Liturgies

Monday, June 27th 2016

On Moral Leadership

By Doug Yuille


My parents’ schools had them memorize poems and great works. For me it was mostly dates and places. Today memory has been outsourced to Google. We are slowly but surely “outsourcing the human mind.” First came the hand held calculator—we really didn’t need to do math in our heads. Now cars can almost drive themselves. Our smartphones tie us into Google and hand held translators mean we don’t have to learn any languages other than our own. While higher brain functions are being outsourced, the ancient parts of our brains are still with us so we are still driven by our emotions. We haven’t yet figured out how to outsource how we know what is “fair”, “right or wrong” “good or bad”. We also haven’t outsourced religion based on emotionally held beliefs. So we are verging toward a “lower”, more animal, more basic, creature driven by feelings and internet driven biases, more tribal and alas, more confrontational. Many today think technology is the answer to all of our problems. I fear it isn’t. [Summary of Tyler Barrett commenting on The Memory Code by Lynne Kelly, who was interviewed by ABCRN 21.06.16].  http://www.lynnekelly.com.au/2016/06/guest-post-are-we-outsourcing-the-human-mind/

Introduction A young man, alarmed by the dire environmental catastrophes facing the humanity, decided the solution was better scientific information to guide government, industry and community decisions. But after 30 years as a scientist, he realised the problem wasn’t lack of scientific information, but greed and apathy. He says this requires ‘cultural and spiritual transformation’ which is beyond science. This idea, which I term moral leadership, resonated with me, an environmental policy adviser for 25 years, and so I shared his story, calling for moral leadership citing the examples of Peter, Terry, and even Pope Francis. 3 seconds later, Terry suggested I expand on this in a homily. So here’s my take on moral leadership. The first reading today, the first commandment, exhorts us to love God using our head (our mind) as well as our heart. Other readings also require us to use our brains to think, and to think long term. While we are ‘outsourcing’ our brain’s memory functions to computers, we can’t outsource moral judgment. These are my themes.

Leadership What has Peter Kennedy got in common with Genghis Khan—but not with Attila the Hun? Genghis Khan created the world’s largest ever empire but aside from that, he also abolished torture, embraced religious freedom, united warring tribes, hated aristocratic privilege, promoted people on merit, loved learning and advanced women’s rights. He sought advice, including from his mother and sister. He was as much a lover as a fighter with currently 16 million descendants. He was brave, hardy, dressed simply and uninterested in the trappings of wealth and power. By contrast, other notable leaders eg. Attila, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler and Tony Blair were driven by short term gains, egotistical, easily distracted, reliant on charisma and unable to organise succession.

Critically, Genghis had a clear long term mission – universal peace. His Mongol society faced annihilation by surrounding warlords so he began a simple yet audacious project “Unite the Mongols then conquer and unite the whole world in one empire.” He led by example—as he said, “The calling is high, so my obligations are heavy”. Undoubtedly violent but never for its own sake, he offered his enemies the choice of submission or death - a successful negotiation strategy, backed by a cavalry of 50,000. So good leaders focus on a clear aim, based on good information and thinking, decide what to do, how to do it. They know they are not bigger than their project. Importantly, they have a good moral compass.

Morality Vs Law. Human behaviour is guided by both laws and by morals which don’t always align. Laws tend to be rational while morality is more impulsive, arising from our hearts or conscience. We struggle daily with moral choices from ‘borrowing’ office stationery to deciding if and how to help strangers in need—do we intervene at risk of being attacked ourselves? Moral responses vary greatly between people and cultures eg. refusing on religious grounds to save a child’s life with a blood transfusion. Or assisting a person to die to escape agonising pain. To some traditional societies, theft is not immoral but getting caught is definitely frowned on.

Moral tests. We have a federal election on 2nd July—what government policies should we support? Can we apply moral tests to guide us? Government policies and laws normally reflect our collective morality. But what is moral to some people may not be legal eg. refusing to be called up for military service. And what is legal may not be moral in some minds eg. a third of Australia’s largest companies pay no tax. We can legally buy things made with child or slave labour or which cause wildlife extinctions eg. fish from collapsing fisheries, sugar from farms polluting the Barrier Reef, but should we?

My own moral framework for considering government policies and decisions, after years of working close to politicians and senior bureaucrats, works something like this:

  1. Listen to your heart: what’s my gut reaction to the immediate consequences? This is for urgent decisions (triage) or less complex issues. When in doubt, go with your gut.
  2. Use your head, where there is time, to consider:
    1. long term consequences and risks of this policy (and of not implementing it) for the “public interest”. I define this as 1) social harmony, security and justice and 2) a sustainable economy and environment (these are mutually dependent)?
    2. Who wins? Who loses? How are adverse impacts on the “losers” ameliorated? (Failure here widens social/economic/political gaps hence Trumpageddon, Brexit, ISIS etc).

Maximising agreement to ensure durable policies I suggest we try to de-politicise issues to develop robust and widely supported policies. A fellow passenger on a plane flight told me he was employed by New York City to find policy solutions to help the acrimonious public debate between the pro and anti-abortion lobbies which had seen several doctors publicly murdered. He explained he had brought representatives of all sides together in a room to stay as long as it took to agree on a policy goal for the issue. Eventually, after many hours they agreed on: “Reduce the number of teenage pregnancies”. He then set them to work on policies to address this objective. While this did not instantly solve the problem, it cooled the political heat and focussed the combined intellects (IQ points) of the participants on the practicalities with surprisingly good results.

Future orientation My parents are my direct link to the wisdom of 10,000 generations from (Y chromosomal) Adam and (mitochondrial) Eve, I should mention their thoughts on morality. Mum summed it up as ‘not leaving a mess behind for others to clean up’. It was years before I got past the literal to the figurative meaning! I like its orientation to the future which my father shared when he said ‘Think three generations ahead’ (responding to my questioning why we lived in a dirt floored shed, struggling to establish a soldier settlement cattle property in drought stricken Central Queensland He applied this principle not just to stoic tolerance of adversity but to managing the land, soil and water to pass on in good condition for future generations (he introduced contour farming into the region).

Similarly, the Iroquois Indians’ political philosophy "In all of your deliberations…in your efforts at law making, in all your official acts, self-interest shall be cast into oblivion. Cast not over your shoulder…the warnings of the nephews and nieces should they chide you for any error or wrong you may do, but return to the way of the Great Law which is just and right. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground – the unborn of the future Nation." Oren Lyons, current Chief of the Onondaga Nation, writes: "... What about the seventh generation? Where are you taking them? What will they have?"[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSwmqZ272As ].

What happens if we just go with our gut and don’t think well ahead? In 1975 Gough Whitlam legislated equal pay for Aboriginal stockmen, seemingly a great example of moral leadership. However, graziers soon sacked them and a terrible tragedy emerged in Aboriginal communities. As men were suddenly stripped of earning capacity and dignity, the social structure disintegrated leading to serious social problems. The moral goal of equal pay was not wrong but achieving it required wide community support, working for the ultimate benefit of our whole society. A moral leader must inspire a following by showing not just the objective but the path.

Our refugee intake policy is a wicked problem. Few people support an open border but many of us want refugees in perilous circumstances to rescued and cared for. But how do we do this without inviting mass migration which might overwhelm our capacity to help anyone? Both major parties say their policy objective for the policy of turning back refugees’ boats is to stop deaths at sea. This is not plausible because if it were, they would provide safe transport to all refugees coming to Australia. In fact they are driven by fear of losing the support of significant numbers of people who fear a vast influx of refugees may jeopardise their jobs, increase their tax burden or the social and environmental impacts of expanding population eg. loss of food security

All such fears can be real if our leaders do not clearly state how they will address them, as was the case for the US trade deals which cost at least 1.5m jobs and certainly helped give us Donald Trump. I have not heard even one political leader explain how they will address these fears, not the Nationals or Greens (with an interest in healthy land, soil, forests and water), or the Liberal and Labor Parties, with their strong interest in the economy and jobs (AND GROWTH!!).

This is the big opportunity for moral leadership. Our leaders could propose a common goal such as: “Australia in 10 years’ time will have a strong economic base with high rates of employment so it can contribute effectively to preventing the necessity for refugees to flee their homes, while helping accommodate those with no choice. Our population, immigration and refugee policies will be clear and humane, with commensurate safeguards to ensure the current degradation of our soil, waters, forests and wildlife habitat is reversed to support future generations with high living standards”.

Morally robust policies. The questions we ask determine the answers we get. With the right objectives and principles our policies will deliver results which are both moral and practical—any road will do when we don’t know where we’re going. Tribal religions’ social policies were lists of rules: ‘thou shalt not kill, covet cows/wives, steal, worship other gods etc. As the first cities emerged 4,000 years ago, a prophet called Zoroaster preached the world’s first ‘moral’ religion to tribal nomads, still practised today as ‘Zoroastrianism’. Its supreme moral god, Ahura Mazda, battled the forces of chaos and evil led by Angra Mainyu. Ahura Mazda required moral behaviour to prepare for his arrival and last judgement with prayers, good thoughts and good deeds. Angra Mainyu would be defeated, the dead resurrected, the righteous sent to heaven and the wicked cast into hell (which lasted just three days after which all went to eternal bliss in heaven). Except Angra Mainyu and cronies who went to eternal darkness. The religion brought tribes and cultures together with joyous festivals and holidays, under a single moral god with the promise of resurrection. This religion supported urbanisation of tribes into cities like Rome of up to a million) and spawned Judaism, Christianity and Islam—now followed by half the world’s population.

As world population grows from 7bn to 10bn by 2050, placing food security, climate and biodiversity in a parlous state, I suggest we see moral leadership as leadership which is not divisive but which promotes social harmony and an economically and environmentally sustainable society. Leaders must harvest policy ideas from our hearts and heads, considering not just the short term but long term implications, based on good evidence. I suggest this will foster the spiritual and cultural transformation that our world most clearly needs.

Afterthought: What about driverless cars (autonomous vehicles) making moral decisions like whether to save a pedestrian and risk killing the passengers? This ethical question is currently under debate.