No. 5: Remember professional ethics. Wield your seam ripper like a pro.
Taking pride in good work weaves a safer, healthier world.
The Old Truck on Tyranny.
This week continues a series inspired by Tim Snyder’s 2017 book On Tyranny and the “20 Lessons” derived from his study.
Lesson 5: Remember professional ethics. When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.
My mother was a demon with a seam-ripper. She had a collection of them in her sewing machine cabinet. The cabinet which cradled her beige steel Bernina 730 Record sewing machine. A machine which emitted ten thousand quilt blocks over the forty years she practiced this craft. Some of which were ripped apart for their imperfections. She liked her lines straight.
Mom was never one to suffer deviation, particularly in her stitching. When she finished a block she would lift it for a visual and finger check. Wavering lines would suffer under her steel blue gaze as she weighed the time-cost of a do-over relative to the stack of fabric slices piled next to her, waiting for seams of their own. If a stitch track laid into the soft cotton fabric failed to pass muster it would be smoothed under her slender, freckled fingers, pulled taut, and flayed open with a steady slice from the top-most ripper picked from her collection. Errors were to be cut from her world. Salvage what you can and start over.
As one could imagine, such perfectionism cut a few ways. But, it taught lessons in self-respect. In how to take pride in precision, even in work as simple as a stitch. Do things well or not at all.
Mom had worked for years as an emergency room registered nurse-anesthetist before her kids came along. She knew the risks of shoddy work and misused tools. She knew that higher standards were the way to avoid costly, even deadly, mistakes for others. Assuming you care about others, of course. Which she did. Sometimes to a fault.
Capitalism does not like to pay for higher standards. Mainstream global culture measures the value of work by profits, not safety, effectiveness, or pride. Capital extracts the highest possible price for the cheapest possible cost. So there will always be a market for those who cheapen their work while knowing they place others at risk by doing so. A market for those who ignore ethics, standards, and public safety regulations in pursuit of a bigger, quicker buck.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani repeatedly lied in court, violating the professional ethics of the Bar Association by whose standards he had gained his license to practice law. His boss paid him to lie. He knew he had lowered his standards. And, lying to the judge or jury is a violation of legal ethics. One of the worst. So Rudy was disbarred. He lost his license to practice law in New York.
Hundreds of lawyers are disbarred every year1, because the legal profession takes pride in its work. Disbarment and similar forms of professional discipline are a quality control process which protects everyone who may ever need a lawyer. Which is most everyone, at one point or another.
Nurses, doctors, accountants, judges, teachers, police, engineers, and others who perform high trust, socially impactful work are all regulated by professional standards, on top of the civil and criminal laws which apply to everyone. These regulations are the practical mechanism which weaves the web of social trust that allows people in civilized societies to assume it is generally safe for us to walk into a hospital, drive across a bridge, and expect criminals to be fairly prosecuted by police, keeping our communities safer.
We tend to take this web of trust for granted, even though it is for the most part barely a century old. Systems of accountability have evolved throughout history to ensure quality and reliability of many forms. Denominational churches are the oldest examples of such regulatory systems, because “the church” once held far more power than it does today.
One cannot become a Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Episcopal minister without (generally) obtaining a Masters level education, and passing through a multi-year ethical, psychological, and spiritual evaluation process. Similar standards and processes apply to Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, and Muslim clergy. Even after being ordained, such denominational clergy remain accountable to both a Bishop and various disciplinary boards. All of which is a form of quality control. One must uphold certain standards to be given the privilege of speaking in the name of a traditional religious denomination.
On the other hand, literally anyone can grab their nearest Bible, open up a “non-denominational church” in the biggest storefront they can afford, and start preaching whatever it takes to get (tax-free) donations flowing from whomever is willing to show up and listen to whatever you say. Non-denominational churches are the religious equivalent of a lemonade stand. Easy to open and operate, beause they never need to worry about inspections.
When people call for “deregulation,” it is worth asking who wins by lowering whatever standards the deregulators want lowered this time. Whose costs will go down by cheapening the work? And, whose risks will rise? Will they lower their prices or just pocket the higher profits? Whose insurance premiums will go up to pay for the higher risk of deregulated markets? And, when (not if) the “deregulated” products fail, sooner and harder, who will be holding the bag?
It is admittedly easy to feel cynical about lawyers. Lawyers tend to deal in high stakes issues and most of these issues happen on the public record. Legal work produces the biggest wins and losses anyone could experience in human society: prison sentences, death sentences, citizenship, inheritances, licenses, contracts, divorces, legislation, court decisions, and billion dollar fines. Which is why people trained in the practice of law are also required to learn proper ethics and to practice by those ethics at risk of their income, reputation, and ability to work. Not just because ethics define “the right thing to do,” but because human societies only work well when we have functioning systems of accountability protecting the general integrity of our highest-staked decisions.
As historian Tim Snyder says, “[i]t is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.”
Which is why sleazy behavior by people like Rudy Giuliani must be disciplined. Society needs to expect and demand ethical behavior from any and all licensed professionals, particularly lawyers, and expect to see ethical professional standards followed as a reliable social norm. We should be happy when we see judges, police, accountants, nurses, doctors, engineers, and anyone else take pride in their work, because all of their colleagues do also.
We should also be happy when we see ethical failures strictly disciplined. Because, like my mother, professionals are taught to know that a mistake in their version of anesthesia-dosing could kill someone. That a lie told in court could send an innocent person to prison or degrade a whole nation.
Which is why my mom, an Eisenhower-era Republican who loved Ronald Reagan, was ready to reach for a seam ripper, to the end of her days.
2022 SURVEY ON LAWYER DISCIPLINE SYSTEMS (S.O.L.D.) - CHART III- PART - SANCTIONS IMPOSED