The family unit is the primary foundation of behavioral learning and establishment of values. Unfortunately, American families have changed drastically in the past seventy-five years. The post war (World War II) construction of suburbs and super-highways allowed people to seek jobs in cities, often far from "home," removing their children from frequent interaction with grandparents and other family members (aunts, cousins, etc.). While creating more mobility, it also caused two long-term difficulties.
First, the children of the "baby boom," and subsequently their children as well, were deprived of the opportunity to develop a sense of self, or personal identity, in connection with an extended family group. And second, at least one author (C. William Thomas) suggests there is a maturity factor involved in the formation and application of ethics in business. The younger generations were not frequently exposed to older (50+) adults who could influence more conservative behavior.
Pursuit of the proverbial "American dream" has now thrust a majority of families into the two-income household category. While it may have improved average household income levels, it also created successive generations of "latch-key kids," resulting in two additional adverse factors. More children now receive societal indoctrination from television and/or their peer groups after school than from the traditional family unit. And second, with increased time (and often travel) demands placed on parents by their careers, the availability of meaningful interaction time between the child(ren) and parents has become minimal, and in many cases, non-existent.
Another major source of family disruption in recent years is the divorce rate and resultant single-parent families. It is often necessary for one or both parents to work at more than one job to support separate households. Of course, this further reduces the time available for parenting. The child(ren) of divorce generally receive values-oriented nurturing from only one perspective, that of the custodial parent, if at all. The world as seen from a female frame of reference is often quite different than from a male point of view. Regardless of which parent has custody, the child(ren) does not receive a balanced presentation of ethical norms and societal expectations.
religion
If the family unit is the primary source of social training, organized religion is a veryclose second. Typically the family would base its set of values ("morals") on the teachings of theplace of worship attended. In general, church membership and regular attendance in the U.S. has held steady over the past seventy-five years. There are several factors which have no doubt contributed to this flat trend.
Perhaps the most significant cause may be disenchantment. While America prides itself on being a "melting pot" of nationalities, it also is a place of cultural clashes. One has only to view the historical persecution of Mormons, Catholics, Quakers, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. to understand the tension created. Even among Protestants, there are hundreds of sub-classifications with widely diverse concepts of acceptable norms.
As long as one was nestled safely in a hometown or neighborhood with minimal exposure to strangers and different beliefs, there were relatively few such problems. However, the past half-century has involved the U.S. in five major military campaigns; and developed super-highways, live television coverage via satellites, and jet aircraft. All of these have exposed the individual to a myriad of unfamiliar cultures and conflicting sets of values, as well as new temptations, pressures, and the visual realities of mass destruction.
Probably the most critical of these new pressures was survival itself, at least economically if not physically. For example, the individual may have been indoctrinated with the "Golden Rule," and "Love Thy Neighbor," and the "Ten Commandments," including "thou shalt not steal" and "thou shalt not bear false witness (lie)." When thrust into the "big/real" world (military combat service, new jobs, college, etc.), the individual discovered not everyone else was playing by the same, or even similar, sets of rules. He or she was forced to adapt or perish. And, maybe for the first time, abandon the comfortable and familiar faith along with its associated values.
A second dominant factor in the doubts of organized religion is the accelerating trend toward commercialization. Churches now own television and radio stations and networks, rental property, amusement parks, farms and ranches, etc. It would appear the emphasis is no longer promoting the church or what is stands for, but rather the personality and power of the central clerical figure, e.g., Jerry Falwell, Robert Schuler, Oral Roberts, etc. Continuing exposures of high-profile ministries and “family-values” political figures, as well as thousands of charges of sexual molestation by Catholic priests, have created a cloud of doubt in the minds of the general public.
This leads to the third issue in determining causes for the splintering of religious influence: hypocrisy. Clerical leaders are expected, or at a minimum perceived, by their followers to be of strong moral character, as defined by the religions. Since the ministers are spokespersons of the church, and more frequently the central driving force, the credibility of the organization is directly related to that of their ministers.
There is one concluding note of irony on the issue of hypocrisy. In 1969, Richard Nixon appointed the founder of Citizens for Decent Literature (CDL) to his Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. After two years of interviews and empirical studies, the Commission determined that a majority of imprisoned sex offenders (rapists, child molesters, exhibitionists, etc.) came from homes with "strict, religious beliefs" rather than permissive, open families as Nixon and the CDL had claimed. Since the CDL's founder was in the minority (3 of 18 members) on the Committee, he could not block public release of the formal report, in spite of attempts to do so. Both he and Nixon were outraged at the findings, certain as they were of a linkage between pornography and crime in general.
Five years later, Nixon left the White House in disgrace. What became of the founder of CDL? Charles Keating was convicted for "misappropriating" two billion dollars and bribing U.S. senators in connection with Lincoln Thrift. This also provides an excellent example of the dichotomy between personal and career-related ethics.
peer groups
With the decline of influence of the family and religious organizations, the need for affiliation (Maslow) drives the individual to seek acceptance within peer groups. An important consideration is that participation in peer groups is rarely of a conscientious, voluntary nature. Quite often, coercion is involved; at a minimum, the individual may lack preferable alternatives. For example:
- A child is given a choice between joining a gang, or being one of its targets or victims
- A male teenager joins the football team, while the female becomes a cheerleader; the
alternatives would to be viewed as "outsiders" - A worker who crosses a union picket line is deemed a "scab," and subjected to abuse by
fellow employees - Executives are frequently pressured to choose between doing what is right versus what is most profitable.
In terms of the effects of peer groups on organizational behavior, the norms of acceptable actions and attitudes are set by the leader(s) of the peer group. The majority of these individuals are driven by egoistic motivations (i.e., ethics of personal advantage), and duality on the part of group members is expected, if not demanded.
heroes and role models
Another source of values training has all but disappeared. As with religion, the public has been repeatedly disappointed with celebrities. Those groups once admired, even revered, such as actors, musicians, soldiers, athletes and politicians, have all fallen from grace over the past four decades.
For the most part, they have succumbed to a multitude of the human weaknesses identified above, including: drugs and alcohol; adultery,molestation or other actions deemed to be sexual improprieties; payoffs and bribery; cheating and/or lying. In the interest of increased audiences (viewers, listeners and readers), the media has made all public figures' lives the subject of intense scrutiny. As a result, the world has few, if any, heroes left.
government (including schools and universities)
Governmental units are a fifth traditional source of ethical teachings. Local, state and federal agencies generate innumerable laws, rules and procedures. Similarly, schools and universities provide exposure to proprieties, rules, norms and, to some extent, ethical values. As sources of indoctrination, all governmental bodies have developed near-fatal flaws, which have rendered them ineffective at best, and infinitely damaging at worst. These include:
- Lack of Focus - What is wrong with a central government setting the pattern for ethical behavior? John A. Howard states forthrightly, "The American government, itself, has changed drastically, for now its primary activity is to dispense services and subsidies, privileges and protection to categories of citizens in eternal and often hostile competition with each other. ...it is my conviction that the central government was the decisive force in stripping the nation of its capacity to teach each new generation how to live as civilized people.... Gordon Chalmers summarized his 1952 landmark volume of educational philosophy, The Republic and the Person, with this phrase, The proper object of school and college is moral maturity.'"
- Corruption and Deterioration of Values - Howard further declared, "Integrity has fled the marketplace to such an extent that Harvard University has accepted a $20,000,000 endowment to contrive an ethical cure for the business community. In government, corruption is so vast and intricate that ethics commissions sent out to track down the sources of dishonesty have vanished altogether, or been eaten by savages, according to one report.... The integrity, wisdom, morality and virtue of a candidate have become subordinate qualifications and may even be a hindrance in the politics of delivering favors to the home folks."
- inappropriate and/or Ineffective Actions - Mitchell and Scott discuss a concept called quandary ethics, which basically assumes these issues are simply problems to be solved, or "quandaries." From an educational perspective, "Students are asked to address ethical matters through analyzing case studies, engaging in role playing, or solving critical incidents. These techniques are often buttressed with lectures by professors, talks by guest speakers, and selected readings from moral philosophy classics." The major weakness with this method, they note, is that it only alludes to a "quick-fix educational solution," and uses common and comfortable teaching techniques, an obvious advantage for the professor. It is also rules-driven, not based on independently derived concepts. It's easier for us teach children to follow rules than to teach them to understand why a particular decision is ethical or not.
Originally appeared in Ethics in Organizational Behavior (1994) by Michael Smith CPA, MBA
No comments:
Post a Comment