Guarding the Guardians through Vigilance, Leadership, and Professional Ethics

Fresno Bee, March 21, 2021

Who guards the guardians? This age-old question points to a fundamental problem in social life. Powerful institutions can be corrupted by bad actors. Oversight depends upon the virtue and vigilance of those who guard the guardians.

Oversight systems should clarify shared values, shed light on misdeeds, and take action to remove bad actors. Of course, this can become problematic, when partisans and cronies engage in cover-ups or refuse to remove the bad apples. Sycophants create elaborate defensive maneuvers. Bureaucratic procedures impede investigations. And sometimes the bad guys skate away.

This happens in the halls of justice, beneath the academic ivy, and behind the stained-glass curtain. Bad cops get away with murder. Perverted priests are shuffled about. Terrible teachers receive tenure. Lawyers and doctors do dumb and dangerous things. And corrupt politicians get pardoned.

Stories of failed oversight can produce deep cynicism. We are rightly appalled by moral failures in churches, schools and governments. It is frightening when the sheepdogs go bad and start preying upon the sheep.

Some cynics choose to trust no one in authority. But radical suspicion is dangerous and dysfunctional. If you suspect that every doctor is a lying cheat, you’ll ignore legitimate medical advice. If you think that all politicians are corrupt, you’ll stop voting. If you are wary of cops and teachers and other authorities, you’ll end up living in an outlaw limbo.

The cynics remind us that trust has to be earned. But trust is rational, much of the time. We make a leap of faith about the sanity and skill of other drivers, every time we get behind the wheel. Usually this works out well enough.

And despite cover-ups, failures, and delays, oversight systems can work. But they only work when leaders lead with integrity and when the rest of us demand accountability.

There are reassuring stories. This week in Fresno, the chief of police and the mayor (who is the former chief) spoke out against racist cops in the police department. The chief, Paco Balderrama, said, “Fair and impartial policing are extremely important in our society. There is no place in our police ranks for any biased, racist, or anti-Semitic views.”

Or consider the growing outrage about the governor of New York. Instead of circling the wagons to defend Andrew Cuomo against charges he sexually harassed multiple women, leading New York Democrats called for him to resign.

This is how oversight ought to work. Allegations of wrongdoing must be taken seriously. Leaders must articulate fundamental values. They must demonstrate their concern for ethics and the truth — in words and action.

This seems simple and obvious. But problems remain. Those who best guard the guardians are also those who possess the requisite expertise and experience to do that job. This often makes them part of a small, tight-knit fraternity. It is easy to give friends and colleagues the benefit of the doubt. And in politics especially, there are self-interested reasons for covering-up wrongdoing.

Plato proposed an ideal solution. He wanted only the wisest and most virtuous people to serve as guardians. But this solution requires another leap of faith. Philosopher-kings will be tempted to abuse their power. And who will hold them accountable or remove them when they become tyrannical? Plato left that unexplained.

The modern American solution points in a different direction. Instead of concentrating power in the hands of a small group of guardians, we spread the oversight power in a more democratic fashion. This is our celebrated system of checks and balances, intended to prevent bad actors from consolidating power.

This clunky system prevents tyranny. But it does not necessarily work to regulate doctors, teachers, and other non-elected authorities.

This is where professional ethics comes in, along with external oversight and legal liability. Professions are mostly self-regulating. Doctors supervise other doctors. Professors certify other professors. And so on. Much depends on the virtue and wisdom of the professionals themselves. But external auditors and lawsuits also shed light.

At the end of the day, in a democratic country, oversight depends upon what “we, the people” demand. Who guards the guardians? Well, we do — in our professional lives and in the voting booth. Cynicism won’t improve the world. Only virtue and vigilance can do that.

The Blame Game

When bad stuff happens, we want someone to blame.  But blame assumes a kind of agency that most of us lack.  Luck is as important as intention.  And culture and nature matter more than the choices of individuals.

Recent events show us how the blame game works.  The White House has blamed the Covid-19 pandemic on China.  White House trade adviser Peter Navarro recently claimed that China “spawned” the virus and deliberately spread the disease. Meanwhile, Trump’s critics blame him.  One recent article carried the headline, “It Really Is Trump’s Fault.”  Another said, “Covid 19: Blame Trump.” 

All of this oversimplifies the causal reality of the pandemic, which involves the complexities of microbiology, economics, and the daily choices of billions of people.  Policy and law can have some influence.  But there are more fundamental forces at play in the pandemic.

If we want to blame something for the explosion of the pandemic in the U.S., we might blame American individualism, libertarianism, and consumerism.  Trump did not invent these forces.  Nor did he (or China) cause the pandemic to blow up here. 

That explosion involved the choices of governors, mayors, businesses, and ordinary citizens.  Lots of people ignored the need for social distancing.  The virus did the rest, moving according to its own logic.

Trump cannot save us from the pandemic, by the way. That’s up to us.  To be critical of the blame game is also to be critical of hero-worship and the cult of leadership.  A leader can only take people in a direction they are willing to go.

When we understand the power of culture and nature, the blame game fades in importance.  For example, some blame the victims of hurricanes, wildfires, and earthquakes for building their homes in danger zones.  But economic forces create conditions in which some people have no other viable places to live.  And destruction or survival in a storm or an earthquake is often a matter of luck.

A fuller account of causality offers a more convoluted picture of our choices.  Blame (or praise) assumes a myth about free choice in these matters that hearkens back to the myth of original sin. A more scientific account of causality makes that myth seem silly.

At the level of leadership, the blame game assumes that leaders are free to create policies independently of the parties, systems, and circumstances in which they operate.  In reality, human beings—including leaders—are buffeted by cultural and natural forces that are beyond our control.

And yet, when things feel out of control, we search for someone to blame.  This can lead to scapegoating.  In heaping blame upon a scapegoat, we seek a semblance of power in the face of powerlessness.  It feels good to blame bad things on some person, party, race, or nation.  In older times, the need to blame a malicious agent escalated into claims about witches, demons, and devils.  These days, it manifests as absurd conspiracy theories that imagine some secret cabal of evil geniuses pulling strings behind the scenes. 

A further problem is that blame is retrospective and retributive.  To focus on blame is to dwell in the past and to look for someone to punish.  But this can prevent us from moving forward.  We should learn from the past and avoid previous mistakes.  But the goal should be to study the past in order to build the future.  Rather than focusing on whom to blame, we ought to think about what we need to do next time.  John F. Kennedy once said, “Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past.  Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.” 

To avoid the blame game is not to give up on accountability.  Leadership matters.  Incompetent and malicious leaders should be replaced.  And indeed, a larger point of view makes it easier to move on.  If there are no evil geniuses, there are also no saviors or superheroes.  No leader is indispensable. 

Knowledge, expertise, and experience can help us ride through bad times.  But bad stuff is often a matter of bad luck and the larger forces of culture, institutions, and nature.  And often we really have no one to blame but ourselves.  Once we realize this, it is easier to leave the blame game behind and get to work on preparing for tomorrow.