An Education In Corruption

4. An Education In Corruption.

The ongoing overhaul of British MP’s expenses has caused widespread outrage, but it has been little more than an exercise in printing money by the Telegraph, the newspaper which expertly “leaked” the details over many weeks, thus maximising their profits, and at the same time managing to focus as much bile upon the ruling Labour party as possible, Tory moat-cleaning and duck house constructions notwithstanding.

No sector of society is free from this kind of fraud, or other kinds. There was the recent case of vicar Reverend Alex Brown of St Leonards-on-Sea charged with having conducted 180 sham marriages, allowing non-European Union nationals to stay in Britain and Europe. We do not yet know his motives, but we can imagine that personal gain might have had something to do with it.

The pretense here is to pretend that people in public life are pure of heart, when it is a given that the vast majority of people in public life are there for personal glory, financial enrichment, or for their greater comfort in one way or another. It has always been the case that those in power will seek to use their positions for profit. Why on earth do we preach otherwise?

The problem is exascerbated and continued by bringing up children with idealism stamped across reality, so that they have no concept of the way society is actually run and no strategies to cope.

Let us remind children of these facts, so that they may be less surprised and more awake to the reality of the power structures which exist only to deplete their life chances and reduce their options. Let them be aware of the corrupt nature of the world, and thus all the better prepared for it. Let us teach them the nature of corruption, in order to be able to spot it and not be its victim.

Of course, this would eventually undermine much of society, which is a good thing.

The fourth in a series of proposals designed to make all our lives easier, more fulfilling, lovelier journeys.