Not just in Kenya. Corruption = Power + Hypocrisy

If you are wondering how Tony Blair sleeps at night after admitting that he lied and lied again about Iraq and still insists he did the right thing, wonder no more, the answer is Hypocrisy.

In a current article in the Economist (Jan 23 2010) titled “The Psychology of Power: Absolutely” we learn that power corrupts but only those who think they deserve it.

A series of rather clever experiments asked university students to imagine a time when they were in a position of high or low power, and to then make decisions about morality. They rated on a morality scale of 1 – 9 how immoral it was to over report travel expenses at work. The findings are a revelation. Those who imagined they had high power, thought it was not all that immoral, while those in the low power group found it morally objectionable to over report travel expenses.

Another group played a dice power game and had to volunteer their score, a value between 1 and 100. Those High Power volunteeres claimed to have rolled 70 on average, clearly lying – the statistical average is of course 50! The low power group reported an average of 59 …they too cheated but just a bit in comparison. The study goes on to explore how power corrupts those who feel they deserve power. These results are very relevant to people we know quite well, Tony Blair, George Bush, Robert Mugabe, Daniel, Gideon and other Mois, Emilio, Jimmy, Lucy and other Kibaki’s, Uhuru, Muhoho and other Kenyattas as well as the likes of Raila and other Odingas. People who believe they were born privelaged.

The scientsists from Tilburg University in Holland report that the culture of entitlement is the basis for much of the corruption we see in the world today. The students in the experiment who reported that they were entitled to power, were complete and total hypocrits and were very likely to abuse power and forgive those who also abuse power. Sound a little like Tony Blair and the Iraq affair, Kibaki and the election crisis, Moi and the Mau, Mugage and his cronies land grabbing?

And what’s interesting is that those students who felt they were not entiteld to power were much more likely to adhere to the law and judged those who failed to do so harshly. But when transgressions were made, they judged themselves more harshly than others. They are labelled hypercrits – they judge themselves even more harshely than others.

The article suggests that these people are in general quite submissive. Perhaps this is why the whistle blowers of Kenya always disappear into thin air. I mean what ever happened to John Githongo, Maina Kiai, Wangari Maathai, Gladwell Otieno, and others?

It may also reveal why we can’t elect good honest people to parliament, they simply aren’t ‘macho’ enough. Is this why we always support crops of thieving murdering pathological liars to our leadership? I mean how does the sewer rat Cyrus Jirongo keep popping up? I personally wonder if corrupt behaviour innate or is learned – I mean did Jimmy learn from Emilio? Did Gideon get his talents from Daddy?, and Uhuru – is he a chip off the old shoulder, like George Bush Jnr?  I suspect that the scientists are right and if so we’re so totally screwed because democracy cannot then work. What we need is dictatorship by honest wimps.