Professional complicity, challenge to honourability, loss of credibility

Abuse of Faith in Governance: Mystery of the Unasked Question (Part #6)

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It is of course the case that abuse is occasionally to be expected in every domain. Matters become more complex when those aware of it fail to draw attention to it, or to call for appropriate constraints on it -- possibly feeling impelled by collegial loyalty to practice some form of professional omerta.

But the complexity increases when others draw attention to the presence of that abuse -- implying that there is some degree of complicity by those not directly involved. Those implicated in this way then frame such accusations as inappropriately impugning their personal and professional honour -- possibly to be considered as insulting in the extreme. The accusations are treated as ridiculous. Each of the above provides examples of this. That of the previously distinguished members of the financial community is one of the most recent examples, notably the negligent response of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the evidence produced over years regarding the practices of Bernard Madoff. The treatment of evidence of abuse by the Catholic Church offers another.

A new situation arises when incontrovertible proof of abuse is presented and a degree of abuse is widely recognized. The question then becomes how the credibility of any pronouncement by authorities in the domain is to be assessed. Those authorities continue to assume that they have the benefit of the doubt and that, fundamentally, their good faith is not in question. The aftermath of the financial crisis (and the "business-as-usual" mindset of those complicit in engendering it), and that over political expenses (in the UK), show that this assumption is very shaky. This might also be said of the various inquiries into alleged abuses by scientists associated with the Climategate scandal.

The outcome of such abuse is well highlighted by the crisis over the Iranian elections of 2009. The highest Iranian authorities blame "foreign influence", notably agents of the UK. This is of course vigorously denied. The difficulty is that "vigorous denial" is now "standard operating procedure", as was evident in relation to complicity of European countries in rendition. The key question then becomes whether it is possible to distinguish between:

• a situation where there is indeed no involvement, despite there having been a pattern of such abuse in the past (as with the now proven complicity of the UK Government in "enhanced interrogation"). Clearly vigorous denial would be appropriate, but would naturally be suspect. How naive and gullible are people expected to be?
• a situation where there is indeed such involvement, possibly in conformity of a pattern of past abuse. Clearly vigorous denial would be attempted as part of "standard operating procedure". Why should it be assumed that the Iranian authorities were misrepresenting the situation? On the other hand, why would they not?

Authorities are now in the very problematic situation that if they have the power of misrepresentation, it becomes impossible for them to prove that they are not using it as a means of concealing abuse. This becomes even more evident with the appointment of so-called "independent" commissions of inquiry -- whose mandates and composition are carefully "gerrymandered" to fabricate the desirable authentication of the authoritative position desired. Unfortunately authorities are no longer in a position to demonstrate that this is not the case. The so-called "cloak of authority" is readily confused with the ability of authority to "cloak" its actions and agendas -- as implied by so-called "stealth" technology. Unfortunately one method of cloaking is the abuse of the highest values, through the intimate association of authority with such values. Any challenge to authoritative pronouncements can be then be treated as a totally inappropriate challenge to those values. Honour is then held to have been impugned as previously discussed (Honour Essential to Psycho-social Integrity: challenge to the nameless of dishonourable leadership, 2005).

Worse still is that it is becoming a legitimate simple question how much it would cost (in financial or other terms) to undermine the most honourable, credible, independent authority -- and whether that expenditure has been considered and paid in any particular instance. It has become "scientifically" impossible to prove that this has not been done. If Assertion A is rejected as false or misguided by Assertion B, appeal to authority to adjudicate can no longer be proven to give rise to an unquestionable resolution of the matter.

Uncertainty regarding any degree of abuse is exacerbated by the nature of any condemnation arising from such adjudication -- commonly characterized as a "slap on the wrist". There is an increasing sense that authorities are complicit in a culture of impunity when obliged to respond to flagrant abuse by those with authority. This is most evident in the response to documented violence by police, security services and the military, as strikingly demonstrated by inquiries into police violence against demonstrators at G8/G20 summits (Genoa, 2001; London, 2009), complicity in torture, and civilian deaths resulting from military action (notably in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Curiously the misinformation in which so many were complicit in relation to the financial crisis of 2008 provides a valuable metaphor through which to comprehend the loss of credibility and trust from which authorities now suffer. In a sense authorities are no longer able to prove that they are not trading in "toxic" assets -- now in the form of information. They are trapped in trading in dubious "derivatives" -- whether or not this should also be considered as an indicator derivative thinking.

It is of course the case, as in finance, that trading in such dubious information may offer higher yields -- as with speculative high-yield debt or so-called junk bonds. Whereas authorities may assume that there honourability is such that their "word is their bond" -- and should be treated as such -- the situation is increasingly one in which such "bonds" should (with some probability) be considered to be "junk". The financial crisis has usefully highlighted the various aspects of this. The crisis in the "confidence" in which the financial community dealt, and on which it depended, is now evident more generally in relation to all authorities.

As discussed separately, authorities are now permanently trapped between the conditions described by the Emperor's New Clothes and the Boy Who Cried Wolf  (Entangled Tales of Memetic Disaster: mutual implication of the Emperor and the Little Boy, 2009). The Emperor's "clothes" are then to be understood as the Emperor's "cloak".

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