Thinking About Ethics

Toward the end of this trip we'll stop at a conference where I'm scheduled to present a paper.  So along with figuring out Euros and electrical sockets and public transportation in a new city (Berlin is in many ways a new city since I was here last) I'm also trying to get the paper written. 

Basically it's about public ethics and how we think about it.  The genesis of this specific paper comes from the Alaska political trials and their aftermath, but while they have stimulated my thinking on this, I realize that there is a lot more prior experience/thought/study that get me to the argument I’m making. 

There’s a lot of background to this so I’m not sure I can explain it clearly and succinctly.  The basic argument is this:

Modern public ethics stems from our move from feudal societies to bureaucratic societies.  In the former, public works (roads, bridges, water systems, etc.) were constructed by unelected rulers and their allies who were bound to them through loyalty based on many things including, often, family ties.   The modern world used the logic of science and rationality to structure organizations and societies based on the rule of law.  So we moved from human societies where social networks and loyalty within those networks were foremost to a much more depersonalized society where before the law, everyone is supposed to be equal.  Special favors to family and friends are forbidden. Conceptually anyway.

The ethics we teach today is based on that notion - the rule of law is the standard.  I’m a strong believer in the rule of law.  It is an attempt to use reason not favoritism to govern which should lead to a more equitable society.

But over the years as I’ve dealt with public administrators dealing with actual ethical dilemmas, with the Municipal Ethics Board trying to regulate ethics, and then these trials, I’ve come to realize that our conception of ethics does not reflect our basic humanity.  We’ve told human beings to divide themselves into public and private persona.  When performing their public roles, their personal interests, they are told, should not exist.  In pursuing the rule of law, we have banned human emotion and subjectivity. 

What I’m trying to argue in this paper is that means we are banning basic human instincts and behavior forcing people into all sorts of personal conflicts  We have to rethink our theories of ethics to acknowledge human subjectivity and find better ways to deal with it than we have now, which is to basically suppress it.  

The rules we have now are often mechanical which cause a great deal of inconvenience and possible technical violations that really are irrelevant to good government, yet allow serious ethical compromises.  Our laws tend to ban human civility and courtesy as potential ethical violations.  For example, as a volunteer  legislative staffer, I was told I would not be able to live in Juneau with an old friend without paying him, because I could not accept any gifts over $250.  This was despite the fact that he and his wife had often stayed with us in Anchorage.  So our basic social relationship as friends, if I had stayed with him, would have been forced into a business relationship.  Even more bizarre was the case of a legislative staffer who, if she lived with her mother in Juneau, would have had to pay rent because her mother was a lobbyist.  The fact that the staffer had a lobbyist for a mother was ok.  But if she lived with her, she’d have to pay rent. 

This is just a rough overview of the what I’m working on.  As you can see, spelling it out is not easy.  And I’m not sure what I can offer as an improvement in ethics overall other than recognizing explicitly that human beings cannot simply divide themselves into separate roles.  One option I’ve written about previously is to focus on the negative consequences of conflicts of interest rather than on the conflicts themselves.  The two key ones I see are undue gain (getting benefits that are not due the administrator through his contract) and improper influence (making public decisions using non-standard criteria (particularly criteria based on personal bias and/or benefit). 

So, I’m trying to squeeze a little more out of my brain each day to be able to explain this clearly - and also to understand it myself better.  The good part of this is that I can empathize with my daughter as she goes through a similar process to complete her dissertation.  I’m writing this after walking her to the Institute where she’s working on it. 

Berlin Thoughts - Bruno Taut, Architect

No new pictures today, I left my sd card in the computer.  But some from yesterday. 

Some things are starting to look familiar. It seemed like a warm day today though it was only in the high 60s (@20C). We met M's friend again and visited the flea market in old East Berlin. I bought a used cell phone. Now I need to get a sim card. Also bought a converter plug. Germany has round prongs that go into the wall. I think I got what I needed but at M's place, the sockets are deep in the wall and this won't fit in the hole.

I am still trying to make sense of things here. Blue jeans, generally tighter than in the US, are the norm. T shirts, long sleeve t's, hooded sweatshirts, layers, baggy sweaters, it's a very informal, almost intentionally sloppy look. I almost fit in.

M is staying in a really wonderful place. I was surprised to learn today that it was built in 1928. The Bauhaus architect, Bruno Taut, designed it as public housing for working class families. The rooms are very big, there are lots of windows, and while the floors are original, some of it has been modernized inside. It also has lots of garden area and the owner was busy planting flower pots on this first really nice Sunday.  Here's from Spiritus-Temporis: 

In 1924 [Taut] was made chief architect of GEHAG, a private housing concern, and designed several successful large residential developments ("Gross-Siedlungen") in Berlin, notably the 1925 Horseshoe Development ("Hufeisensiedlung"), named for its configuration around a pond, and the 1926 Uncle Tom's Cabin Development ("Onkel-Toms Hutte") in Zehlendorf, oddly named for a local restaurant and set in a thick grove of trees. The designs featured controversially modern flat roofs, humane access to sun, air and gardens, and generous amenities like gas, electric light, and bathrooms. Critics on the political Right complained that these developments were too opulent for 'simple people'. The progressive Berlin mayor Gustav Böss defended them: "We want to bring the lower levels of society higher."

Here's a view downstairs from the kitchen to the sun room.

This is the view from M's work table.  It's not that clear in the picture, but there are two sets of windows with an empty space in between. 

Here's a view from M's bedroom. 


I think I'm still feeling the effects of jetlag and my body isn't quite at home here yet.  But people have been very tolerant of my reawakening German. 

We'll be here until Friday.  Easy Jet to London cost us 83 Euros for two one way, which seems pretty reasonable - about $120.

Here's M's room.  


More tomorrow.  (It's after 11pm here and people have work tomorrow.)

Busy Saturday in Berlin 2 - River Walk and Second Movie

We had time to kill before the second movie so we walked along a small river, a canal almost.  There were lots of people there, lots of beer. 

Now we're in Görlitzer Park where lots of people were taking advantage of a warmish (it was one of those days where it seems warm in the sun and chilly in the shade) Saturday.  This group brought along their water pipes.

This was on the back of the building above.

This is the Görlitzer Subway station.

The movie was being shown in a building that had been taken over by squatters in the early 90s.  This is in the old East Berlin.  It had been rotting inside and was vacant, and unowned, I was told.  The squatters totally redid the insides and eventually gained title to the building.  Today, I was told, there are 22 people living here including 7 children.  This is where M's friend lives.

Here's a hallway I took to get to a restroom.

Here's the huge communal kitchen.  It reminded me of the kitchen in the Russian movie Hipsters that showed in the Anchorage [NOT Alaska] International Film Festival in December. 

And here's the room we saw the movie in.  It was video of a river in Jakarta, totally polluted with garbage.  As the scene moves along the river, the narrator reads from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.  Then we got the U-Bahn and S-Bahn home.

Busy Saturday in Berlin - Football, Protests (Scientology and Munzur Dam), Food

We were invited (through my daughter) to two movie showings today.  A world premiere partly made by the son of someone we know at a theater that has operated since silent movies and a showing of another short film made by the boyfriend of M's friend. In between we walked around. Here are some pictures that will give you a little look at the city we experienced today.

 There were lots of people with blue and white towels headed for a football game. 

They obviously take this seriously and despite the fact that their team is not doing well, they made lots of noise at a number of the U-Bahn stations.

Random shot from the S-Bahn (train that tends to be above ground)

Here we are outside the Bablylon Kino (Movie) where our friend's son's movie was being shown.  I didn't write down the name.  It was a 45 minute short and I didn't understand a lot of what they said.  It was an experimental/art film according to the person who introduced it. [Later: Wait, I do have it, "Alles an mir". But don't wait for it to come to a theater near you. It's 40 minutes and rather dark.]

This is inside the theater which is quite elegant.  The seats were not only comfortable, but there was plenty of room for someone to walk by.

After the crew and cast who were there went  up front.

If I've kept things straight, we are now at Potsdamer Platz to meet M's frined.

This man is warning people about Scientology.  You can see another man on the same mission below along with the redshirted scientologists in the background.  He said he wears the mask because the scientologists otherwise would track him donw and harass him as they did to someone several years ago. 

Someone was passing out green fliers about stopping the Turkish government from building a dam that would destroy the Munzur National Park. 

We had dinner in a Turkish restaurant.  Prices are in Euros

Here's the bread that came with dinner.

I'll post another one, but this is long enough for now.

Arrived in Sunny, Cool Berlin

It was only seven hours once we actually got off the ground.  We idled over an hour waiting to take off.  The plane was full, though I did see one empty seat.  The man sitting behind us was on the plane last week when it turned around after an hour. The attendant announced it was the first flight to Berlin, which I assumed meant Delta's first flight after the volcano. 

We left, finally, at about 8pm.  Seven hours isn't a lot of time to settle in, eat, sleep, eat and get out.  I woke up with Holland below.

Germany.

Germany, with windmills.

Coming into Berlin.

Landed at Tegel Airport in Berlin.

Our daughter met us as we came out of Customs.  We took a short bus ride to the subway.

On the subway (U-Bahn).

M's stop has a familiar name.  I don't think you need to know German to get it.

Wie Es Euch Gefällt = As You Like it.

M's room in the apartment.

The view from her room.

Leaving's Looking Good

Long delay for a 45 minute flight in DC.  Things not well organized,  but we made it into JFK in New York just before a storm hit.  It began raining on the tarmac.  We were in a CRJ 900 which didn't connect to the terminal.  Then they said they had closed the airport terminals until the thunderstorm ended, so we sat longer. 

We walked along this makeshift terminal until we finally got to a back door of the real terminal. 

We wandered around until we found our gate passing the various shops, including this duty free shop.

Planes are leaving for all over from here.

And I'm posting this courtesy of Healthy Gourmet which has free wifi in the Delta terminal near gate 14.