Friday the 13th
Today is that magically reoccurring phenomenon of a Friday which falls on the 13th day of the month. This happens once every 212.35 days, so at least once a year. That means we get to think about strange coincidences affecting our lives at lest that often. Today I am finishing up a forced march to grade thirty-three final exams from my Law, Policy & Ethics course that I gave to end the class on Wednesday night at 9pm. I have therefore spent a good deal of time yesterday and again starting early this morning, reading over and over the seven short essay (150 words or less) exam questions I assigned the students and an extra credit question asking them if they found my mandate that they must fill out their course evaluations (anonymously) for the exam to begin to be an infringement on their personal freedom or something for the common good. That extra question nearly mimicked the last exam question on the balancing act of individual freedom and the common good, so it seemed very relevant to ask as a real life example of how ethics surrounds us every day and that it cannot avoid being judgmental to a degree and rarely absolute.
Let me start by saying that I got thirty-two evaluations filed (one unidentified holdout) and gave the exam anyway starting 1 minute after the deadline. I then added the extra credit question for an added point (a full half grade value on a 35 point exam, representing 35% of their semester grade). Several students chose not to answer the extra credit question even though there was plenty of time. I guess they were exercising their personal liberty in doing so, either showing that they were willing to pay the price of freedom to make a statement even though there was no common good to be had in whether they answered the question or not. Talk about a thorny ethical issue I had inadvertently created. I had no idea that using class time to require students to fill out an evaluation form which they are asked to do in every class by the University, something they all take advantage of in choosing their courses and professors (by reading the collective prior year evaluations), would create such a controversy among the students. Well, in some ways, I think I proved my point of the course that they needed to be prepared for these dilemmas in their daily business managerial lives.
The strangest answer came from someone who seemed to care far more about personal liberty than common good. First of all, he chose to answer, so how seriously did he really take his personal liberty when self-interest (an added point) was at stake. He could be bought and was bought, but not without a written rant. His rant stated in more than 150 words that I acted dastardly in mandating something that other professors said was optional (The University encourages professors to push for evaluation completion and does not say we cannot make it mandatory). He accused me of pandering since I had promised to bring in a stack of signed copies of my Global Pension Crisis book for each of the students, which they could pick up from me after finishing the exam. He saw that as a bribe by me even though it was in no way connected to my evaluation mandate. He called the one holdout a “brave soul” who exercised his right to personal freedom. By the way, that same student chose to come up and take the free signed book, which when you think about it is very funny. Even funnier is that one student chose to pass on taking the book (maybe he was trying to uncluttered his life and stay only in the digital realm), but his answer to the extra credit question was that the mandate was clearly for the common good and he saw no problem with it.
At the time I thought maybe the full moon was doing this, but that only comes around on next Monday, though it is scheduled to be a total lunar eclipse, something that happens only once every 2.5 years, only once for every four Friday the 13ths that happen. This is when Rod Serling comes on and says, “there is nothing there in the dark that isn’t there when the lights go on”, and the Twilight Zone theme music runs through our heads. But as interesting and comical as the exam proctoring process has been for me this week, the heightened awareness that teaching a course like this ethics course has for me is the really spooky thing I am dealing with on this Friday the 13th. By the way, and not a joke, I just felt an earthquake hit and online they say there is an earthquake alert in nearby Valley Center. You can’t make this shit up.
Let me explain. When I teach, and even when I just write, my Spidy-senses tingle and I am hyper-aware of all of the related issues to what I am teaching or writing about that occur around me or in the broader world. I suspect that is not a phenomenon unique to me, but perhaps I just feel it more…perhaps a sixth sense of sorts. This morning is no exception and with the seven ethical questions I have asked my students and am reading their responses to, the awareness factor is on overload. The questions were:
1. In terms of “Fake it till you make it“, is that an OK strategy and how does it affect the various stakeholders?
2. Are free markets ethical at all times, even in a capitalistic system, and why should they be either left alone or controlled?
3. Why, if at all in today’s world, does reputation matter (please consider institutional, corporate and personal reputation), and why?
4. There will always be a pro and con to regulation. How should we consider regulating Big Tech (including Social Media) in today’s world?
5. Is globalization an outdated concept and how has the Ukraine situation impacted that issue?
6. ESG is a powerful force in corporate strategy today. What are the most important considerations of a strong and appropriate ESG policy in today’s business world?
7. How do we balance individual liberty and the common good? Please consider this in the context of the recent proposals for Universal (100%) Voting.
Well, I will not bore you about how many headlines in this morning’s papers relate to these seven questions, but let’s just suffice to say between Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, the cryptocurrency collapse underway, the Ukraine strife and the newly identified and rather alarming shortage of infant formula (which is being characterized as generational warfare of the sort I highlight in my Global Pension Crisis book), we’ve got them all coming at us at once. I can’t help myself from thinking I owe it to myself to keep teaching ethics so that I can stay hyper-alert of the world and how its coming at us with increasing speed and impact.