ROW Episode 43

In this episode we explore the need to replace the outworn belief that the ends justify the means with a new, more constructive belief that the means must be as worthy as the ends.

Episode Transcript

Sovaida (00:08):
Hello and welcome to Reimagining Our World, a podcast
dedicated to envisioning abetter world and to infusing
hope that we can make theprincipled choices to build that
world.
In this episode, we explore theneed to replace the outworn
belief that the ends justify themeans with a new, more

(00:31):
constructive belief that themeans must be as worthy as the
ends.
Let's just launch into today'sconversation.
If we are interested insuccessfully building a better
world, we're going to have toidentify the limiting beliefs
and false assumptions upon whichthe ship of humanity has

(00:53):
repeatedly foundered, and uponwhich it will continue to
founder as it sets sail on itscourse towards a better world,
which is something we all want.
These limiting beliefs and falseassumptions are akin to
icebergs.
They're hidden from view and yetthey threaten us as a human
society.

(01:14):
So it's key that we firstidentify them, then remove and
replace them with a new set ofmore empowering and constructive
assumptions and principles.
There is one particular oldoutworn belief that I wanted to
talk about today.
It's encapsulated in the oldsaying, The ends justify the

(01:35):
means." This belief has beenprevalent in all aspects of
human life, including, but notlimited to, business and
government.
On the basis of this belief, wejustify our behavior on the
grounds that the benefit of theend result excuses any harm done

(01:56):
along the way.
That's the justification.
Now recently I've been reading areally interesting book by
Rachel Maddow.
It's a new book called Prequel.
I'm going to hold it up here foryou to see.
I highly recommend it becauseone learns a lot about the
history of the United States inthe last century, especially in

(02:18):
the 30s, when we came very closeto fascism and yet we managed to
avert that crisis.
It's really intended to be ofhope to say we've done it
before.
If we were to find ourselves, aswe may be doing, in a similar
precarious situation today, weshould take heart because there

(02:38):
are things we can do asindividuals.
It is a book that's intended toempower individuals.
When I read books, what I liketo do is to reflect on the
things that I learn and tocorrelate them with some ideas
and beliefs that I myself haveor some thoughts and reflections
that I've been having.
And there was a particular talein this book about a gentleman

(03:02):
by the name of Huey Long that Iwanted to share with you because
it meshes with this idea.
It's actually an illustration ofwhat happens when we blindly
follow this adage of the endsjustifying the means and what it
can lead to and therefore whatwe can learn from it.

(03:26):
So who was Huey Long?
Huey Long was the governor ofthe State of Louisiana in the
1930s, at a time when Americans,after the Great Depression, were
clamoring for a better life.
He, in order to answer thisdistressing call of the American
people, built a grassrootspolitical movement called Share

(03:48):
Our Wealth.
Sounds great, doesn't it?
On the one hand, he had thisgreat vision and the stated
motive to eliminate the extremesof wealth and poverty.
What a laudable goal.
And to share the great wealth ofthis nation.
He famously said,"None shall betoo rich and none shall be too

(04:12):
poor." Again, on its face, thiswas a very appealing end,
appealing goal.
To this end, he also proposedpolicies, that included,
according to Rachel Maddow andher research, a guaranteed
monthly pension for those over60 who needed it, a free college

(04:33):
education for all those whowanted one, a guaranteed annual
family income amounting to athird of the national average,
and so on.
You get the idea.
This guy has come up with somereally good policies.
But he didn't limit himself topolicies.
He actually achieved a lot forhis people in the state of

(04:55):
Louisiana.
He took concrete steps toachieve these lofty goals.
For example, he built 2,500miles of newly paved roads in
Louisiana.
He built 40 bridges.
He provided free textbooks inpublic schools.
He provided free night schoolsto teach over 100,000 illiterate

(05:19):
adults to read.
And he made sure that statehospitals were built to serve
everyone in Louisiana, whetherthey have the means to pay for
their hospital stay or not, andfor the cost of the procedures.
These are all incrediblylaudable achievements.
But here comes the rub.

(05:40):
The means that he used to attainthese lofty goals were deeply
problematic and unworthy ofthose goals.
So what happened here?
He did away with all competingpolitical interests.
So he stood alone.
He had no rivals.

(06:00):
There were no checks andbalances on his own powers.
He basically brought the wholeState of Louisiana under the
control of his politicalmachine.
He stacked officers at everylevel of government.
He used bribes and threats toget what he wanted.
He essentially ran Louisianalike a mob boss, doling out

(06:23):
rewards to those who are loyalwhile also demanding that they
pay him tribute.
The police and prosecutors wereunder his control, as was the
state militia.
He had a limitless appetite forauthority, according to Maddow,
to such an extent that when hewas then elected a senator of
the United States, he insistedon keeping his job as governor

(06:46):
for the remaining two yearsuntil he could install a
successor, knowing that no onewas going to stop him.
By doing this, he reapedbenefits like controlling public
funds, having the taxing powerto raise more funds, having
control of the judiciary, andthe armed militia.
As he famously told a reporter,here's the quote,"A perfect

(07:12):
democracy can come close tolooking like a dictatorship, a
democracy in which people are sosatisfied.
They have no complaint." Ineffect, what he was doing was
that in the guise of harnessingdiscontent and addressing the

(07:32):
needs of people, he was actuallydecimating democratic norms from
within.
Now, this should serve as awarning to all of us.
Here's a lesson to be learnedfrom taking this idea that,"The
ends justify the means.
I'll do anything it takes to getto this lofty goal I have." We

(07:53):
have to beware and we have totrain ourselves to be astute and
always ask ourselves thisquestion.
What are the means that you'replanning to employ in reaching
this wonderful, lofty, soughtafter goal?
And what are the costs ofemploying those means?

(08:15):
And are we willing, or is itworth it to us to shoulder those
costs?
Because we will often find thatthe costs that we will have to
pay, put us in an even moredisadvantageous position.
So any benefits we are to gainfrom achieving the end will be

(08:36):
severely undermined andovertaken to a large extent by
the costs that we have to pay.
Now, we see this kind of bargainbeing struck in countries in our
world today, where the autocrator the dictator will say to
their people,"Hey, listen! Youjust give us full control of

(08:56):
your lives and state resources,and we will make sure that you
have economic prosperity." weknow that there are nations that
are built on this bargain andthe cost in terms of the quality
of the lives of their people,and their freedom to express
themselves and freedom to trulyactualize their potential is

(09:18):
severely limited.
What is even more worrying isthat we hear continually the
stated willingness of voters invarious countries to give up
democracy if they could have inreturn a benevolent dictator,
who could guarantee that some oftheir pressing problems would be

(09:39):
fixed.
In South Africa, I remember themquestioning some of the voters.
And they were saying, we'rehappy to have a dictator, give
up democracy, if the dictatorcan ensure that we were all
employed, that we can earn aliving, that we have access to
electricity, and so on.
Basically, some of thesepressing needs that they had
would be met.

(10:00):
And we hear this in otherplaces.
It behooves us, the onus is onus as citizens of the world to
educate ourselves and to beastute and to be wary and to ask
the smart questions.
Now, one of the interestingthings we see is that this

(10:21):
belief that the ends justify themeans often goes hand in hand
with something else, which is abehavior that is one that we
could call short termism.
Acting in short term selfinterest and without regard to
long term consequences.
Another word for it that I liketo use is expediency.

(10:43):
We have to be careful aboutthis, because by employing short
termism, we find that not onlydo we not actually solve our
current problems at root--we maytemporarily quench the flames,
but the embers continue to burn,waiting for another wind to blow
and fan the flames-- but inaddition to not addressing the

(11:07):
actual root cause problems, wetend to sow the seeds of future
and greater disasters.
A good example that I recentlycame across that I wanted to
share with you of this, of shortterm behavior that involves very
often turning a blind eye to badbehavior on the part of other

(11:27):
countries is what Britain iscurrently doing.
It is failing to speak up aboutRwanda's use of force and
involvement in the atrocities inthe war in East Congo.
Why is Britain failing to speakup?
Because of its expedient shortterm interest.

(11:48):
It's looking to send a portionof those seeking asylum in
Britain and shipping them out toRwanda, deporting them to be
processed there.
It's entered into a deal withthe Rwandan government to, to
take a number even though thenumber is not great,--apparently
it's only several hundredpeople,-- but they're trying to

(12:09):
use this as a way of quellingthe surge of migrants to their
shores.
Now, this is definitely a shortterm approach.
What is astounding and sad isthat this behavior of failing to
speak up and do the right thingis compounded by Britain's

(12:29):
current toying with the idea ofwithdrawing from the European
Court of Human Rights.
This is a court that sets thefreedom of individual rights.
And it was a court whoseprinciples were signed off on by
Britain.
She was the first country tosign off on these principles

(12:49):
after the end of the SecondWorld War.
Having taken a hand in shapingthese principles and this court,
Britain is now thinking ofwithdrawing from these
principles.
Why?
Because the court had theaudacity to block the first
group of flights of theseasylees that were supposed to be
flown to Rwanda, on the groundsthat Rwanda was not a safe

(13:11):
country and under internationallaw, it was not possible for
Britain to expel and deportthese asylum seekers to Rwanda.
So you see how, one set of shortterm thinking leads to
consequences that we would neverhave dreamt on, and we start
basically digging our own longterm graves.

(13:33):
Another example of thisexpression of the ends
justifying the means andtherefore short termist behavior
includes trying to buy peace atany cost, including appeasing
the aggressor.
We all know the history of theNazis, and we know what
happened, especially when Hitlerfirst set out to conquer the

(13:55):
land surrounding Germany, andunlawfully took them.
There were those countries whoin the name of peace, were
willing and wanting to appeasehim and turn a blind eye to this
flouting of international lawand norms.
Today we see something similar,and I just want to raise this as

(14:19):
a question because it's worththinking about it in the context
of this conversation we'rehaving about this principle.
We see something similar playingout, for instance, in Ukraine,
with some insisting that therebe negotiations for a deal for
peace based on giving up landfor peace.
That's the transaction, land forpeace.

(14:40):
Question mark, something for youto think about.
Is this short term expedientthinking?
Are we prioritizing short termresults?
A short term piece, we don'tknow how long it will last, in
fact likely to be temporary ifthe aggressor is emboldened to
continue their bad behavior anddoesn't suffer consequences.

(15:03):
If we reward them with land,then what is to stop an
aggressor from going after newpieces of land?
Especially if this is not thefirst time they've done it.
To think that we can solve aproblem like this by just giving
up some land and we'll buypeace, we may buy peace, but for
how long?
A couple of months, a couple ofyears.

(15:25):
It certainly doesn't look likeit's going to be a long term
peace.
And who is to say in the futurewhat other countries might then
be threatened by the sameaggressor?
Countries like maybe Moldova orLithuania and Poland.
This is what one reads about.
Also consider the unwittingmessage that entering into this

(15:47):
kind of short term deal sends toother countries who might have
expansionist desires.
What would be the message that acountry like China would get
about it being okay for it toswallow up disputed islands in
the South China Seas?
What about its desire to reunifywith Taiwan?

(16:11):
What would the message be fromthe international community to
such countries?
That it's okay to just go ahead,take what you want, and in the
end, we'll always strike a dealwith you.
You'll get at least a portion ofwhat you took in contravention
of international law, at least aportion, if not all.
And so it would encourage thisbehavior of treating

(16:33):
international laws withimpunity.
Now, we said that this principleapplies not only in the area of
governance, but also in the areaof business.
And again, another recentglaring example that we see is
Boeing.
A corporation that has madecertain unfortunate decisions

(16:54):
with massive impacts to life andlimb.
Boeing is in competition withanother European company,
Airbus, that has been buildingthese new jets.
Boeing wanted to keep up.
It wanted to make profits andget into the market.
And so it started producingthese new jets and wanting to do

(17:16):
it faster and faster at anaccelerated pace.
It was leading to intensepressure within Boeing upon the
employees to meet crazyproduction deadlines.
They were trying to produceplanes at high speed to get them
out.

So the ends were laudable (17:32):
get out these planes, get them out
there, compete with Airbus, andmake good profits.
Okay, for a corporation, that'sconsidered a good goal, right?
That's why they're in businessmost of the time.
But at what cost?
What were the means theyemployed?
Was it the cost of gettingthings right?

(17:54):
They basically ended upemploying shortcuts in terms of
quality control.
One of the engineers andaviation safety experts who was
interviewed in a New York Timesarticle said that he had seen
workers assembling planes,trying to install parts that

(18:15):
hadn't even been logged.
Parts that arrived from thesupplier hadn't been logged or
inspected to see whether theywere defective or not.
They were just trying to cut outas many parts of the process as
possible in order to speed upproduction.
Wires were routed incorrectly.
Employees, in order to get theirpiece of the job inspected

(18:37):
quickly, would go inspectorshopping.
So what happens there is thatyou then create relationships
with inspectors who like you andwho therefore are not as
stringent in their monitoringand verification of your
procedures.
Mechanics building planes weresometimes allowed to self
verify.
That means sign off on their ownwork.

(18:59):
Imagine this, you at work,getting to write your own
reviews, getting to sign off onyour own work without your
superior signing off.
And to compound all theseproblems, new crops of workers
that were being hired afterCOVID, when they had to get rid
of a lot of workers, a lot ofthese new workers were less

(19:19):
experienced, but Boeing didn'tprovide them, according to
reports reported in the media,with sufficient training and
just expected them to somehowpick it up from their more
seasoned peers.
Suppliers were also strugglingto keep up, to meet quality
standards while meeting theschedule of production of parts

(19:41):
required by Boeing.
So it's no big surprise that themeans employed were truly not
worthy for the ends.
Especially since airplanesshould be safe, since we all put
our lives in the hands of thesepilots and these airplane
manufacturers every time we takea flight anywhere.

(20:03):
So what can we replace thisprinciple of the ends justify
the means with?
We can replace it with a new,empowering, constructive
principle that the means must beas worthy as the ends.
The journey to getting to theend is as important, if not more

(20:23):
important, than the end itself.
This in turn also requires thatwe replace the habit of
expediency with a principledapproach to both decision making
and problem solving.
A principled approach meansthree steps.
We identify the principles thatwe want to make sure apply.

(20:46):
We agree on them within thecorporation or within our system
of government.
And then we apply themmethodically and without
compromise.
It's only by taking these twosteps, in other words, shifting
the way we think about achievingends by ensuring that the means
are as worthy as the ends,coupled with replacing short

(21:08):
termism or expediency with along term proactive approach
that is principle based.
It is only by adopting thismindset and habit that we have
any hope or prayer of buildingthe kind of better world that we
want, that is grounded inprinciples of equity, justice,

(21:31):
and oneness.
Now, if you like the kinds ofcontent that we're covering
here, including in this episode,you can learn more in this book
that was published in 2021, TheAlchemy of Peace: Six Essential
Shifts in Mindsets and Habits toAchieve World Peace, available
on Amazon digitally and in hardcopy.

(21:53):
And otherwise, please docomment, both for those of you
listening to this on the YouTubechannel and for those of you on
Facebook in the chat.
I'd love to hear your thoughtsand for us all to engage in
conversation and do share whatyou've heard here today with
your friends and peers.
These are conversations that Ibelieve it's key that all of us

(22:14):
continue having in order tobuild the kind of country,
countries, and world that wewant.
Okay.
Take care.
Bye bye.
That's all for this episode ofReimagining Our World.
I'll see you back here nextmonth.
If you liked this episode,please help us to get the word
out by rating us and subscribingto the program on your favorite

(22:36):
podcast platform.
This series is also available invideo on the YouTube channel of
the Center for Peace and GlobalGovernance, CPGG.