Monday, February 15, 2010

Ethics, Epistemology and “Dirty Rotten Strategies”

from Health After Oil. This is a review of a book by this name authored by Ian Mitroff and Abraham Silvers. Their take on the subject seems a bit too intellectualized for my taste.
These errors are endemic because –despite all remonstrance to the contrary- Americans are not consistently socialized, educated and rewarded to value thinking in terms of systems and complexity.
Of course they're not socialized this way (the authors of the next article are an example)--they would be a danger to the interests of the ruling class if they were. However insights like the following suggest that the authors have a good understanding of their subject:
…modern capitalism has a number of the critical characteristics associated with sociopathology, for example, the commission of unethical acts intentionally designed to hoodwink the public; the glorification of unethical behavior, such as unrestrained greed; and little or no guilt associated with deceptive and unethical behavior.