laneys.info Beware of Yankees, drunks, and loose women.

Like every good geek, I was in a movie theatre at 12:01 AM on Thursday May 19, watching Revenge of the Sith. Setting aside for a moment all of the normal, geeky comments about the movie, I found some interesting points in the movie that completed some other thoughts that had been rolling around in my head for a week or so.

The transformation of The Republic into The Empire was not so much revolution (coup d'etat) as evolution - a gradual progression that escaped the attention of the masses. The scene in which Palpatine announces his ascension from Chancellor to Emperor finds Padme commenting, "This is how liberty dies - to thunderous applause." The Senate, for the most part, didn't have a clue. In the same way, Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader was also a gradual change.

This is not the kind of thing that somebody wakes up one day and decides to do. "Yawn... what shall I do today? I know, I'll become the ultimate evil in the galaxy." No, these kinds of things creep up on you slowly, gradually, like the grass growing in the crack of a sidewalk.

The bottom line is that we are the sum of our choices. In season one of the Fox show 24, Jack Bauer talks about some fellow agents that he turned in for corruption and says,

"You can look the other way once, and it's no big deal, except it makes it easier for you to compromise the next time, and pretty soon that's all you're doing; compromising, because that's the way you think things get done. You know those guys I busted? You think they were the bad guys? Because they weren't, they weren't bad guys, they were just like you and me. Except they compromised... Once."

Just to be clear, compromise in this case is the bad kind: "a concession to something derogatory or prejudicial <a compromise of principles>" (from the Merriam-Webster dictionary). The Galactic Senate compromised by continuing to grant power to Chancellor Palpatine without any checks on that power. Anakin compromised by disobeying orders and the rules of the Jedi Temple. The examples could go on and on from every source. Whether in contemporary society, politics, literature, or religion, we can easily point to some figure that met with tragic results because of compromised principles.

Our personal compromises are no less tragic. In fact, they can be more tragic than these larger-than-life figures. If the President of a nation or company compromises, there are other Presidents that can work to undo the damage. However, my children can never have a different father. They can never view someone else with the same eyes they have for me now.

So how do we stay alert for gangrene in our character, company, church, or nation? The same way that bank tellers stay alert for counterfeit currency - not by studying counterfeit money, but by becoming intimately familiar with the real thing.

I recently finished reading Gordon MacDonald's book Ordering Your Private World. MacDonald presents excellent guidelines for how to maintain a strong personal inner core. Through consistent self-evaluation, it is possible to maintain strength of character - but only when compared to some external standard. Plumb lines and builders' squares maintain straight lines when doing construction work, and the Holy Spirit and the Bible provide straight lines for our lives and churches.

What about our company and nation? Again, the key points are regular examination and an objective standard. For our nation as a whole, the objective standard is The Constitution. But what is the objective standard for the individuals who serve in our companies and government? How do we define ethics for public individuals? That one I'm not so sure about. (Sounds like a blog entry in the making...) What I know for sure, though, is that both our companies and our government must be constantly monitored to maintain their integrity.

We cannot turn a blind eye to the workings of our nation, and we cannot dismiss one problem area because of integrity in other areas. To do so is to risk becoming Darth Vader, the Galactic Empire... or Enron. Just as gangrene in one toe can eventually kill the entire body, so can one rotten part of a company or government proceed to infect and destroy the whole.