How true is the saying that power corrupts? To understand it literally means to believe that anybody who is in a position of power will inevitably become corrupt. Such a belief is fallacious and dangerous. It rests on the assumption that humans are naturally evil and self-centered. One who holds that belief could also believe that “might makes right”, or be an idle skeptic, who believes in no hope, and would laugh at any suggestion to reform the human condition.
A large majority of people however, believe that humans are naturally good and that they despise evil. They take the saying above as a serious reminder: that power can be abused, hence, it should be given only to those who can be entrusted with it. In other words they believe that power is neither good nor evil, it is man that makes good or evil use of it. Hence, they oppose any form of corruption, and seek to reform a corrupt administration or a system that breeds corrupt practices.
We must admit, however, that ‘corrupt leaders’ do not just emerge out of the blue and suddenly entrusted to lead a society. Corrupt leadership itself is not the root of our problem but is the effect of another problem.
Professor Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, in his important work Islam and Secularism, thoroughly analyzed this problem and concluded that the root cause of all corruption lies in the ‘corruption of knowledge’.
His analysis and conclusions deserve attention and reflection. Corrupt leaders can only emerge from and thrive in a corrupt society. These corrupt leaders are actually false leaders, meaning they are not qualified to carry out the responsibility entrusted upon them. Yet they are still given the responsibility by society, an indication that society is deeply immersed in a crisis of knowledge, to the extent that they cannot differentiate between true leaders and false charlatans. In such a society true leaders cannot be recognized and acknowledged.
Even though everyone naturally ‘desires’ what is good, not everybody has a clear ‘conception’ of what constitues ‘goodness’. Because of that, one may be deceived by an equally corrupt individual who can manipulate one’s anti-corruption sentiments just to get into power. If corruption is a departure from what is good, pure or correct, it is incumbent to know what is good, pure, or correct in order to be able to recognize whether corruption exists.
In a democratic society the people are given the freedom to choose the government. The basic assumption is: people naturally know what is good for them, and that they desire only good things for themselves; as such, they will only choose as their leaders persons whom they believe can promote goodness to the society as a whole.
This brings us to the basic question of what is good and evil, right and wrong, true and false, which is actually an old question, as old as human existence itself. Naturally we want to know what kind of life we ought to live, what kind of society we ought to promote, nurture, and defend, and who should lead us towards those ends.
So, if in the end, it is the corrupt leaders who are elected, we must conclude that society as a whole must be suffering from some terrible disease. Either they lack the capacity to recognize true leaders or they have no courage to acknowledge them. The former is epistemological while the latter is moral; both combined are the root of all forms of corruption.
In the fifth century B.C., rhetoric was commonly taught and practiced to influence people in order to gain money, fame and power. It was used by the sophists and their students to promote and defend corrupt ideas, namely to hold the opinion that pleasure and power should be the ultimate ends of human life, and to scorn those who insist on pursuing the way of virtue.
Gorgias of Leontini (483-375 B.C.), the celebrated teacher of rhetoric, was a sophist, who doubted that we can ever know the truth or, if we can know it, that we should be able to communicate it to others. His doubts led him to abandon the search for objective truth. Instead of appealing to the intelligence through logical argument he taught his students to use rhetoric (the art of persuasion) by appealing to feelings and emotions.
Politicians, then and now, are notorious for their use of rhetoric. They know that not many people are intelligent enough to weigh arguments and verify the evidence presented to them. Today, rhetoric coupled with rigorous advertising and public relations exercises are used extensively to influence public opinion. Rhetoric uses language without logic, while advertising and public relations manipulate images and events to mislead the innocent public. And those who control the media easily control one’s choices and decisions. Democracy, therefore, is about who commands the support of the majority, not about who is right or wrong.
The solution to the problem is not found merely in demanding a free media. Free media, in the sense of being free from political affiliation or patronage, does not guarantee that people would have the freedom of choice. Freedom is an attribute of the soul, and what we call ‘freedom of choice’ would not be possible without knowledge. The public has to be freed from ignorance. They have to be made aware of the assumptions, inconsistencies and contradictions of the politicians on major issues affecting them. Who else can do that effectively other than the scholars, like what Socrates did when he stood up againsts the sophists. This, however, will not happen if the scholars themselves are corrupt. “Corruption of the best is corruption at its worst”, goes the saying. It is indeed worse than the corruption of the politicians and public administrators. Universities should not be the breeding ground for corrupt leaders devoid of intellectual and moral integrity. Professors who profess nothing other than their allegiance to their political masters should not teach in our universities. They will only perpetuate cowardice and flattery.
Source : BERNAMA