also through a fulminating coup that annihilates it, i.e. a change of system, a coup d'état or a war are examples of the dissolution of a pre-established order. The lightning bolt is the most common symbol of this mode of destructiveness in the face of the fruit that is bruised or the manure that symbolizes the gradual consumption of matter. It is curious to observe how even when man psychologically remakes destructiveness in himself, he shows a greater rejection of corrupting destruction than of sudden annihilation. Lightning, fire, tsunami or a volcano eruption are terrifying events, no doubt, but they do not cease to contain a certain aesthetic charge in the category that philosophers have called "sublime". On the other hand, putrefaction, slow agony and decadence not only terrify us but, above all, generate repulsion. The psychic reasons for this preference belong to a field that transcends profane philosophy.

Beyond the ontological and psychological analysis that can be made with regard to corruption and its nature, I find it more interesting to briefly analyze the intrinsic and inherent symptoms of social corruption that affects a large number of human beings around the world. And to this end, I refer mainly to those inherent and intrinsic symptoms as opposed to the external symptoms to distinguish them from what we usually call or know as "political corruption". Many cometarists, politicians, economists, sociologists, and intellectuals fall into the trap of attacking the corruption of political and economic elites without then taking into account that such corruption is a result or a consequence of deeper corruption that is somehow linked or connected to society.

I find it absurd to think that a society based on the principles of freedom and virtue should be governed by an external elite that comes to a position of preponderance thanks to a chance of fate and that from there takes advantage of the bohomy and purity of the rest. If such a situation were possible, a situation like the one described by the civic mass in the fullness of its civic virtue would combat such a corrupt government without quarter, and that is not exactly what we see in societies with a high index of economic and political corruption. And it is for the same reason that I am more inclined towards the idea that as many other authors have raised in the past: there are corrupt politicians and plutocrats because there are corrupt masses, therefore, the first group is a unique and exclusive consequence of the values, moral and ethical principles of the second group.

In this way, we understand that by intrinsic and inherent symptoms of social corruption we mean the modes of human relationship that occur as normal in a corrupt mass, even when such attitudes promote the dissolution of the collective.

First of all, I have observed that in the corrupt masses it is understood as natural that the interest of the collective group takes precedence over each individual. That is to say, collectivism and its ideological aspects, whether it be socialism, fascism or communism or any other ideological aspect of the same nature, is a recurrent symptom in any corrupt society. The union between people is not for the benefit of a good that satisfies their individual needs and therefore brings a global benefit, but rather for a collective benefit even when the individual liberties of all citizens are violated, and in this way the great collectives, like vultures that rush into carrion, consume any form of individual and external thought. They exhaust it with a continuous one where short-term benefits are sought without taking into account the consequences that such predation will have over a long period of time.

An anecdotal fact that corroborates all that I have just stated is that a few months ago I told a friend about the surprise I had when a father, knowing that his children had committed a reprehensible act that many had witnessed, went to school to claim that his children were innocent. Such a subject was not a fool, I concluded that he was a cynic who did not understand that if his children were not corrected by such an attitude it would be as much as teaching them that with deception, lies and shamelessness they can get away with it when they make a mistake.

It was a worrying thing for me and I argued that what kind of father is he who denies his children the right to be corrected and amended, to which my friend replied that after all he was their father and the role of the father is obviously to defend his son. I continued with my diatribe and tried to make it seem that it was not like that but that the function of a father is to educate and improve his children, to make them understand that in this life whoever makes a mistake must apologize, take care of the consequences and learn from what he did wrong. Even though I thought I was right in the dispute, I obviously realized later that I was not. It is indeed a clear symptom of social corruption that when a student is reprimanded, a parent excuses or minimizes the offense because the idea behind this anecdote is that the blood ties that bind the family to the moral ties that sustain society prevail. Corruption then results from the lack of moral and ethical ideology to put feelings before reason.

This type of ideology permeates and corrupts our society and is found not only in the family but also in trade unions, religious sects, professional groups, etc. To set our sights on a good that goes beyond the collective group, to seek values or ideas that bring together the entire social mass without the need to violate the individual rights of people, their comfort or their goods is and always has been the engine for the moral growth of humanity and has extended the humanitarian bonds between individuals, however great their differences may be, given that we have always sought a point of convergence in which these two can come together to carry out a joint activity without the need for an external authority.

Another symptom that I consider revealing of a state of corruption of the masses is the normalization of cronyism as a way of exercising power. In a human grouping where a leader must delegate his power to subordinates, how will he choose them? Ideally, you will select competent staff to perform the task as this will benefit the group and the wise choice of these subordinates will strengthen their leadership, i.e. they will make decisions for their staff based on merit rather than mediocrity. This kind of leadership has been and is given, it is not the entelechy of an idle mind; in the business, political or military field we find characters who showed their ability not only with their charisma or courage but by their intuition to select the best to help you in your company. Faced with this type of leadership you find yourself in the leadership of friends where you select subordinates who are sufficiently docile and who favour my interests so that they do not pose a threat in the medium term and whom you make feel tied to their leadership by sentimental ties.

That is to say, the junior feels indebted to his superior and, therefore, his main task will be to ingratiate himself with him and flatter him. The subordinate feels that his or her position is not the result of his or her own worth, but depends on a will that he or she should not contradict. In this way leadership is not exercised in an expansive way but is used to maintain power, but conservation is the prelude to decline, so when in a given human group it is normalised that in relations of preeminence one does not ascend by virtue of one's own virtue but by the capacity to return favours or mediocre favouritism, such a human group sows a corruption that ends up affecting it to the point of favouring its own dissolution.

Now, let us look at any corrupt society; let us look at a group of political oppressors and plutocrats, do they not fall into partisan collectivism, do they not become angry at unavowable networks of cronyism and favoritism? But if we stop there we sin of partiality because unfailingly when we look at those corrupt flowers on the social cusp, when we look at the roots we will perceive the same nauseating smell in nothing different.

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_{Posted from my blog with SteemPress : Here}

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