What's the big deal ?

In school, Our Class teachers would unfailingly always appoint the boy/girl who excels in the exam as the class monitor. The decision is made on the fundamental assumption that excellence translates into integrity/honesty (needed for the role of a class monitor in this case). 

The inevitable question which arises is whether it holds true or not ? In school, among children, I would say it doesn't matter because those are the ages when an individual forms his moral values and is not driven by them.

Why this question in the first place ?

Across the country, various bureaucrats trained in reputed institutions across the country/world (IITs, Harvard etc) get caught in scams/taking kickbacks. These IAS/IPS officers are meritorious people who have excelled in exams right from school days.

White Collar Crimes across the world are committed by Individuals who have graduated from renowned institutions (HBS, Stanford etc). Undoubtedly these brilliant individuals had forgotten the golden truth taught in all schools, "Honesty is the best policy".

Take the Case of a certain McKinsey Head, IIT-D, HBS passout. He was involved in an insider trading scam, which basically translates into a white collar crime of immense magnitude.

What does it boil down to ?

The question is whether we have our ethics in the right place. Another point which arises out of these examples is excellence/meritocracy doesn't mean integrity/honesty. It never did. But, Sadly we always confuse these different values and more often than not, we consider a meritorious person as an honest/upright fellow.

Fortunately, People/MBA Schools seem to be realizing this fact. Almost all reputed B-Schools have introduced an ethics code in their curriculum.

But, Is it too late to teach a person ethics ?

Ethics/Integrity and its synonyms are values meant to be imbibed as a child, as a class monitor or otherwise. As people engaged in a rat race, we mistakenly search for meritocracy at the cost of integrity. We would employ all means to be successful, to be heard.

"In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you."

— Warren Buffet
CEO, Berkshire Hathaway

Read :

http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm

What Stops us ?

Sitting inside our air-conditioned cars, We would hardly bother about the beggar staring at us through the translucent window panes. I can hardly forget the face of a little boy wiping the screen of our car, whenever we would stop at a signal. 

The difference between these two worlds might be much more than the extra ten degrees of heat faced by the poor child but the thing which separates us ultimately is only an auto-window button, waiting for our command.

But, What stops us most of the time from pressing the auto-window button ?

People of a logical bent might argue that such a gesture would only encourage more beggars to surround the car. After all, Begging should not be encouraged as it is not compliant with our capitalist philosophy of "the one who works gets the money". 

I argue otherwise. The philosophy of "the one who works gets the money", doesn't work in our world with people with different starting points. This is especially true in case of the downtrodden who are devoid of all the benefits the middle class/upper class enjoys.

Enough philosophy talk. It still doesn't make a difference to the beggar who cares shit about our debates on TV's/newspapers/this blog etc. 

Let me divert from the topic, to illustrate:

I stay in a hostel where people from across the country, from different backgrounds would stay together. I come from one of the glitzy suburbs of Mumbai. But, I have a friend who has come from a village, 1600 km away from Mumbai and away from the hustle-bustle. Firstly, He is not really poor.But, He told me once :

"You know, If you ask a person from the city to lend something, He will ask you ten questions, probably decline or agree hesitatingly. But, If you ask someone from a village for something, he will not think twice before agreeing to your request. Village life is much more simpler and sweeter than city life, where you cannot sleep without worrying about something"

This made me think. Have we lost our innocence and that helping nature, amidst the race which exists in our lives ?

Education truly has helped us grow as individuals but this should not replace our core values. Probably, we have started applying way too much economics into our core values. Just imagine a world where everyone believes in the "Invisible Hand" theory by Adam Smith and apply it to everything they do or see. 

Sometimes, Economics cannot be applied to everything we do. Sometimes, We must put things which seem irrational for an economist into action. Sometimes, We should just press the auto-window button.

But, Still What Stops us ?