Corruption is about ego and buying influence the way molestation or rape is mostly a power trip that’s not about sexual gratification. The corrupt do not know what to do with their money. They are not fleecing the public because they are trying hard to send their children to school, or making just enough to pay the house rent.
Mostly, the corrupt are being corrupt because they can be. They have no scruples and are ego driven and enjoy buying the influence they buy, because they are corruptand it comes as second nature.
This corruption can be seen time and again in different guises. Those who defended the same indefensible situation several times over, are corrupt, just because the system can be abused. They are brazen.
brickbats
There are those who said they’d retire from politics who are now back in the arena. These people are thick. They said they’d be out of the political arena and enjoyed subsequent time out in the wilderness, while others who had lost faced the brickbats. Now that there is a chance that they can wheedle their way back to power, those who said they are retiring from politics are at it again.
So corruption is seen to be brazen, and the culmination of the rat race of needless competition. Those who are corrupt think they are competing in the best way, buying influence, and being the men in the middle who manipulate the system at will. Somebody had recently asked the question, but what do they do with their money? Do they do something good at the very least and in fact do something vaguely positive with their ill-gotten gains, such as ensure that they have a great garden or something they could aesthetically admire?
No. Of course the corrupt buy flashy vehicles as that’s their petty way of showing that they are top of the pops, as it is said in common parlance. But oftentimes they have earned much more money through corrupt activities than could be spent on a couple of glitzy vehicles that scream conspicuous consumption.
What do they do with all that money? Do they try to enhance the quality of their lives with it, or be more aesthetic in a non ostentatious and appreciably muted way?
No they don’t. Mostly the corrupt merely stash their ill-gotten lucre because that’s a power trip in and of itself. They could be smug that they have hoodwinked and squirreled away a great deal of loot, and that there are a whole heap of gullible people out there who they have made absolute fools of.
That power trip is enough for the corrupt. They’d keep some money, or more accurately they’d keep most of the stash away from prying eyes. With the rest, they try to buy up influence.
The corrupt think they can pay and get something done even if their cause is not legitimate. Sometimes in this society it takes money to get something done, even when what’s being sought is entirely legitimate.
But the corrupt seek to buy influence to peddle ideas and positions that are far from legitimate. Society is ego driven and fiercely competitive by nature in these times. That has been obvious if people have had a minimum of experience doing what is supposed to be acceptable in society, such as going to school and opting for a regular life.
Chasing fame and money are all ego-driven pursuits. But it’s what the school system encourages unfortunately from day one. Those who seek to excel by fair means or foul are extolled. Others are cast by the wayside as losers.
So, some burn the midnight oil and get ahead in many competitive pursuits such as exams. But they have one goal in mind. It is that which is ego driven i.e of making as much money as possible and flaunting it, complemented by the pursuance of fame and glory so called.
It’s small wonder then that the corrupt see corruption as a shortcut to those types of goals in a society that’s already wedded to these false and ego-driven values.
The corrupt seek to purchase and influence those others who have burnt the midnight oil, because they feel they have a right to laugh at them too. The latter have pursued power and glory through legitimate means such as passing exams. But nevertheless they too are creatures of the same rat race.
The corrupt feel that’s fine then, because they can cock a snook at those who passed examinations and sought a more conventional route to money and glory, if all are in the same game. By now the most oblivious reader would also probably get the drift.
The corrupt justify themselves because they think they are doing what society wants them to do, which is to cover themselves in cash and be conspicuous. That’s what after all, society seems to reward and deify.
That’s why there seems to be so much brazen corruption within our system. It’s why politicians of various stripes come before the public and make the most preposterous claims even though the public knows none of it is true.
miscalculations
But the corrupt know that at the end of the day the truth can suffer an inglorious demise. They know that money can buy influence, evenamong voters.
Though sometimes they may make certain miscalculations, the corrupt feel the influence they have purchased is enough to help them live another day even if things go wrong at the current conjuncture. As they say, “those who fight and run away, live to run another day.” Said in jest, but words of wisdom, no doubt …
In this system of influence peddling, it is the truly brave who could be incorruptible, and yet prevail. The corrupt would try to outmanoeuvre such people at every turn, but the results of corruption often speak for themselves and that’s where the palpably venal eventually get caught out.
But by the time they are caught out the facts have become obfuscated. It is the system that has grown legs of its own, because it’s the core values of that system that are warped.
The system glorifies money and power, or money and glory or fame as the case may be, and hence it is not surprising that those values would be reflected in the exterior political structure. It’s a structure that perpetuates corrupt means at the expense of nobler pursuits such as feeding people, and providing them with a living wage.
Honest men are scapegoated to pay for the sins of the more powerful. This is a trend that is seen in many areas of national endeavour. Sporting debacles come to mind.
The structure behind a great many debacles remains out of view of the pubic eye, and some pawns and minions may be sacrificed or trotted out to take the hit when debacles occur. But there are many out there who are willing to defend the structure, because corruption of course, and the exchange of filthy lucre, plays a huge part in that process.The several near collapses our national airline faced on many occasions in the past, may be a case in point.
Those who are corrupt and seek to buy influence may of course never quite accomplish their ends because their ends are driven by unalloyed greed. Those who stash money as an end in itself also like to retain influence and power as an end in itself.
That becomes an impossible proposition however, because no amount of money can buy influence endlessly, and so the cycle repeats. Those consumed by greed would one day be hoist by their own petard, and time and again history has taught the avaricious that single lesson to no avail.
But it’s the damage that the corrupt do that destroys lives and brings misery to people who were pawns in a bigger game played at a level they have no access to, and had no part in.
In multiple areas of pubic endeavour, however, it’s the public that has been duped ,which means a part of the public so duped has to bear the consequences of their gullibility. But most of the public are sooner or later wiser to the truth. It’s just that they have no way of overcoming the stench of corruption that engulfs them.
They see no other way except to shrug their shoulders and move on. But seeing corruption for what it is may be a major victory by itself. The corrupt who swim against that tide of realisation, often know their game would be up, before they realise the folly of their ways.
