ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR

I’ve been thinking about ethics which is rather like saying “I’ve been thinking about algebra” - because “ethics” sounds so dry and academic. It’s what the ancient Greeks spent their Sunday afternoons talking about. Here’s what got me thinking: old Aristotle supping, as it were over his pint, and muttering:
“We do not act rightly because we have virtue and excellence but rather we have those because we acted rightly.”

Attitude doesn’t determine our behaviour…it’s our instinctive behaviour that shapes our attitudes.

So how are we doing?

Not very well - be depressed if you look at the past weeks where events have been created from pragmatism, cynicism and a mix of lawyers saying “don’t say that” , PR people adopting the well-worn approach “we need a new strategy - we’ll have to lie” and strategists saying “we must win…regardless”.
In politics the same unpredictable/inevitable occurs. Trump wins in Indiana and all-but the Republican nomination. This reminds me of the Democrat Donald Tuck who allegedly once said “the people have spoken …the bastards.”

Behaviour is uniformly devoid of ethics and disregards consequences….Zac Goldsmith’s abortive campaign in the London Mayorial contest was designed only to win at any cost. Trump says whatever gets a headline. Meanwhile some of the comments made on both sides in the current wretched EU Referendum Campaign remind me of Shakespeare’s Henry VI and the War of the Roses and are shamelessly bellicose.

“Now, York, or never steel thy fearful thoughts
And change misdoubt to resolution”

The Hollow Crown, on BBC 2, is brilliant study of amorality apart from the appearance of well- known faces in new parts. Downton Abbey meets Lark Rise meets Last Tango in Halifax meets Mr Selfridge.
And with those familiar faces comes an expectation of how they’ll behave…Richard of York is Adrian Dunbar the actor most recently seen as Superintendent Ted Hastings head of police crime investigation unit C12 in Line of Duty.

There he’s a paragon of ethics. And now transformed to an iambically pentameter wielding politician.
The expression “all’s fair in love and war” finds its earliest manifestation in Shelton’s translation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote in 1620:

“love and war are all one…it is lawful to use sleights and stratagems to attain the wished end”

Only it isn’t. It just isn’t - as Aleppo shows us to our collective shame. It isn’t - as Hillsborough showed us. It isn’t - as Sebb Blatter and his crew have discovered.

A good friend of mine - a very senior Civil Servant - is aghast by the continuing evidence of the institution he’s been brought up to trust, the Police. There’s little sign over time of their “acting rightly”.

The good news is an emerging younger generation of ethical minds.

Q. Isn’t Suarez a great striker?
A (from 7 year old Grandson): No. He’s terrible. He bites.

“We do not act rightly because we have virtue and excellence but rather we have those because we acted rightly.”

USE YOUR BETTER JUDGEMENT

I love that moment when one discovers a good, new word, the sort that one wants to use a lot in the certain knowledge that 99.9% of the population will look at you blankly when, with superior triumph, you use it.
I recall in advertising when a client gave the agency, through me, a bollocking that one feared was the prelude to the process of a messy firing. We had failed to do something important on time. So I said to him
somewhat sadly:

“This is I’m afraid my fault. I’ve been dilatory.”

To which he replied

“My dear chap, I’m so sorry, I quite understand. Don’t worry and I hope you get better soon.”

The word I found was “akraisia” in Ian McEwan’s latest book “Sweet Tooth”.  It means literally lacking self-control or more usefully, acting against one’s better judgement. Now, for those of you familiar with Greek philosophy (or more likely Wikipedia) you’ll know that Socrates – rather naively it would seem – said no one willingly goes towards the bad so it’s illogical to do so (I suppose Spock was a disciple of Socrates) whilst Aristotle thought the opinion of others could make us do things we otherwise wouldn’t.

Ian McEwan, whose books always lead one inexorably towards a bad ending is a frequent user of the “why did I do that?” plot line. He is a profoundly akratic writer (probably a cheery soul) but to whom the happy ending is rather alien and he’s also has a very astute judge of the zeitgeist.

And it occurs to me that in this marketing-mad world that politicians and company heads are constantly listening to opinion and doing things against their better judgement.  The current furore in the coalition (and politics in general) is a vivid story of akraisa on all sides.

Richard French (the skilled ad man) used to say “tell the truth because then you don’t have to remember what you said.” He and Margaret Thatcher never acted against their better judgement – even when they were wrong.

Nor did Steve Jobs, whose attitude to consumer research is well known. Here he demolishes someone else’s opinion.

In my advice to people running businesses I advise them to “train their gut” so over time their intuitive instincts and values become so clearly embedded that, without having to consult a corporate manual to discover, for instance, that stealing is wrong or that lies catch up with you, they know what is right and wrong.

As I get older I realise my better judgement is one of my strongest assets and, whatever the consequences, I intend to use it more and more.

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