Vampires and All

I was talking with my friend, Tyler, the other day about vampires and he suggested there are degrees of vampirism—the less vampirish lamenting the horrible way they are forced to stay alive, the more, of course, having no regrets whatsoever.

Our discussion was particularly relevant to me given the imminent sentencing of Bernie Madoff, whom I see as a vampire of a particularly 21st Century type. Vanity Fair recently published a lengthy article on Madoff and his sons, mainly focusing on how much his family (all of whom worked for his firm) knew about the swindle. It’s a good question because the answer will determine how many others join Madoff in jail. All, of course, plead innocence.

How much one is willing to believe (or disbelieve) strikes me as an interesting question in its own right that many people seem to cast in terms of a failure of values or ethics.

The values group blame the investors who, they say, were blinded by greed and didn’t ask how Madoff was making money. It’s tautological: if they’d been honest, they would have asked how Madoff was succeeding where others weren’t. That they didn’t ask provides one more example of how society is going to hell in a hand basket. Certainly, Madoff was a cheat and a criminal but, they would argue, there are always cheats and criminals in any society. Anyone morally righteous and honest would not have been cheated because they would have asked about fair and right profit and realized something was terribly wrong. No sympathy here: send Madoff to jail and stress individual responsibility and let the learning curve begin among the investors.

The ethics group, on the other hand, prefers to point to some moral flaw or sociopathy in Bernie Madoff’s genetic inheritance. How, otherwise, could he have cheated his friends and those who trusted him? They would argue his fraud must result from some character flaw (or worse) with the bilked investors merely innocent victims. The only protection from the sociopath, they would argue, is regulation so let government intervention begin and let the losses be mitigated.

On a cynical note, let me say that I am attracted by neither position. I find both somewhat hypocritical and more or less fluid depending on how much the government is willing to mitigate: the most dyed-in-the-wool values evangelist tends to stretch out a hand as far as the ethicist. To me the larger question is one of character.

There may be some who feel that my distinction between ethics and values is too precise and that talking about a general failure of character is merely a diversion. While I can respect that position, I have to believe there is a larger question here, one that underlies and perhaps emphasizes a good deal of what passes for public debate these days. Let me explain.

The other day, George Sweanor, whose blog is linked to this one, forwarded a wonderful letter from a comrade not in arms but in conflict. This man had been part of an enemy air force charged with bombing England at the same time that George had been charged with bombing Germany. They met after George returned from being a POW at the Great Escape Stalag. Between the two men, both separated and joined by a common war, there grew a lifelong friendship based on compassion, empathy, and a wisdom that grew beyond judgment and pettiness. That’s what I call character and I think we’re missing it today. How easy it would have been for them to carry forward all the jingoism and propaganda of the wars. Yet they did not. They recognized a common humanity that illuminated them and, in a way, set aside the horrors of the conflict in the hope of communication and understanding.

As I say, this finding of common ground is character, and it is missing in those who indulge in name calling and vitriol, particularly from the group I have come to call the valueists. These are people who use their so-called values as ways to distinguish between themselves and others and deride those who do not agree with them. I have found values, whether they be religious, cultural, or political, not generally compassionate despite original founding principles that might suggest otherwise. If I have to be honest, I am frightened by those who use their values as clubs to beat others who do not share them.

I guess, when it comes to vampires, I am uninterested in whether they have approved values or whether they justify their behavior by appeals to their own survival. I prefer vampires, if I must have them, to be willing to drive the stake through their own hearts.