Torture & Financial Meltdown: two sides of the same coin

Back in 2004 I was struck by a comment made in an interview by new trustees on the board of the NY Historical Society who came from the private sector.We can’t impose our ideas on them by fiat—what we’re doing that maybe hasn’t been done before is to maybe broaden the scope. Americans are ready for this now. We are financial people, and we have a nose for what the market wants*. The reason I bring this up is that the recent groundswell for a conversation on torture is in my mind a step toward healthier economy. The financial meltdown did not result just from greed, but also excessive competition, selfish individualism that are symptoms of hopelessness. Charles Handy, London Business School, made this observation when he was at the Drucker Institute in Claremont, CA. Which brings one to the question of why a civilized people such as Americans would resort to torture as a means of national security? Could it also be an eroded optimism and good faith that made torture the only option for America’s pursuit of happiness? A national conversation on values might go a long way in clarifying where we stand as a people and in the long run get our collapsed economy up and running. As Charles Handy observed
(pre-meltdown, I might add) that America will regain its stature in the world only if it regains a new mood of optimism as well as its high moral ground and recovers its traditional American values. A super-sized slice of humble pie may not hurt either.
See Handy web interview: http://www.amanet.org/editorial/webcast/2008/charles-handy.htm?CMP=EMC-ftaf
*Richard Gilder, referring to his combined leadership role with Lewis E. Lehrman as trustees for the New York Historical Society, July 2004.