In popular culture, the theory is that everything has a price: nothing is so personal/special that if someone came along with totally ridiculous money you could not resist to sell even your most prized possessions.
Possessions are just things, what about yourself?
Most people sell their most valuable commodity (your time) with barely a thought, though, to be fair, most people don’t really have much choice in the matter. You sell out 8 or more hours of your day, 5 days a week in order to sustain your life of consumption, manageable debts, and the procession of ‘career’ all for whatever amount of money, be it minimum wage or top dollar working corporate.
Most folk do this every day and to an extent it’s normal and society can kinda get on with it.
What if it’s not just your (valuable, precious, limited) time you’re being asked to sell, but your principles, good name or your word?
The recent trend of people in public life to lie, cheat, bend the rules and other similar behaviours calls into question just what price there is on this?
The government ministers that 3, 6, 12 months ago decried proroguing parliament, now sit with tight lips while that very process is undertaken. What’s a ministerial salary, £120,000? Is that all it costs for principles and a good name? Everything you learned at school and studied for and to become, all pissed away for a title and a wad of cash to close your mouth?
Perhaps MoBD has simply misunderstood that this was always the end result. That the morals learned at private education facilities are all appended with an *(see footnote 3.1 where x can be glossed over for financial gain). It’s easy to blame the private education for the moral and intellectual failure of our leaders as it is the common theme that links so many of them.
And, I suppose with many members of the press who shared these schools and universities. They should not look to escape the blame in this, as it seems to be those on social media rather than the traditional press holding politicians to account.
If so, it’s fine, I guess, but the scale should probably be in the public domain. Hard ‘Principles’ sold for around the average house price; ‘Good Name’ up for sale at half of that; ‘Professional Integrity’ will cost you more, maybe a cool million.
It all seems rather cheap to me, I’d rather hope I’d hold out for more. Everything is for sale after all.
Museum of Broken Dreams 