An essay.
An
Ancient Problem: When Harm Is Allowed to Repeat Itself
There is nothing new about this problem. It is as old as human
society.
Human beings have always struggled with what happens when power is
exercised without accountability. When wrongdoing is ignored, hidden, excused,
or treated with indifference, the danger is that it becomes easier for the same
kind of wrongdoing to happen again.
We see this throughout human history. Abuse can remain hidden for
years because people are silent, because those affected are afraid to speak, or
because institutions find it easier not to look too closely. Silence does not
necessarily cause the original wrong, but it can create the conditions in which
wrongdoing continues.
The same principle applies to money and fiduciary power.
If a person entrusted with another person’s property learns that
questionable spending will not be seriously examined, the lesson is not that
the law is strong. The lesson is that nobody is watching.
And other people watching the system may learn the same lesson.
That is how standards deteriorate. One shortcut becomes accepted
practice. Accepted practice becomes tradition. Tradition eventually becomes
something nobody thinks to question.
The law may still be written in the books, but human behaviour has
moved around it. Fiduciary trust has drifted to catch me if you can and if you do catch me what are you going to do about it. Appealing is an oxymoron. And those that do wrong and scarcastically tell you to appeal know you never will so bad behavior is sweeped under the carpet or flouted. These options are insidious and insulting.
This is why accountability matters. It is not simply about punishing
somebody after something has gone wrong. Accountability tells everyone else
where the boundary is.
Without that boundary, society risks entering a cycle in which harm
produces more harm, silence protects the wrongdoing, and indifference allows it
to become normal.
That is the ancient danger behind what is hidden anarchy:
Wrongdoing does not have to be openly permitted. It only has to become something nobody is willing or able to stop. And it can repeat over and over so its appears to be normal.
