Phenomenology of Corruption 🎫

My wife was cleaning out a closet and found a bunch of old hall passes from my high school. The reason I had access to these passes was from being an Office Aid, a privilege reserved for ‘good students’. I laughed, remembering getting friends out of class to go play hacky-sack or whatever. In my memory this was a kind of innocent rebellion.

Another perspective: I was corrupt. I had abused this power for personal gain. At the time I felt good about it. I didn’t see any harm done.

I’m not beating up my fifteen-year-old self. It was pretty harmless. But remembering the feeling of it gave me a sense of empathy for people doing more insidious forms of corruption. Some are really bad actors; they know, and do it anyway. But how many corrupt officials feel the same way I did in high school? How many are justifying it, seeing it as innocent, victimless, aren't even lying to themselves?

With love, Jordan