The Court of Your Own Opinion

Sure, there are things wrong with the world; but if you lis­ten to the words and images you’re fed by cor­po­rate spokes­men, politi­cians, and any­one else with an agenda, nobody (except their sworn ene­mies) is really respon­si­bile for anything. 

So, how can we make sound judg­ment calls and decide who and what to believe? Let’s start with things we can all agree are not accept­able. How about slav­ery, tor­ture, sex­ism, racism, per­se­cu­tion, mur­der, assault, rape, fraud, deceit or intim­i­da­tion? Any objec­tions? There are laws cov­er­ing most of these. But how about the gray areas of fraud, deceit and intimidation?

It helps to define our terms. Fraud is crim­i­nal or wrong­ful decep­tion intended to result in finan­cial or per­sonal gain. Deceit is the action or prac­tice of mis­lead­ing some­one by con­ceal­ing or mis­rep­re­sent­ing the truth; a dis­hon­est act or state­ment. Intimidation is fright­en­ing or over- impress­ing some­one in order to make them do what one wants or so that they become silent or inhib­ited. If these points seem at all triv­ial, don’t for­get that fraud, deceit and intim­i­da­tion were behind the melt­down of our economy.

In the absence of clearly defined law, the court is in your mind and you’re the judge. Is what is being said con­sis­tent with what is actu­ally being done? Is the pub­lic inter­est being served, or is it the inter­ests of an indi­vid­ual or pow­er­ful group? Is gov­ern­ment work­ing for the good of the peo­ple or respond­ing to lob­by­ists? Is it about short-term gain or long-term sus­tain­abil­ity? We may not have law degrees but we’ve all seen enough legal dra­mas to com­pe­tently assume our own bench.

These aren’t easy ques­tions and there’s no Ethics for Dummies for­mula to avoid using our God-given brains to address them. Bloggers, pun­dits and cre­den­tialed experts can give tes­ti­mony, but it’s up to you to judge the cred­i­bil­ity of their arguments.

Now is a good time to fire up that think­ing machine and start mak­ing your own judg­ment calls. It’s your life after all.

What do you think? Email me at ken@organicconnectmag.com.

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