The Alibi Culture

In a world that quickly asserts the importance of avoiding the appearance of impropriety, it should not be surprising that many people seek to do so.

Unfortunately, many of them adopt a strategy that doesn't address the substance of the problem but only produces the appearance of innocence; in short, these non-offenders are more interested in an alibi than in a solution.

As a result of this quest to look good, we see greater emphasis in some quarters on creating a symbolic diversity instead of stressing individually exploitable opportunities that would produce a merit-based diversity. We find people punished for their involvement in the appearance of impropriety when anyone with any sense of objectivity knows that a substantive offense was neither intended nor committed. Employers are burdened with a trepidation of how something might appear to a jury - the judicial equivalent of a roulette table - than whether or not it is a reasonable course of action.

Reputations have been damaged and careers sidetracked out of this earnest effort to appear holier than any possible critic. For such an reputedly iconoclastic society, there is a fear of being regarded as outside of the mainstream, even - and perhaps especially - if the sub-mainstream is one that sees itself as terribly free-thinking. Let some poor fish swim outside of that current and you can count on others rushing to condemn the transgressor. After all, doing so establishes their own innocence and anyone who fails to be sufficiently condemnatory may be suspected of being sympathetic.

This odd order has ripple effects. A bright but colorful candidate for a promotion may be seen as insufficiently safe. A policy that may be both wise and controversial will probably get torpedoed by those who regard any controversy as a career-killer.

We pay a price for such caution and for such superficiality.