ON THE IMPORTANCE OF AVOIDING MASSIVE CRANIAL DAMAGE TO CAREER SUCCESS IN THE UNITED STATES

TOP NOTCH CAREER TIPS

By : Ms. Vanessa H. Breaker, M.S., University of Texas (Facilities Management); Founder and Chairperson, Help-U-Advance, Inc., a Career Management Consulting Bureau (Houston, TX); Author, You Can Do It : A 10-Step Formula to Achieve Wealth, Success, Money (And Yes, Love, Too); Owner, several real estate tracts in central Texas; Married; Cowboys fan.

Recently, a college graduate came into my office and asked: "How will I ever get a job in this economy? How will I ever pay my own rent?"

I can understand his frustration. By all accounts, times are very hard out there. For people just starting out in the world, life looks intimidating. No one is hiring. No one even gets an interview. And without a job, you can't pay your rent.

But success is possible. It is possible to defy the odds and live the American dream. Anyone can learn how to be successful. There is a recipe for success: You can learn it. Successful people all behave in a similar way. They all have similar habits. By learning those behaviors and acquiring those habits, you can be successful, too. And when you achieve success, you not only get the job, you get the promotion, the raise, the bonus and the beautiful wife, too! Doesn't that sound nice? You bet it does.

So what are successful behaviors and habits? Well, let us begin by stressing that success is a lifestyle. Success is not a hobby; it is a discipline. You must eat, drink and breathe success. You cannot tolerate failure. And you must be tough: This is a race; no one hires the runner-up.

Living success begins at an early age. Successful people get on the track to success when they are children. They understand what they want from life and they commit themselves to excellence. To that end, stable households produce more successful people than broken ones. After all, a child will not develop the basic skills needed to get good grades and work hard if he or she suffers parental sexual abuse and beatings every day. Those challenges make doing math homework difficult. And kids who fail math won't go to Harvard. In that light, a peaceful home is essential to growing up successful: It allows the focus needed to "home in" on success.

Successful people do not give in to distractions. To achieve success, it is necessary to "stay on track." That means working hard, getting good grades, going to bed early, taking instructions seriously and remembering your place. Yet it is easy to forget these rules when peers goad you to go dancing on Friday night, or when you'd rather watch television shows all evening than do your homework. Put simply, distractions surround us every day. And they threaten to derail us from the success track. To resist distractions, you must simply say: "I want to be successful. I will avoid these distractions." It is about mind over matter: Forget the video games: Think about the accounting job you want.

Education is essential to success in America. In bare outline, success means getting a good job at a good company, making good money and owning property. Yet good companies do not give good jobs to just anyone; they only give them to good people with good educations from good schools. In that light, success requires that you get a good education at a good school. That, in turn, requires that you live successfully without distractions. Only children who live appropriately during childhood will get into the schools needed to get good jobs. It is not so much about learning as it is about showing: Firms want to see good grades from good schools. As long as you get into a good school and show the good grades, you will get a shot at the good jobs. It does not matter whether you remember what you learned. And you will stand no chance at all if you don’t get into a good school: Good grades from bad schools will not impress good companies.

Still, successful living means more than just getting good grades. Once you actually get a job, it is essential to observe successful habits. Successful people keep their jobs because they know what is expected. That means they understand their employer's mission and loyally advance it. They also observe decorum by dressing appropriately, speaking respectfully and refraining from all distractions while carrying on the employer's business. In this sense, successful living is all about acting appropriately on the job: Loyal workers advance far. Ultimately, they rise through the ranks. Good companies love loyal workers who suppress their own interests to earn profits for them. Self-sacrifice is a hallmark of successful living: And it is rewarded.

Intangible factors also influence career success. For better or for worse, birth has much to do with success. Wealthy children stand a better chance to live stable early lives. That, in turn, prepares them to "get on the success track" without distraction. Additionally, powerful parents who attended good schools can assure that their children, too, attend those schools. Wealthy parents can also pay large tuitions and urge employers to hire their children. In some cases, wealthy parents are the employers; and they naturally award jobs to their own blood. In this light, the importance of fortunate birth cannot be overstated. Although it is impossible to "learn" how to be related to powerful people, blood is a sure way to get a big head start in the success race.

Still, success is never guaranteed, even for people who enjoy all the advantages. After all, even a minor mishap along the path to success can sink an entire life. A student may develop a drug addiction, ruining his semester grades and costing him a job at a banking firm. A junior associate might have a relationship dispute and perform poorly at work. A promising employee might fall in love and show up late for work. A woman might give birth, requiring her to put off career focus. Put simply, things can happen in life. And they can easily knock a person off the "success track." Just one distraction can unravel a lifetime of work.

And that is to say nothing about the danger of massive cranial injuries. In the above examples, otherwise successful people gave in to distractions through some fault. In other cases, otherwise successful people might fail to achieve success simply because something massively damages their cranium.

Consider, for example, a first-class legal scholar who has done everything right. He has been born into a good family, his father was successful, he had a stable childhood, he followed instructions, he went to bed early, he dressed appropriately, he got into first-class schools and got first-class grades his whole life. He even landed a job at a first-class law firm and the managing partner said: "He is bound to be successful because he has successful habits." He worked hard his whole life and had every reason to expect success. But he amounted to nothing because someone shot him in the forehead with a .38 caliber revolver. This example proves that massive cranial injury can ruin even the most successful lives.

Consider, too, a respected office manager with an excellent salary. This man did everything for his company. He gave up personal relationships to make sure his employer profited. He worked nights and weekends as he advanced up the company ladder. Through his childhood, he followed instructions and did everything he was supposed to do. He never rocked the boat; people called him a square, but it never bothered him because he achieved success. But one day on his way to work he tripped over a piece of fruit and fell into the street, where a concrete mixing truck rolled over his head. Once again, massive cranial injury derailed an otherwise successful life.

These examples say nothing about all the potentially successful people who suffer massive cranial injury prior to achieving success. What about the countless young people who study hard for exams, refrain from drugs, avoid peer pressure and go to bed early, only to be shot in the head with rifles? What about the super interns who give up everything for the company and win glowing reviews from supervisors, only to have their brains dashed out by falling cinder blocks?

No matter the circumstances, these examples teach a clear lesson: Avoiding massive cranial injury is a crucial step on the road to success in the United States. While it is essential to learn positive behaviors to achieve success, it is also vital to avoid being fatally struck in the head while practicing those behaviors. After all, a lifetime of hard work, study, high birth and promise can be instantly destroyed by a single bullet to the brain. That is why the most successful people absorb this lesson: You must not only live successfully; you must also avoid massive cranial injury at all costs.

Massive cranial injury is a worse threat to success than distraction or inappropriate workplace behavior. After all, it is possible to rally from distraction or an office faux pas. But it is not possible to rally from having your skull crushed by a concrete mixing truck. A person's career can recover from an embarrassing extramarital affair or a "C+" on an exam. But it cannot recover from a pointblank shotgun blast to the face.

In all these cases, the lesson emerges: The real key to success in America is to avoid massive cranial injury. After all, no person who suffers massive cranial injury will ever achieve success. And any success he has achieved up to that point instantly vanishes. To that extent, massive cranial injury is the worst thing that can happen to a promising career. Interview mistakes, bad resumes, lackluster university performance and even drug abuse do not threaten careers as much as being brutally slammed in the head with a baseball bat.

You can fix a resume. But you can't fix a shattered cranium. And people with shattered craniums do not get promoted or hired.

In conclusion, if you wish to achieve success in America, remember what is important: Avoid massive cranial injury first. The rest is just details. Because even the best career habits can vanish the moment someone cracks your head open.

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL : A BAD ARGUMENT, AND AN EMBARRASSING DOUBLE STANDARD

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Last week, former Supreme Allied Commander (Atlantic) General John Sheehan testified before a Senate subcommittee investigating whether it was prudent to repeal the American military's ban on openly gay soldiers. General Sheehan argued that the military should not alter its policy. He said that openly gay soldiers reduce morale, combat effectiveness and unit cohesion.

To support his assertion, General Sheehan referenced an incident in which the Dutch army failed to defend a Bosnian town against Serbian aggression during Yugoslavia's Civil War in 1995. Although he could not directly attribute the Dutch army's failure to individual gay soldiers, General Sheehan explicitly said that Holland's "socialized" and "permissive" attitude toward homosexuality in the military made its armed forces "ill-equipped" to fight battles.

Dutch officials reacted with surprise to General Sheehan's remarks. They found it bizarre that anyone could link military ineffectiveness to a policy permitting openly gay men and women to serve in the military.

I find General Sheehan's argument bizarre, too. Moreover, I also find it foolish, hypocritical and ignorant. I have long criticized the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy as reflecting a fundamental double standard. It not only assumes that abstract homosexuality makes a person a bad soldier. It also assumes that there are no gay people in the U.S. military. Anecdotal evidence suggests that homosexuality is rife in the armed forces. It's just that no one talks about it. And yet General Sheehan does not suggest that the U.S. military is "ineffective," even though it certainly has gay people in it. Policies do not change the way people are.

But these are not the only flaws in "don't ask, don't tell." Put simply, the entire policy functions on logically untenable premises. First, the policy purports to "strengthen morale, combat effectiveness and unit cohesion" by eliminating openly gay people from service in the ranks. The argument is that openly gay men might form emotional relationships with one another that could jeopardize a particular "mission." Morale and combat effectiveness, in turn, depend on the chain of command. Morale and combat effectiveness require unswerving loyalty to the chain of command. And if men develop romantic connections to one another, then perhaps they will be loyal to one another, not the chain of command. Thus, it is proper to exclude openly gay men from military service: Gay relationships threaten the chain of command because romantic connections switch loyalties from the mission to individual men.

But what about women? The "don't ask, don't tell" policy assumes that romantic connections are only dangerous to the "mission" when they exist between two men. Yet the military allows straight women to serve alongside straight men. Human beings will develop romantic connections with anyone to whom they feel attracted, no matter the gender. Straight men fall in love with straight women just as deeply as gay men fall in love with each other. In that light, the fact that the U.S. military permits straight women to serve with straight men poses the same theoretical danger to morale as allowing openly gay men to serve. Straight people develop romantic connections just like gay people. And according to the army's rationale for "don't ask, don't tell," romantic connections are "bad" because they divide loyalties. Apparently, however, love affairs between men and women in the army do not divide loyalties as strongly as love affairs between men.

This is just ignorant: If the problem is potential romantic connections between soldiers, then neither straight women nor gay men should be allowed to serve in the military. There is no qualitative difference between romantic connections among gay people versus straight people. According to the army's logic, such connections are equally "dangerous to morale" and "unit cohesion." The fact that the U.S. military presumes that gay relationships are somehow "more dangerous to morale" is logically untenable.

I can see no good reason to keep gays from the U.S. military beyond naked prejudice. The only thing that seems to support "don't ask, don't tell" is a historical animus directed from straight men against gay men. Straight men feel "weird" when they know they are sitting next to a gay man, so the policy aims to eliminate that awkwardness. Yet there is no principled reason for this. It functions on the bare assumption that "gay people are different" and therefore must be excluded. To quote Justice Stephen Breyer's observation from the oral argument in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 538 (2003)(the case striking down State gay sodomy laws), "don't ask, don't tell" invokes this reasoning: "I do not like thee, Doctor Fell; the reason why I cannot tell." Straight people in the army just plain don't like being around gay people. That's the only reason for the policy.

I also question the military's assumption that gay relationships could somehow damage unit effectiveness. Leaving to one side the consideration that thousands of gay people already serve in the military without saying so, divided loyalties dominate military service. Men (and women, too) form extraordinary bonds with one another under the stress of combat. Their camaraderie deepens from the moment they enter training to the toughest moments in battle. I have written that the military is inherently socialistic because it cares about its own people; and soldiers are also socialistic because they are all willing to die for their brothers. In fact, they are all willing to die helping to save their brothers, even if their actions "endanger the mission." Put simply, soldiers will always divide their loyalties because they care for each other, romance or not. Allowing openly gay people to serve in the army will not change all soldiers' natural commitments to each other.

Finally, General Sheehan implied that the mere presence of gay people in the Dutch army made it a poor fighting force. This is ridiculous. There is simply no historical correlation between homosexuality and military ineffectiveness. Alexander the Great, Peter the Great and Frederick the Great were all allegedly gay, yet they went down in history as model soldiers. To suggest that an aesthetic sexual taste for members of one's own sex somehow renders a person "effeminate, weak, womanly and unsoldierlike" is simply rank stereotyping. Although history has placed restrictions on the manner in which gay people express their sexuality, it is indisputable that they have served with distinction as soldiers, officers and even conquerors. In that light, General Sheehan's argument that "the presence of gay people" in the Dutch army made it "weak" ignores history.

In conclusion, there is no logical or historical reason to continue the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. It makes pernicious assumptions about the relationship between sexuality and military competence. And it also functions on a double standard because another policy permits straight women to serve alongside straight men. The policy identifies "romantic connections between soldiers" as a reason to exclude openly gay men. Yet it allows straight women to potentially compromise straight men with "romantic connections:" "Romantic connections" are only dangerous among gay men, not straight men. The U.S. military offers no justification for the differential treatment. In that light, it is logically untenable. It simply reflects gross and outdated adolescent stereotypes. Romance is romance; it poses the same "dangers" whether it exists between boys and boys or boys and girls.

GAMBLING ON HAPPINESS : LOVE, KNOWLEDGE AND RISK

AN ESSAY

For three years, my close friend Joe Simeone composed an operatic adaptation to the 1952 play "Dial M For Murder." Last week, I attended an opening in which he presented several passages from his work. In brief, the opera follows the same intricate plot as the play: A man named Tony blackmails both his wealthy wife, Margot, and another man named Lesgate; Tony exploits the blackmail to entice Lesgate to murder his wife; the plan goes wrong and Margot kills Lesgate in self-defense; Tony manipulates the evidence to pin the murder on Margot; the police arrest Margot and she is sentenced to death; an enterprising police detective worries about the verdict and discovers that Tony orchestrated the result; Margot goes free and discovers her husband's betrayal.

Through the operatic form, Joe Simeone tells the story with a keener eye for emotion than plot. He did not compose an "operatic thriller;" he composed an opera. As such, he explores the emotional relationship between Tony and Margot with greater detail than the play. At the outset, Simeone tells us that Tony's and Margot's marriage was "loveless," but that Tony had recently begun to shower affections on his wife. To make that point, the opera begins with a sweeping aria in which Margot reveals that she has "rediscovered" her love for her husband. This is ironic, of course, because Tony has already betrayed her; he is even planning to kill her. During the aria, Margot sings a remarkable line: "It's a risk to believe love is real."

Margot may seem naïve for daring to believe that her devious husband actually loves her. But she is not alone. We all want love in our lives because love is a tantalizing pathway to happiness. Yet love is a troublesome thing because it cuts in two directions. We can love and we can be loved. Real happiness exists only when both elements find expression in a relationship. When only one person loves, the result is unrequited disappointment because the other does not return the feeling. And when only one person receives love, the result is awkward discomfort. Put another way, love only really "works" when there is no disparity between the emotions on both sides.

Sigmund Freud said as much. In Civilization and its Discontents, Freud explained that human beings generally "strive after happiness; they want to become happy and remain so." Civilization and its Discontents (Strachey, trans. p. 25). He went on to explain that happiness has both a "positive and negative aim," namely: "[the] absence of pain and unpleasure and the experiencing of strong feelings of pleasure." Id. Additionally, Freud noted that happiness cannot arise as long as unhappiness exists in a person's life. And unhappiness is "much less difficult to experience" than happiness. Id. at 26.

Freud identified three main sources for unhappiness: (1) our own bodies, which are doomed to aging, pain, discomfort and decay; (2) the external world, which can "rage against us with unimaginable forces of destruction;" and (3) our relations to other men. Civilization and its Discontents at p.26. He went on to say that unhappiness flowing from our "relations to other men" represents the worst possible unhappiness: It is the unhappiness of betrayal, deception, unfaithfulness, personal disappointment, spurned love, heartbreak, frustrated yearning and all the other bitter emotions that arise when our relations with others do not follow the path we wanted.

If so much unhappiness can flow from relationships with others, why do people bother with them? Freud posed the same question. He offered one surefire way to avoid "relationship unhappiness:" "Against the suffering which may come upon one from human relationships the readiest safeguard is voluntary isolation." Civilization and its Discontents at p. 27. He called this the "happiness of quietness." By eliminating a source for unhappiness, a person makes it easier to experience happiness.

But Freud acknowledged that "voluntary isolation" is not very satisfying. After all, mere freedom from unhappiness is nowhere near as fulfilling as experiencing positive happiness. For that reason, Freud explained that human beings constantly gamble on love to satisfy their "passionate striving for a positive fulfillment of happiness." Civilization and its Discontents at p. 32.

Put another way, freedom from unhappiness and pain is not enough. People want the ecstasy and joy that flows from real, positive happiness. And positive happiness flows most strongly from that most dangerous category: Relations with other men. Still, the potential emotional payout from love is so great that people all too willingly take their chances with it. Nonetheless, Freud warned: "The weak side of this technique is easy to see; otherwise no human being would have thought of abandoning this path to happiness for any other. It is that we are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love, never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object or its love." Id. at 33.

Against this background, Margot sang more than she knew when she observed: "It's a risk to believe love is real." Love is an extremely dangerous risk. When a person dares to abandon himself to love, he makes himself "defenseless against suffering;" he even risks "helpless unhappiness" if he does not get the emotional payout he expects from the relationship. Worse, these unhappy results depend exclusively on "relations to other men." Specifically, the "love pathway to happiness" depends on how another person acts and feels. We humans are subjective creatures. We know only what we sense. Facts exist only to the extent that we manifest a subjective belief in their reliability. In that light, it is very difficult to gauge whether another person feels any emotion as we do, let alone love.

Beyond risk, love is about knowledge. Freud said that love has two components: Loving and being loved. We only feel love's joy when we know another person feels strongly about us, too. It is not enough to feel strongly about another person. Rather, love's intoxicating pleasure only really arises when we are satisfied that another person feels as strongly about us as we do about them.

But how do we know that? It is hard enough to know what exists in anyone else's mind. Yet when we risk our happiness on love, we force ourselves to decipher what another person feels and thinks. This is extremely difficult; in fact, it is nearly impossible. There is no way to know for certain whether another person loves us, because we cannot literally step into that person's mind. Rather, we must examine secondary facts to make inferences about the other person's beliefs. This is an imperfect method at best, but it is the only one we have. Even direct statements from our love interest are not definitive proof of what he feels. Humans are, after all, infamously dishonest.

In this light, it is easy to see that love is no easy thing. It does not just a risk; it demands some faith, too, because the facts necessary to establish love are unknowable.

Again, the question arises: With these thematic difficulties in mind, why bother with love? Consider just how much is at stake. By daring to love, a person opens himself to boundless unhappiness and pain flowing from "relations to other men." True, if his love pans out, he feels overwhelmingly positive emotions: That is the potential payout from the "risk." But in order to experience love, a person must satisfy himself that another person feels a certain way. It is impossible to certainly know what another person feels, so love actually involves a double risk: (1) Risking the relationship in the first place; and (2) Risking that a person will feel the way you expect. Disappointment can arise from either risk. There is nothing you can really do to stop it; you can't control how another person thinks or feels. In this sense, love is also a risk because a person must entrust his happiness to the subjective whim of another person over whom he has no control. And because human beings are notoriously untrustworthy and inconstant, it almost seems an unreasonable risk.

If love is so unreasonable, then why do so many people pursue it? The fact that human beings--like Margot--blindly risk love is testament to the assertion that reason does not rule us. If human beings were entirely rational, they would probably never love. After all, rational thinking involves balancing risks against benefits. A rational mind analyzes the potential pain that could result from a transaction and queries whether the potential pleasure is worth the chance. As Freud explained, love can yield immeasurable pain. And because that pain flows from forces largely beyond our control (i.e., the whims of others), it really makes no rational sense to take the risk. Although love offers a huge benefit in pleasure, a reasonable man would immediately see that it always presents an intolerable risk in pain. That risk would invariably outweigh the benefit in pleasure.

But we know that human beings live to love. They cast reason aside. They take the risk, even though it is unreasonable. Put simply, love's emotional payout in happiness is so intoxicating that it overwhelms human reason. Love's pleasure is so hypnotic that it submerges all potential pitfalls. Among those pitfalls is the dangerous need to place individual emotional well-being in the hands of another person--and that person is probably not trustworthy. Men ignore those risks when they love because it just feels so, so good. If reason held men in check, they would never allow themselves to remain blind to the dangers. But blind they remain; they dive headlong into the risks because it just feels so damn good.

"It's a risk to believe love is real." In one line, Margot expressed the timeless--yet perilously uncertain-- human quest for love. She hinted at the risks. She knew there was a danger. But love made her feel so good that she willingly blinded herself to it. She suspended her reason. Objectively, that might appear foolish. But we all have done it. And we probably always will. Love is never objective.

In short, we all desperately want positive happiness. We are not content with the "happiness of quietness." No, we crave "relations with other men." We gamble on positive happiness by playing familiar games. Those games are rarely reasonable. In fact, most are extremely dangerous.

Love is probably the most dangerous game of all: Enticing, risky, unknowable, unverifiable, tempestuous, fickle, maddening; yet offering pleasure beyond imagination. It is a recipe for unreasonable risk every time.

NATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF NO-GOOD SCOUNDRELS, DISHONORABLE PRICKS, LOW-DOWN PUNKS AND PLAIN LOUSY SONOFABITCHES WHO NEVER CALL YOU BACK

POLITICAL PARTIES FOR A CHANGING WORLD

By : Dr. U. B. van Flucken, Ph. D., Yale University (Behavioral Science); Former Fashion and Women's Issues Editor, Men's Health Magazine (2003-2007); Fellow, The National Favorable Results Society (Washington, D.C. Chapter); Author, "Say What You Need To Say : A Beginner's Guide to Getting What You Want from People " (Doubleday Press : New York 1999); Semi-Professional Water Polo Competitor (Greater Northeast Elite Sports Network) (1989-present).

No matter where you turn in this country, people tell you that it is bad to be a scoundrel. They say that it is wrong to lie, exaggerate, deceive, betray, backstab and abuse people's trust. They say it is wrong to borrow money without paying it back. And they even say it is wrong to two-time on your girlfriend.

But these folks just don't know how to be a no-good scoundrel. Contrary to all the propaganda, there is nothing wrong at all with being a no-good, morally-destitute scoundrel. You just have to know how to play your cards right. In fact, great people know how to be great scoundrels. And they become great because they know how to disguise who they really are: Scoundrels.

I started the National Brotherhood of No-Good Scoundrels, Dishonorable Pricks, Low-Down Punks and Plain Lousy Sonofabitches Who Never Call You Back for a simple reason: To show Americans how vital we really are. Since founding the organization, I have struggled to demonstrate that honorable responsibility is not the pathway to success. To the contrary, it is my mission to show that only a dishonorable scoundrel can prevail in this world. And it is not a hard job: If you know how to be a low-down, dishonorable punk and not get caught, there is nothing you cannot accomplish.

Success is all about image. When you're a successful scoundrel, no one knows just how big a scoundrel you really are. If they did, they'd ostracize you and no one would want to talk to you. Scoundrels need people; you can't be successful without them. But real scoundrels know how to control their image. They don’t let people get the right idea about them. They carefully monitor how people perceive them, then skillfully play one unsuspecting idiot off the other to gain all the advantages. Contrary to all the rhetoric, scoundrels aren't haphazard bums. They know exactly what they're doing at all times.

Not everyone has the guts to be an unrepentant, conniving knave. Most people buy into the propaganda and try to live honorable, "decent" lives. A lot of good that does: They wind up working loser jobs for bad pay, then skulking around with their wives and boring children for years on end. Sure, they might get some inward satisfaction from "treating people with respect" and "telling the truth, no matter what."

But at what cost! Wouldn't it be so much better to twist a few arms and tell a few tall tales here and there to really get what you want? Wouldn't life be so much more rewarding if you played some putz like a fiddle, then refused to call him back when he needed you? Why not? As long as you make sure that the guy isn't important for your advancement later, screw him. Tell him what he wants to hear. Inflate yourself. Get what you need from him. Then just forget about him and move on to the next sucker. Remember: Life is a ladder with human rungs. You need to keep moving up if you want to get to the top.

Dishonor, manipulation and double-dealing bring untold rewards. Still, a skillful rogue must make sure he does not generate the wrong impression. Good scoundrels effortlessly master disguises. You can't just trample on people and expect them to take it. Rather, a skillful rogue knows how to totally screw a person over without them knowing until it is too late--if ever. Scoundrels like us only got a bad reputation because some jerk tried to be clever and got caught in the act. And scoundrels only get caught when they are not paying attention to what they are doing. In that sense, true scoundrels are not scoundrels at all: They are virtuosos who know how to spin a story and exploit the hell out of people without anyone ever catching on. That takes skill--not everyone can hack it.

Life is tough enough without worrying about whether you're responsible or ethical. Everyone wants the same things: Money, success, happiness, women, recognition. You know, the usual stuff. Everyone is chasing after the same rewards. It is hard to win even without rules. That is why it amazes me that people insist on "honest dealing," "telling the truth" and "propriety" in their quest for success. That's like tying a boulder to your leg before swimming the English Channel: It greatly impedes your chances to succeed. In fact, it will probably sink you long before you even come close to your goal.

But scoundrels don't bother with boulders. They dress for success. They think about where they want to go and just do it. They do not distract themselves with abstractions. They don't overthink issues; they just deliver results. To that end, it makes no sense to respect everyone. In fact, most people on the road to success are hopeful scoundrels, too, and why would you respect someone who is trying to hoodwink you? No, a skillful rogue simply acts like he respects his fellows, when in truth he knows what they are: Just another low-down sonofabitch determined to block his advance up the ladder. To be a successful scoundrel, you must hold certain assumptions about your fellow man. And that means you expect to be deceived, deluded, used, abused, tossed away, manipulated and forgotten. It’s all part of the ball game: You need a tough heart to keep playing.

Great scoundrels don't get discouraged. They seek out weakness and capitalize on it. Sure, they know that people are out to use them, but they use others before they can be used. And in the off chance that someone actually trusts them, all the better. Clever scoundrels always come out ahead.

In this light, it is inconceivable why society holds us in such contempt. We are the go-getters. On the other hand, we recognize that no-good scoundrels, dishonorable pricks, low-down punks and plain lousy sonofabitches occupy the highest positions in our society. We run the banks. We run the Senate. We run the stock exchange. We run the insurance companies. We control everything. And the beauty of it is that no one knows we are scoundrels--or, if they found out, there's nothing they could do about it. People only ridicule us when we commit some faux pas that blows our cover. Great scoundrels, however, are extremely discreet. They don't make faux pas: They screw everyone else over their whole lives and no one ever notices.

For that reason, all the social criticism against scoundrels makes no difference to a truly dishonorable punk. A masterfully rotten scoundrel never makes a mistake to invite rebuke. He just keeps moving over people until he quietly reaches his goal.

We prefer it that way. The moralists and ethicists can whine all they want about "irresponsibility." They are only talking about amateur scoundrels. Little do the moralists know that professional scoundrels are the ones paying them to do their little jobs. Little do the ethicists know that professional scoundrels are the ones who own the printing companies that publish their little books. Undiscovered, virtuoso scoundrels run this world--and no one will ever know the difference. That's exactly how we like it.

So what is our secret? If being a scoundrel is so advantageous, why do so many people refuse to follow our path? We wish we could provide specific advice in this regard. The most we can say is to put yourself above others, keep your eyes on the prize and do what you need to do to get it. Don’t slow yourself down with categorical loyalties, philosophical principles or--God forbid--conscientious worries.

In a word, a great scoundrel is a great actor. He can play any part. But he must remain believable. In fact, a scoundrel has failed when the world calls him one. Great scoundrels appear to be everything, even if they are nothing. They seem to be friends with everyone, when in truth they have none. In the scoundrel's world, it's all about presentation. It doesn’t matter if there's really nothing there. Very few people ever really look to see if there is, anyway.

So if you really want to be scoundrel, start thinking about your image. Stop thinking about dignity and worth. Stop thinking about honesty, unless it would help to be honest in a particular situation. For a scoundrel, the truth is never absolute. It is just a tool. Mark that and you will go far.

Tread softly. Flatter. Connive. Ingratiate. Betray. Lie. Win.

Be a no-good scoundrel. Because good never got anyone what they wanted. And there's nothing wrong with getting what you want.

IF YOU ARE "RESULT-ORIENTED" AND "CLIENT-FOCUSED," YOU MUST BE DISHONORABLE WHEN NECESSARY

AN ESSAY

Law firm websites amuse me because they all use similar words. Generally, they like to advertise their ability to "win" so that new clients will hire them. After all, potential litigants want to win their lawsuit; there's a lot of money at stake. And no one likes losing money. In essence, law firms strut their prowess in obtaining "favorable outcomes." You constantly run across muddy phrases like: "result-oriented," "client-focused," "winning team," "success-centered" and "dedicated to your cause."

You could be forgiven if you thought law firms were sports teams. After all, they talk about winning all the time. Does that mean legal disputes are simply games? If you read civil procedure rules, you might think they are.

But I am not writing today to draw parallels between gaming and the law. Instead, I am writing to argue that the legal profession's relentless fixation on "results" requires lawyers to adopt a "result-determinative" approach to problems. That approach, in turn, makes it impossible for lawyers to adhere to larger principles without sinking into a conflict of interest.

American lawyers occupy an awkward philosophical position. On the one hand, they swear to advance principles such as "justice," "right" and "honesty" as "officers of the court" in a democratic system. Put briefly, lawyers swear to adhere to an "honor code." Put broadly, "honor" means that a person adheres to certain metaphysical ideals no matter the circumstances, even if it is unprofitable. Honor imposes restrictions on the means calculated to obtain certain results. Yet lawyers constantly use words like "results," "outcome," "winning," "goal" and "dedication to client interest." These concepts involve the ends of particular conduct, not means. An honorable man refuses to adopt certain tactics to obtain ends, even if the ends are favorable. But that puts lawyers in an uncomfortable position, because they also swear to "zealously advocate their clients' interests." In short, how can a lawyer both remain true to his honor code while retaining every trick in the book to win for his client?

As a profession, lawyers almost invariably sink into ethical conflict. Law schools attempt to remedy this problem by forcing lawyers to take an "ethics course," while States force them to take an "official ethics exam" before admission to the Bar. But ethics is not about external compliance and multiple-choice answers. No, ethics is about spirit and character. It is internal, not external. It is hard to police and even harder to teach. There is an immense difference between "the rules for being an honorable person" and "being an honorable person." Lawyers learn the rules; that is all they need to do. It does not matter whether they actually are honorable. In fact, the substance of their work makes honor almost an impossible path.

People throw around the term "conflict of interest" all the time. For the longest time, it made no sense to me. I knew it was bad; I just did not understand it. I did not grasp what it meant until I went to law school and saw what lawyers do. A conflict of interest simply means that a person attempts to serve two masters. It is about loyalty and integrity. If a person gives his full loyalty to one "master," there is no way he can be fully loyal to the other. Thus, a conflict of interest cripples a person's ability to be faithful to another. And it is not just about money. Conflicts of interest can arise between principles, too. Put another way, a person cannot remain faithful to a set of principles while contradicting those principles in the service of someone else.

This is what happens with lawyers. When the State administers the attorney's oath to newly-admitted lawyers every year, it obligates them to advance core principles, like justice, fairness, honor, integrity and collegiality . But at the same time, lawyers take an oath to "fully and zealously represent clients." From the very first moment, then, lawyers swear to serve two masters. They promise to vindicate larger principles at the same time they promise to obtain "favorable results" for their private clients. Private clients do not care how lawyers get the results they want; they just want the results. In this climate, how can a lawyer maintain his honor?

Are there any honorable lawyers in the world? Probably. I did not encounter many when I practiced. In truth, that is not surprising given the impossible ethical position lawyers must occupy. Consider this: Honor imposes restrictions on the means and methods calculated to reach a certain goal, while clients demand a certain goal. If a dishonorable method is the only way to achieve that goal, how can the lawyer remain true to both his honor code and his client?

In my view, lawyers' obsession with "client focus" and "results" reveals their predisposition to abandon honor when necessary. When a person deeply wants to achieve a goal, he adopts the means most likely to achieve it. Honor, however, might bar a person from resorting to the most effective means. Do lawyers have the courage to abstain from certain victory merely to appease their ethical sensibilities? If a lawyer could win a multimillion dollar case through some trick--and he knew no one would ever discover it--would he resort to it? If he were loyal to his honor code, then he would not. But he would if he were loyal to his client. His client wants to win. The client does not care about honor. He just wants victory at the lowest cost and lowest risk. If a dishonorable means leads to victory at low cost and low risk, so be it.

Lawyers contend with these philosophical tensions every day. They face inevitable conflict between their clients' wishes and the principles they swore to uphold. Most troublingly, this conflict has a decidedly commercial dimension. After all, lawyers need money to stay in business. Only money pays rent and keeps offices running. Only money buys cars and sends kids to college. It takes money to pay the heat bill and buy presents for your wife at Christmas. Between principles and clients, who pays money? Only clients. In that light, to whom do you think a lawyer will give his maximum effort? Honor doesn't stand a chance in these circumstances. Debt collectors do not take "honor" or "principle" as payment; they take cash, checks, money orders, bank transfers or MasterCard®.

Lawyers might say they support justice, fairness and right. They might insist that they have integrity. They might even think they have honor. They might point to the wall and show you their Bar Association plaques. Still, did justice or integrity pay for their offices? No, winning cases for their clients did. That does not necessarily mean that winning is always dishonorable. But adopting a "flexible" approach to honor greatly increases a lawyer's chances to win a case. At day's end, winning matters. Law firms say it themselves. Why should a lawyer hamstring himself with honor? Great players don't win by tearing plays from the playbook; they keep every option open.

Adopting a "result-oriented" approach to any human enterprise inevitably leads to a debate about probability. If a person wants results, he adopts means that will "most probably" lead to those results. Yet honor excludes certain means. In that sense, honor represents a barrier to sought-after results. Honor reduces the probability of obtaining results. For the result-oriented person, that is an unbearable idea. When winning matters, it is frustrating to know that effective tactics are off the table.

Honor takes many tactics off the table. For a lawyer who swears to obtain results for a private client, that is not good. Pleasing the client leads to monetary success. Fulfilling honor, by contrast, gains nothing except intellectual satisfaction. As commercial actors who need money to stay afloat, lawyers cannot survive on intellectual satisfaction. Rather, they must please their clients. In so doing, they reveal their classic conflict of interest: Client wins; principles lose (if necessary).

Their own rhetoric shows which master matters more. You don't see law firm websites advertising "polite lawyers who try their best to win consistent with overreaching ethical imperatives, but who refuse to adopt certain dishonorable methods to win you money." Nor do you see websites proudly describing their lawyers' refusal to countenance client fraud to win a case. No, ethical victories don't make good advertising material. Money victories do. Results sell, not principles.

I would like to see an honest law firm slogan: "We're all about results : You don't care how you get 'em… and neither do we."

In this environment, how can honor survive? When results are all that matter, how can a lawyer insist on principles that might threaten those results?

"A FAMILY OWNED BUSINESS" IS STILL A BUSINESS; AND IT'S NOT YOUR FAMILY

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Corporations are private profit machines. In prior essays, I noted that corporations are “legal entities” that pool money and labor for a single reason: To generate returns for shareholders. They concentrate management authority in a “Board of Directors” that makes “prudent decisions” solely to benefit the shareholders. Directors must observe a “duty of loyalty” to the corporation, meaning all their actions must serve the entity. Directors, then—as well as corporate employees and officers—are simply glorified servants. Like vassals in medieval times, they are “duty-bound” to support their corporate lords. They must not think about themselves. Their time belongs to the corporation and the shareholders who own it. The corporation pays them “compensation” for their pains; but they do not share in the overall profit unless they own stock. In short, true “business corporations” channel individual self-interest and multiply it a thousandfold. There is no room for altruism, compassion or charity. In fact, corporate leaders who spend money on others can be legally sanctioned. See, e.g., Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., 204 Mich. 459 (1919).

Corporations act largely in silence. Not many people know how they actually work. In fact, most people look upon them with some respect. After all, they look official. They own properties all over the country. Their employees wear uniforms. They have recognizable logos. Everyone can identify corporate goods, like Mercedes cars and Whopper® sandwiches. In short, major corporations play a visible role in people’s lives. They wield almost as much influence as the State. But this is the central error: Corporations have nothing to do with the government. While the State accords them special legal status, they are still private entities. They exist to sustain private enterprise. They owe no duties to anyone except their own shareholders; and their shareholders want profits. In that sense, corporations have a duty to act selfishly. There is nothing noble or glorious about their motives.

Yet corporations must cultivate a good image to win customers. If people did not to some extent “trust” a corporation, they would not buy from it. And no corporation can make a profit without customers. In that light, corporations cannot blatantly reveal that they just want to make profits. They need to advertise in such a way as to suggest that they “care” about their customers. They need to appear that they care, even though they only have one legal duty: To enrich the shareholders. This is no easy feat. After all, people do not like unabashed selfishness. So how do corporations mask their true intentions while convincing customers that they are “trustworthy” and “caring?”

I will not discuss every possible corporate ploy intended to fool customers into thinking that “corporations care.” That would take much too long. Rather, I want to discuss a specific corporate practice, namely: Advertising the company’s “family roots.” Many corporations do this. On trucks, billboards and even television commercials, they proudly claim: “We are Blah-Blah-Blah Corporation, a Family-Owned Business,” or “XYZ Inc. Family-Owned Since 1980.”

In effect, these companies want to associate themselves with the concept “family.” Why? In my view, it is quite insidious. After all, we all have a tender place in our hearts for own families. Even if we hate our siblings and our parents, we nonetheless grew up with them. We never completely forget them. On a very profound psychological level, we depend on our families for our identities, our names and even meaning in life. No matter how much we think Mom screwed us up, we still love Mom on some level. And when we think “family,” we think intimacy, familiarity, comfort, love, mutual caring, compassion, trust and “home.” This is not to say that all families nurture these positive things. Indeed, family life often brings great unhappiness and discord. But the fact remains that the word carries a generally positive connotation. No matter how bad our own family relationships may be, our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters know us and somehow understand us. We are “linked by blood.” We are not “just strangers.”

Companies exploit these associations when they paint themselves as “family businesses.” They attempt to forge a link between their private, undifferentiated profit-seeking and the positive, “caring” complex inherent in “the family concept.” They attempt to lull customers into thinking that they will not be “just another customer;” rather, they will be like a “family member” who deserves trust, respect, love and caring. These companies want to distinguish themselves from “regular corporations” that do not involve “families.” Those corporations are “cruel, cold and uncaring” because they are not “family-like;” they are just “companies” that “don’t care.” By contrast, a “family business” wants you to think that they care about you. It wants to believe that you are “special” because “families care,” while “regular businesses” do not.

But this is all a naked fraud. It does not matter who owns a corporation; it is still a corporation. Corporations exist to enrich private shareholders, whether those shareholders are total strangers or whether they are blood relatives. Put another way, it is irrelevant whether a “family” owns the company because it is not your family. Only your family cares about you and your needs. The family that owns the corporation will look to its own members, not you. It merely wants you to think that it cares about you by tying its name to the concept “family.” Advertisers know how to exploit average people’s mental processes. They know that the word “family” carries unusually hypnotic power. It is no accident that modern psychiatry dwells largely on “family development” and “family trauma” to identify psychological problems. Our family lives play a significant role in forming our personalities and character. Families nurture—and corrupt—our instincts for love, caring and emotion. Companies know that “family rhetoric” packs a devastating subconscious punch. That is why they attempt to link their image to “the family.”

How crass is this? How shameless? What does petty commerce have to do with our unique family life? Can companies really stoop this low? Yes, they can. In fact, they have a legal duty to resort to any means—ethical or legal, unethical or illegal—that generate more profits than costs. If triggering a fallacious connection between “family caring” and “corporate service” generates more profit than it would without the connection, then a company will adopt it. It might be utterly groundless and tasteless, but good reason and taste mean nothing next to the bottom line. In fact, if shareholders learned that the company made less money without the “family business” tag than it did with the tag, it could hold the Directors liable for failing in their fiduciary duties to them. In the free market, companies compete for customers and profits. They need to be inventive in order to obtain an edge. In this competition, delicate tastes will not prevail. Rather, only the strong survive. And the strong are not afraid to resort to any means needed to win the competition, tasteless or not. If that means falsely insinuating that the business is “one, big caring family,” then the company will insinuate it.

This is not just hot air. Many extremely large companies claim that they are “family businesses,” not just mom-and-pop shops in small towns. Du Pont Corporation claims to be a “family business.” So does Disney. These are not “close-knit, caring organizations.” These are ruthless capitalist titans who would sooner run over their competition than show mercy or compassion. Such ruthlessness is not thematically consistent with the concept “family,” yet these moguls do their best to cultivate a “family image” in order to better pursue their fundamentally “un-family-like” private ambitions. In essence, it makes no more sense to trust a “family business” than it does to trust a “Fortune 500 Company.” They are all the same because they all seek the same thing: Private shareholder enrichment at any cost. Self-interest dictates a corporation’s actions, not family-like compassion or mercy. If a corporation is a “family business,” it does not treat its customers or its competitors any better than the cruelest industrialist would. In that sense, “family businesses” only act like “families” with their own shareholders. The family gets the profit and the riches, not the outside world. This is the central irony in the whole “family business” fraud: Corporations want you to think that you are “part of the family;” but in fact you are simply paying to keep their family wealthy. You are not “part of the family.” You are an outsider. Again, if it is not your family, you should not expect it to treat you like a family member.

It is difficult for me to write about corporations without mentioning cynicism. Cynicism provides an ideal analytical framework to understand corporate action. After all, cynicism assumes that self-interest motivates all human behavior. Cynicism immediately penetrates corporate activity because corporations institutionally enshrine self-interest. Shareholders pool their money in a corporation to advance their own self-interest for minimal personal risk. A corporation exists to enrich its shareholders, not others. This is institutional selfishness; it provides fertile ground for cynical analysis. In fact, it would be illegal for a corporation to act altruistically because altruism implies acting for another’s benefit, not your own. When corporations act for others, their shareholders sue them for deviating from the “self-interest principle.” Against this background, it is possible to deconstruct every corporate ploy and expose its selfish roots. In virtually every case, when a corporation tries to “appear caring,” cynicism instructs us to mercilessly doubt its motives. Put simply, corporations do not care about others. To that extent, when they adopt measures intended to “appear caring,” a cynical explanation will quickly reveal the true motive.

Applying cynicism, we can easily deconstruct the “family business” ploy. Now, if we assume that all corporations have a legal duty to enrich their shareholders, we can also assume that all their actions will advance that duty. Enriching shareholders requires business success. Business success, in turn, requires loyal and trusting customers who funnel money into the corporation. It is not easy to convince undifferentiated customers to fork over cash, especially when competitors offer the same goods or services. Thus, success requires some gimmick, some special “catch” that convinces customers to choose one business over another. Customers must have some mental connection to the corporation that distinguishes it from the competition. Claiming that a company is a “family business” amid ostensibly “cruel competitors” can forge the necessary “mental connection.” After all, “family” carries a positive, “caring” connotation. An average customer would respect that connotation when choosing between undifferentiated commercial competitors. That extra “zing” might increase the chances that a new customer would choose the “family business,” leading to increased sales, more money and more “shareholder enrichment.” In the end, it does not matter whether the company treats the new customer “like family.” All that matters is that the customer spent his money with the company, not the competition. That fulfills the core corporate mission. The shareholders win. They advance their self-interest by exploiting “family” appeal with average customers.

Does it matter whether the company treats the customer “like family?” Certainly not. From a cynical perspective, it does not matter whether a company means what it says. It does not matter that the method is dishonest or even facetious, because results matter more than methods. When analyzing corporate action, I have learned to expect dishonorable, unethical conduct. After all, corporate action is all about the profit. If an unethical method wins more profit than an ethical one, a corporation must adopt the unethical method in order to please its shareholders (provided, of course, that the unethical method does not generate costs down the road). There is no honor in corporate practice. When results matter, methods become irrelevant. There is no room for principle. Corporations want results, not the psychic satisfaction that flows from vindicating impractical abstractions such as “honesty.” As long as the company appears honest to the extent necessary to maintain customer trust—and keeps healthy profit levels—there is no need to actually be honest. This is dishonorable. But it is also practical. And in corporate life, practicality beats abstraction every time.

From a principled perspective, a private business corporation cannot in good conscience claim that it is a “family.” Private business corporations are not “caring institutions.” They do not show love. They do not raise children. They do not nurture tenderness or show mercy to relatives. Rather, they are legal entities dedicated solely to their shareholders’ private profit interests. To suggest, then, that a company will “treat others like family members” is hypocritical in the extreme. Commerce is war. It is a war for profits, customers, market share and success. Commerce is no place for warmhearted “family feelings.” If a company treated its customers and competitors “like family,” it would fail almost instantaneously. There is no room to be tender or merciful in commerce. A “good corporation” wins accounts and collects its money. By contrast, a “good family” forgives its wayward sons and let them off the hook with a kiss. Families forgive, forget and nurture. Corporations pursue, win and collect—by contract and suit if necessary. These are not consistent ideologies. In that light, it is both misleading and fraudulent to equate “corporate values” with “family values.”

We should expect both deception and fraud from corporations because deception and fraud reveal dishonor. Honor means adhering to principles, no matter the circumstances. Honor means suffering for ideas, even when abandoning those ideas might abrogate the suffering. Corporations, however, cannot be honorable. They must win profits. That means “going with the flow” and breaking principles when necessary. In short, corporations must be “flexible,” not “honorable.” It is honorable to “tell the truth” and “to be honest.” But if honesty and truth endanger results, a corporate leader can be neither honest nor truthful. He has a duty to enrich his shareholders by any cost-effective means necessary. That is why he resorts to misleading characterizations, such as calling his for-profit entity “A Family Business.” If corporate leaders were honorable, they would refuse to equate their quest for private profit with tender family emotions. Yet they do not refuse. They serve their shareholders because they have a duty to make them rich. If calling the business “family-like” wins profits, they have no choice but to be dishonorable.

In the world of corporate morality, deception and fraud are not ethical transgressions. They are “calculated measures intended to win maximum profit for minimal risk.” A good corporation knows how to be unethical without ever arousing suspicion. Conscience and honor play no role in this analysis. It is unfortunate. But it is a jungle out there; and commerce is commerce.

MORALITY DOES NOT PROVE THAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE NATURALLY GOOD OR COOPERATIVE : A RESPONSE TO DAVID BROOKS

AN ESSAY

Three days ago, David Brooks published a popular editorial in the New York Times entitled “The End of Philosophy.” See N.Y. Times April 6, 2009. In it, he argues that new studies concerning morality have “[challenged] the bookish way philosophy is conceived by most people.” He bases his conclusion on “new” research that links moral theories with “human emotion” rather than “abstract reasoning,” and the fact that moral rules arise because people “just know things” when they see them. He also concludes that moral rules descend to us because human beings are “successful cooperators” who naturally praise values such as loyalty, cohesion and “tradition.” Viewing these developments, he concludes that moral rules show that human beings seek “goodness as an end in itself” rather than “a means.” In sum, he labels these developments an “epochal change.”

At the outset, I was impressed that Mr. Brooks stepped into the age-old philosophical debate about morality. Yet there is nothing new about his assertion that human morality derives from “emotion” rather than reason. In truth, morality has little to do with rational postulation. Instead, as I have written many times before, morality represents nothing more than a particular society’s long-held social beliefs, customs, values, traditions, judgments and intuitive “feeling” about whether something is “good” or “bad.” It is about judgment, not cooperation. If our ancestors felt that something was noxious, disgusting or rancid, they labeled it bad, then “immoral.” They did not like encountering smelly things. They thought dead carcasses were “disgusting.” They thought that human waste was “disgusting” and “smelly.” If their fellow man smelled bad, then he, too, was “disgusting” and “bad.” If a man had anal sex, that was “disgusting” and “bad” because they associated the anus with human waste—and that “smelled bad.” If a man betrayed his brother, the aggrieved party felt disgusted, then labeled the traitor “bad.” These original, visceral—and ultimately sensory—judgments come down to us as “modern morality.” Mr. Brooks is correct that they do not derive from pure reason; instead, they are intuitive, emotional responses to “disgusting” stimuli.

Morality is quintessentially organic. It develops over time and descends. There is nothing metaphysical about the inquiry. And that is significant: After all, Mr. Brooks argues that moral rules lead people to “the good” as “an end,” as if there were an absolute “good” to achieve in the first place. If anything, moral rules enshrine original, emotional judgments of powerful men in distant history. These men cared nothing for “absolute good.” They simply knew what they smelled and they did not like it. In this light, Mr. Brooks is profoundly confused. Morality is organic, not metaphysical. It is judgmental, not neutral. He is right that it derived from human emotion, but he is wrong that it proves that human beings are “good, “cooperative,” “empathetic” and “altruistic.” Quite the contrary, men historically have used morality much more often to dominate and tyrannize their fellow man, not to cooperate with him.

Mr. Brooks finds it reassuring that there are philosophers out there who think about morality in a way that “entails a warmer view of human nature.” In other words, he finds it comforting that morality serves “the good” and perpetuates “human cooperation,” as well as respect for “tradition, religion and loyalty” as positive moral values. He thinks these “discoveries” represent an “epochal change.” But what is so new about relating morality to human emotion and intuitive preference? In 1887, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that the notion “good” derives not from some metaphysical conception of “useful behavior,” but rather from the individual judgments of “the noble, the privileged, the higher and the sophisticated, who considered their activity and themselves as ‘first-rate,’ in contrast to all low, mean, common and rabble-like people.” On the Genealogy of Morals, First Essay, § 2 (my translation). Over 120 years ago, Nietzsche knew that morality was about judgment, inequality, condescension and power, not cooperation. This “power” to create moral rules involved the power to designate whether conduct was “good” or “bad:” “The right of the master to give names extends so far that we can even understand that the origin of language itself represents an expression of power by the ruling classes: they tell us ‘this is this, and this is that (emphasis added).’” Id. In short, we have known for a long time that our “powerful ancient masters” had the authority to enshrine their emotional judgments as “moral rules.” And they weren’t trying to “warmly” cooperate with the “masses,” either.

In truth, I could not help laughing when I read Mr. Brooks’ argument that morality shows human beings “at their best.” In my experience, morality shows human beings at their worst. When I read a discussion about morality that does not involve disgust, judgment, hatred and resentment, I know something is wrong. After all, morality is about power. When powerful people judge, they necessarily must focus that judgment on someone who has “deviated from the moral standard.” Morality requires judgment to maintain its authority. After all, how could we praise “good” behavior if we did not also condemn “bad” behavior? Mr. Brooks believes that it is “moral” to be “loyal” because human beings are “successful cooperators” who found loyalty helpful in reaching their common goals. Yet this does not prove that human beings are good. Rather, it proves that our ancient forbears praised people who helped them hunt or build a house, while they condemned and hated people who said they would help, but did not. They felt disgust and hatred toward the people who broke their promises. They transformed that disgust into a judgment: “Disloyal people are bad; loyal people are good. Loyal people make me feel good. Disloyal people make me feel bad. Therefore, I like loyal people and I hate disloyal people.” It is pathetically simple. It is not nuanced. Yet this supposedly reveals human beings as “naturally good” creatures? No—it reveals human beings as self-interested, judgmental and simple-minded creatures: They like things they find “good” and they “hate” things they find “disgusting” and “bad.” This shows inherent goodness? I think not. It shows only that human beings have intuitive preferences and make judgments according to those preferences.

“Thing smell good. Me like. Thing smell bad. Me hate.” Tell me again: What is so earth-shattering about this?

In moral questions, there is no “inherent good.” There is only power and judgment. True, there are many behaviors that most of us would consider both “good” and “moral.” For example, we all hate lying, stealing, murdering, thieving, robbing and violence. Morality labels these behaviors “immoral” and “bad.” We agree with morality in these cases. Yet we often fail to understand that when we apply moral rules, we are applying an ancient code. Moral judgments come down to us over many generations and we absorb them fully into our subconscious. But this is not because morality arose through the efforts of well-intentioned men. Rather, morality arose because powerful men pronounced their emotional judgments about behavior long ago, and those judgments prevailed. Now we live with their pronouncements. They labeled stealing, murdering and robbing “disgusting.” Their view triumphed. Now their judgments rule us.

But what about behavior that harms no one? Mr. Brooks completely fails to visit this “darker side” of moral history. After all, morality is about power and judgment. We face no problem when the powerful label obviously harmful activity “bad” and “immoral.” Similarly, we have no problem when we judge people who deviate from these “good” standards. But what happens when powerful men—or even majorities—find certain behavior “disgusting” that is not clearly harmful? Throughout history, powerful men have found certain innocuous behavior “disgusting” and severely judged it. It is one thing to deem murder “disgusting,” but quite another to deem interracial marriage “disgusting.” What about consensual sodomy? Is that “disgusting?” Is it “immoral?” If we say yes, does that mean we “show ourselves to be successful cooperators” and “altruists?” When human beings formulate moral rules, they focus their social energy on an enemy. They judge that enemy with ruthless spite. They say the enemy is “disgusting,” “wicked,” “evil,” “deviant,” “abhorrent,” “abominable,” “sinful,” “wretched” and “wrong.” As recently as the 18th Century, English common law courts hanged men for engaging in consensual sex with one another for the “heinous and detestable sin of sodomy.” See, e.g., http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17260420-64-off299&div=t17260420-64#highlight. This is what morality can lead to. Contrary to Mr. Brooks’ assertion, this does not show humans “at their best,” nor does it reveal a “warmer, cooperative side” to human nature. Quite the contrary, morality can show human beings at their most unjust, most intolerant and most peremptory. And why? Because some people consider a particular behavior “disgusting,” even if it harms no one. They just think it “smells bad.” In my view, there is nothing “cooperative,” “warm” or “altruistic” about executing “immoral” people.

Morality vexes me because it is firmly engrained in culture. It is exceedingly difficult to trace its origins. Every society has its own moral code, just as every person has his own tastes. It makes sense to analogize morality with taste because moral rules reflect subjective judgments, just as taste does. Yet this also makes it hard to understand. Morality, after all, looks like law. It lays down external rules. It projects authority. It judges and punishes. The problem is divining its origins. Law begins with an acknowledged sovereign, but morality begins in primeval, emotional history. Mr. Brooks correctly points out that morality finds its roots in individual emotional intuition, not theoretical abstraction. Thereafter, his analysis veers into strange territory, concluding in essence that human beings are naturally good, and that their moral rules reflect good, cooperative principles.

But Mr. Brooks is wrong on these points. For one, it makes no sense to assume that there is “absolute good” while arguing that men’s moral rules do not conform to “absolute good.” Second, Mr. Brooks does not recognize that moral rules only arise through power, and they only preserve their authority through judgment, hatred and resentment. Last, Mr. Brooks is startlingly incorrect to use morality as proof of human goodness, altruism and cooperation. If anything, our moral history reveals humans as intolerant, judgmental, cruel and divisive creatures. Mr. Brooks may debunk Socrates to begin his essay, but he praises Aristotle at the end.

Aristotle believed that human beings were cooperative creatures, like bees and fish. He believed that every human activity had a natural purpose, just as every animal activity appears to have a natural purpose. He assumed that men pursued a metaphysical “good.” Yet these are all theoretical abstractions. Mr. Brooks says that morality does not conform to theoretical abstraction, but in the end he assumes that men follow morality to reach metaphysical “good.” He would be better to recognize that morality has no “natural purpose,” and there is no “metaphysical good.” Rather, morality is nothing but power and judgment. Powerful men say what they like, what they hate, pass it down, and punish those who disagree. In this sense, moral rules reflect inequality and division, not cooperation and altruism. And they certainly do not reveal a “warmer side” to human nature. Instead, they show that human beings will always divide themselves from one another and judge one another according to “the right moral code.”

This is not an “epochal change.” This is the way it has always been.

WEEKENDS ARE FOR COWARDS AND COMMUNISTS

CONSIDERED OPINION

By : Mr. Hezekiah H. Mecklenburg, Managing Director and Policy Theorist, The Labor Institute for Real Service

America faces economic crisis because Americans do not work like they used to. In the past, Americans got up, had breakfast, went to work, had lunch, punched out and went home without complaint or longing. They took their wages home on Friday, saved some money and perhaps drank a milkshake on the weekend. Americans never stopped working. They went to work on Saturday and Sunday if they had too. They understood that their job was their life; and it was important to show they cared about their jobs.

Today, even employed Americans cannot stand their jobs. They grudgingly haul themselves out of bed, sleep during their commutes and spend their office time surfing the internet or reading the newspaper. They only do as much work as necessary to avoid censure or discipline; they no longer care about the employer’s mission. Worse, they feel entitled to time off. Every Friday, employees show up to work and ceaselessly talk about “weekend plans.” They lose all focus. They spend all day looking forward to the two days that they can “take for themselves.” They do not think about sales calls, making copies or delivering boxes to the 34th Floor. They think about what bar they are going to later that night or the girl they want to bring home. These are not work-related thoughts. They are inappropriate. In short, American workers just don’t care—and it shows. And that is why our economy fails.

American workers need to get back to basics. To do this, we must completely rethink employment relationships and workplace conditions in this country. This requires that we instill pride in work, not private life. Work pays the bills, not drinking or bowling. Work sustains a household, not playing video games or watching reality television. Although American employees know that work pays their way in life, they all would much rather drink, play video games or watch reality television than work. You would think that they would rather do something that is necessary for life. But no: They would rather have “time for themselves.” The problem, then, is essentially a mental one. Americans need to reorder their minds to love work, not leisure activities. With motivated workers who love their jobs, our economy will rebound.

Here at the Labor Institute for Real Service, we have a plan to make Americans love their jobs. First, we must make workers want to work. At present, American employees would rather “do what they want,” not work. They work because they have to, not because they want to. This naturally causes mental resistance, because obligations make people feel resentful. How did this happen? Simple: Americans enjoy their weekends too much. For decades, American employees have comfortably assumed that they will not have to work on Saturday and Sunday. This “treat at the end” better enables them to endure hardships during the week. It represents a “light at the end of the tunnel” that provides employees an incentive to carry on with the employer’s mission. Yet in recent years, American employees have begun enjoying their weekends too much. They have so much “fun” during the weekend that it dominates their minds at work. Every Monday, they spend their whole morning chatting about what they did the previous weekend, detracting from employer business. On Tuesdays, they start thinking about what they want to do the following weekend, and on Wednesday, they actually start making plans. By Thursday and Friday, they reach “weekend mode,” and they become so excited about the coming days off that work fades into an afterthought. Put simply, American workers have lost their work ethic because they have guaranteed weekends. We can only restore their desire to work if we remove this fatal distraction from their minds.

Days off are economically dangerous. Not only does the economy lose productivity when people take days off, but days off also give American employees time to cultivate their own interests. They enjoy themselves on the weekend; and that personal joy dominates their minds during the following week. This is unacceptable. American workers must be forced to relish their work, not left alone with their joy. To achieve this, we must abolish weekends. No longer will employees feel entitled to take two days off per week. No longer will they have a temptation to dream about Saturday on Tuesday, or Sunday on Wednesday. Rather, they will keep their minds on customer phone calls, pie charts, graphs, spreadsheets, sales meetings and client videos all week long. It is time to stop the entitlements. Great workers work all the time; they do not wish for Friday. And we need great workers to rescue this economy from the lollygagging clockwatchers who poisoned it in the first place.

Weekends are for communists are cowards. No one ever advanced in this country just working Monday through Friday. Did Henry Ford stop working on his Model T because it was 5:01 on Friday afternoon? No. He kept working no matter what the clock said. He did not look forward to Saturday night beer pong at Billy McGillicuddy’s Pub or hooking up with Susan Collins, the cute girl from the accounting department. He slept two hours, then got back up and went back to work on Saturday morning. His work propelled this country to greatness and it made him rich. We need ethic like that to save this economy, not lazy weekenders. We aim to stop the entitlements. From now on, employees will work ten days straight, then take a half-day off to accomplish personal business and see physicians. There will be no more “Friday fever.” Every employee will have a different day off, averting the danger that arises when the entire office anticipates the coming weekend. Now, employees will look forward to their work, not their weekends. This will prevent employees from feeling joy, and when employees are miserable, they stay at their desks and work.

We work in a new economy. It is no longer 1848. Employees no longer shovel coal into blast furnaces or pick textile fragments from yarn balls on dangerous factory floors. Weekends gave workers in early industry a necessary break from hazardous, labor-intensive tasks. But how can workers complain about their jobs today? Can an insurance adjuster complain about maintaining paper files and a computer graph program? Can a receptionist complain about greeting walk-ins with a smile or serving coffee? Can a waiter complain about jotting down orders on a pad? Can a trader complain about running all over the exchange floor soliciting orders on beef futures? And can a lawyer complain about billing two clients at once while talking to a third on the phone? These are not labor-intensive tasks. Rather, they are straightforward administrative activities that place the employee in no danger at all. To that extent, they can keep working without pause. They do not need time off. It makes no sense to continue entitlements from the Industrial Revolution in an Internet Age economy. Only whiners and do-nothings claim that they need “time off” from a desk job. The time for whining and fantasizing is over. It is time to start working again.

We will overcome today’s economic malaise when we all get back to work. By restoring faith in work, we will make America strong again. To restore faith in work, we will set employees’ minds straight. Although weekends may have been important in workers’ lives, they did more harm than good. They allowed employees to have too much fun. That, in turn, corrupted their minds. Good employees do not experience joy; they loyally advance their employers’ interests. Joy is a personal emotion that derives from personal preference and activity. Yet employment requires that a person put his own preferences aside to serve the employer. In that light, joy and employment are not consistent. While we do not deny that superb employees may feel joy when they win success for their employers, we recognize that this does not often happen. Instead, employees feel joy for personal reasons, unrelated to the employer’s mission. In the new economy, we cannot tolerate workers who dream about the weekend. We need employees who gladly show up every day to work. By eliminating weekends, we can better reach that goal, because weekends distract. This is a mental war for employees’ focus. And we are going to win it.

Our detractors say that weekends give employees time to refresh themselves. According to this logic, a refreshed worker is a more productive worker, and because employers like productivity, they should also like weekends. Our detractors also say that rested workers are more productive workers, so weekends actually boost productivity and aid the economy. We strongly disagree. Experience convinces us that workers do not rest during the weekend. They go out, drink, attend sporting events, sprawl out on beaches to bake in the sun, take their children to Chuck E. Cheese® Restaurants, attend doctors’ appointments, shop, surf online, play video games, go swimming, work out, go to the dentist, attempt to fornicate, visit their parents, argue with loved ones, clean out garages, mow lawns, paint fences, plant vegetable gardens, eat fine meals and sleep until 10 AM every morning. Put simply, employees are very busy on the weekends—doing things they enjoy. This is precisely the problem: By restricting their joy to two days during the week, employees naturally will look forward to those two days during the other five. They do not come to work on Monday “rested;” they come to work on Monday exhausted from having fun. Because they spend all their time thinking about the next weekend, their days off actually hamper productivity. Employees associate their two days off with “good feelings” and their five days working with “bad feelings.” Workers cannot work when they are thinking about what a good time they had last Saturday night at the dance hall. In sum, weekends are bad for productivity. And reduced productivity hurts us all.

Let us take action against lazy weekend cowards. We need more work in this economy, not less. Let us emulate those great Americans who worked their whole lives for a better world. Let us put our money where our mouth is. Americans all say they want jobs. But once they get jobs, all they talk about is the weekend. It is time to stop that trend once and for all. When Americans get jobs, let them take pride in the spirit of employment. Let employees say: “Yes! I am happy to be here. I love this job. How may I best serve you, sir?” not: “I fucking hate you and this job; and it’s only Tuesday morning. I would rather be at home eating waffles than in here collating these friggin’ case studies for $9.75 an hour.” Let them feel joy in service, not in their own pursuits. Work means service. Service means loyalty. Loyalty means thinking about your employer, not yourself. Weekends harm service and loyalty. That is why we must stop them. No longer will employees daydream about bars, concerts and women on Friday night. Now, they will have only their desks and their jobs to look forward to.

Together, let us be a Nation of workers, not leisure-seekers. We’ll see you in the office on Sunday.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LOYALTIES : THE SAME THING?

AN ESSAY

Obligations dominate life. We spend our lives struggling to fulfill commitments—or avoiding them. The law imposes some obligations upon us. Culture, family and tradition impose others. We even make personal obligations to ourselves. In every case, obligations constrain our action. We must either satisfy them or suffer the consequences. Those consequences might be financial or even corporal. Or they might be ethical consequences that weigh on our own conscience without any effect on our bodies or property. Obligations tell us what we must do. They darken our lives as much as they offer opportunities to advance our lot. They darken our lives because they represent compulsory duties imposed by some higher authority. They brighten our lives because when we fulfill them, we rise in others’ esteem by demonstrating our loyalty. They also brighten our lives because by fulfilling obligations, we may at times serve something larger than ourselves.

Obligation and loyalty spring from a similar source. But obligation comes in many guises, and so does loyalty. There are private obligations, such as a promise to repay a loan to a bank. Similarly, there are public obligations, such as an elected official’s promise to uphold the Constitution. Finally, there are ethical obligations, such as a person’s own commitment to live a principled life. In the first two cases, there are verifiably superior powers at work: In the private case, the debtor acknowledges that he “owes” the bank money, placing the bank in a superior power position. In the public case, the elected official acknowledges that he is a mere “servant” who swears to uphold the larger principles embodied in a public document, namely, the Constitution. In both cases, the law punishes failure to adhere to obligations. The debtor must pay, while the elected official could face impeachment or prosecution for violating established constitutional rules. Only in the final case is there no “superior party” at work. When it comes to individual obligations to one’s own conscience, only the will can adhere to the obligation. There is no superior force to compel allegiance. Ethical conundrums have nothing to do with external forces, despite what the ABA thinks. (Cf. Immanuel Kant: “[Ethical rulemaking] is internal and cannot have an external legislator.” Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals, III. They are individual obligations, and only individuals can enforce them. Today, I wish only to speak about “classic” external obligations involving superior and inferior parties. I will leave ethics for another day.

External obligations imply a power relationship. There is a strong party (the “obligor” or “master”) and a weaker party (the “obligee” or “servant”). Against this background, an “obligation” means: 1. a binding contract, promise or moral responsibility; 2. a duty imposed legally or socially; a thing that one is bound to do by contract, promise, moral responsibility, etc. or 3. the condition or fact of being indebted to another for a favor or services rendered.” Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4th Ed.). Several words in these definitions underscore the uneven power relationship in any obligation. “Duty,” “impose,” “bound,” “indebted” and “responsibility” all suggest that one party must do something or face consequences from a higher power. Only higher powers can “impose duties” on weaker ones, while “responsibility” implies that a weaker party must answer to a higher one. There is a conceptual complex at work here that effuses power, and for good reason: Obligation cannot exist without disparities in power. And it is no accident that these definitions use the words “bound” and “must.” Obligations are compulsory. There is no choice. One must either fulfill them or face the consequences. Put another way, either the weaker party serves his master or he will be punished.

Power drives obligations. For that reason, loyalty plays a significant role in most obligatory settings. At first glance, loyalty has a positive connotation. Colloquially, we admire “loyal” people because we think they will not betray us. Loyal people hold to their words. They are honorable. They do not “cheat.” The word is shorthand for “a good character.” After all, in common experience, a “loyal” person typically has many other good characteristics, too.

These superficial understandings may hold in a colloquial sense. But loyalty has many other, more technical shades involving power relations. The dictionary tells us that “loyal” means: “1. faithful to the constituted authority of one’s country; 2. faithful to those persons, ideals etc. that one is under obligation to defend, support or be true to.” Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4th Ed.). In this light, we see that “loyal” really means “dedicated to ‘established authority’ and ‘faithful to obligation.’” In other words, to be “loyal” means to respect one’s betters, whether they are good or bad. After all, “established governmental authority” does not always act nobly. Heinrich Himmler was loyal to an “established governmental authority” led by Adolf Hitler. Similarly, a lawyer under contract with a law firm would be “faithful to his obligation” to advance firm interests by derailing a government investigation intended to harm one of the firm’s clients. Thus, “loyal” people are not necessarily good. They merely fulfill their obligations. If an obligation is bad, then it is also bad to be loyal to it.

Loyalty identifies the strong and the weak. “Servants” are loyal to their “masters.” The “master” “imposes” the “duty,” and the “servant” is “faithful to the person” who “he is under obligation to defend.” The master owes nothing. He commands. The servant, on the other hand, must obey or face the consequences. If he is “disloyal,” he disobeys his master and will suffer. Yet there is no reciprocal obligation on the master’s part. The master can act any way he wants, so long as he pays the servant for his loyalty. The servant must act only as the master directs; and he may not act in a way that would be “unfaithful” to the master. This power complex may seem simplistic, but it is extremely prevalent in private life, all the way from petty employment to corporate management. Corporations, for instance, are “pseudo-masters” over every person who works under their name. Every corporate employee—whether a director, officer or wage-earner—theoretically must “serve” the corporation as “master.” Directors owe “fiduciary duties” to the corporation’s “best interests.” “Fiduciary duty” is legal jargon that means little more than “loyalty.” When a director acts, he must consider whether his action would serve his master or himself. If he serves himself, he is “disloyal” to his master and must suffer. If he serves his master, he fulfills his obligation. No matter what he does, a superior power constrains him. He is the “weak party” who owes loyalty to the “strong party.”

Power controls both public and private obligation. In both cases, weak parties owe loyalty to strong parties who control their actions. Yet there are cases in which loyalty does not indicate subservience or slavishness. Does the difference lie in the nature of the obligation at issue? I would venture that public obligations are somehow more enduring than private ones. For example, yesterday President Obama swore an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” He entered into an obligation to support the public ideals enshrined in the Constitution. Those ideals are basically good. They are enduring. They stand for principles beyond private enrichment. Strictly viewed, President Obama is the “servant” and the Constitution is his “master.” He has a duty to protect the Constitution above all else. In that sense, his “loyalty” to his “public master” is a good thing. It does not make him a bootlicker to say he “serves” the Constitution. In fact, he should be praised for putting his “constitutional master’s” interests before his own. Viewed in these terms, it seems to me that “public obligations” have a more lasting resonance than private ones.

Private obligations do not have the same thematic appeal as public obligations. For example, there is nothing particularly memorable or praiseworthy about a phone company Vice President’s obligation “not to compete” with his former employer’s company for six months following his resignation. Conceptually, he has an “obligation” just like President Obama, but the subject matter is private, not public. Here, the “master” is a private corporation that has no goal other than private profit. It stands for no larger ideals. Like the Constitution, the company is a “superior power.” It demands loyalty from its “servants,” in this case the departing Vice President. Yet “loyalty” in these circumstances has a profoundly different character than it did in President Obama’s case. Here, “loyalty” requires the company Vice President to refrain from taking a job in his old line of work for six months so that the phone company’s profits will not suffer. The master benefits financially from the servant’s loyalty, while the servant gains nothing. Still, if he defies his master, he could face legal consequences. In a word, loyalty here is pedestrian, forgettable and petty. It concerns no one but master and servant. It may be necessary to protect private enterprise, and theoretically it may be identical to public loyalty. But I venture that it differs in character from public loyalty.

Loyalty and obligation interest me because they pervade our society, yet very few people understand how they function. In sum, I believe that loyalty is not necessarily a “good word” because it depends on the obligation to which a person is loyal. Generally, I believe that public obligations are thematically more appealing than private ones, but that does not mean that all private obligations are bad, or that all public obligations are good. Yet I think it is important to understand how obligation and loyalty operate on a conceptual level, because they are hallmarks of power. When I say that obligations dominate life, I necessarily say that we live in a world of disparate power. When we understand that, we can better understand our lot. And we can also see whether our masters are justified.