The Curious Case of the Conscience Gone Missing
The national uproar over a near quarter billion dollars in bonuses ($220 million total in a couple of installments reported by AP on Wednesday, March 18) paid to executives of failed AIG (American International Group) intensifies daily at this writing. The latest—and perhaps the most succinct—expression of outrage comes from a mid-western Senator who suggests the AIG execs commit hara-kiri, ritual suicide known in Japan as the ultimate apology for failure.
While Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley did not refer directly to hara-kiri, he clearly meant the taking of one’s own life as a matter of honor originating in the era of the Japanese Samurai. In fact, Hideaki Noguchi, vice-president of H.S. Securities in Japan was the last Japanese exec to even come close to traditional hara-kiri. He committed suicide by slitting his wrists missing his belly—the hara-kiri sweet spot—by at least a few inches; and he did the deed on the Isle of Okinawa in a capsule hotel at a Japanese resort missing by about 1000 miles the Tokyo Stock Exchange where the fruits of his failure were mostly felt. That occurred in 2006. More recently, in 2007 a Japanese Minister of Agriculture hung himself in the face of criticism about misused funds. There is no evidence that anyone suffered much from his misdeeds.
So AIG execs—what about it?
Plenty of people have suffered from your misdeeds—unless of course you can show to the public you missed work that day the credit default swaps were handed out?
Oh yeah, and before you grab that sword we should note that Senator Grassley clarified his comments. He doesn’t really think you should do the hara-kiri number. He‘s after an apology sincere enough to make a difference in how we all look at you: pretty much with the evil eye right now.
Should we feel differently?
At issue here is a question of conscience: the public is outraged that AIG execs do not have one healthy enough to refuse the bonuses paid for by the American taxpayer without having been asked when it is the graciousness of the American taxpayer that enables them to keep their jobs in spite of the most horrific financial meltdown in history. No taxpayer believes that these same execs did not contribute to the meltdown; every taxpayer wants to know where they live. No, we’re not going to press for hara-kiri; we just want to see what a guy looks like whose conscience has gone missing.
Admittedly, America seems to be just the place for untethered consciences; they break free from their moorings every once in awhile. Barry Madoff‘s was last seen running down Wall Street headed for Broad as Barry picked the pockets of Jewry‘s most notable philanthropies. But why is this? How is it that Barry could keep the scheme going for two decades to the tune of 50 plus billion dollars, and when it is over smile, say sorry, and expect his wife to keep vast millions of dollars of the fruit of his chicanery? How is it that AIG execs do not even say sorry, but rather expect to be rewarded for their chicanery? Where is at least the closure of a hara-kiri scenario?
Actually, it‘s chasing after that conscience last seen turning left on Broad. Veered right, but right just seemed too—well, you know. If hara-kiri is the ultimate public expression of an inner anguish, it demands an appropriate inner anguish prior to achieving public finality. Such anguish is not the product of Wall Street; inner anguish as an appropriate expression of betrayal of public trust is not compatible with Wall Street as Madoff bears witness: himself the product of Wall Street, the darling of NASDAQ, ego, greed, and deceit trumped inner anguish everyday for more than 20 years and by all accounts would still be winning the day had not reality caught up….
The difference in a culture where hara-kiri brings finality even when greed has had its say is that, unlike America, one‘s conscience is as much a public as private concern. The ultimate disgrace in a hara-kiri culture is to have the inner anguish of one‘s private conscience exposed, which exposure is assumed as a matter of course when one betrays the public conscience.
It follows that Japan did not invent Wall Street for good reason: too much public conscience not enough private ego.
Of course, where private conscience ends and public conscience begins is a matter of debate; that Japanese culture creates a public conscience dominant enough that it drives private ego to hara-kiri is to western sensibilities weird. But that AIG execs with overblown egos should out of hand expect to be richly rewarded for turning Wall Street into their private gaming room with the public covering their loses is not just weird but wrong. It shows just how deeply and how long private and public consciences have been buried in private egos, greed, and deceit.
If this awful scenario playing out in Washington and on Wall Street right now does not shock us into reclaiming what has gone missing then we deserve what lies ahead. Hara-kiri is private suicide in a public manner; but there is also public suicide in a private manner.
This nation has no guarantee of its liberties or prosperity beyond the ability of our conscience to root out and rule over the stupid arrogances of Wall Street run wild, the financial abortions performed without permission on all of us by idiots with egos but neither brains nor conscience at firms like AIG. If we cannot recover for them that conscience gone missing we‘ll be like the kid in the AIG commercial standing at the foot of his parent‘s bed saying, "I can‘t sleep. I‘m worried about this family‘s financial future." His father‘s now ironic answer, "Buddy, we‘re with AIG," will be our deserved destiny. We‘ll not be tucking ourselves back in bed with Buddy; but taking all our Buddies by the hand, we will be discovering firsthand that there‘s always room for more lemmings in hell.
