Honor and Conscience

In American English, there is no exact translation of the Russian “sovest” (usually translated as “conscience”). Their “conscience” is closer to the mind than to the heart, relative to “awareness” but certainly not to “shame.” “Bessovestnost” (lack of “sovest”) is usually translated into English as “dishonesty.” However, to the Russian ear it’s not exactly the same.

Americans, for the most part, are honest and sincere people who don’t possess the habit to cheat. This wonderful trait of their national character is always noticed by the foreigners, especially by those coming from the former USSR. I remember how a famous poet named Naum Korzhavin, when I asked him what amazed him the most in Americans, exclaimed: “They don’t lie! And even if someone lies and gets caught, he’ll get in trouble. And in Russia — no problem!”

It’s true. I’ll use the mass media example. Who in Russia will be surprised by planted articles and biased questions during press-conferences? In America, mass media understand that their most powerful protection is not the Bill of Rights but the public trust. And they cherish it.

Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, had been publishing sensational news about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program one piece after another. Later, it turned out that her “sources,” the first being the White House, had been purposely feeding her with phony facts. “The Star” had to quit, and her editor in chief had to publicly apologize for her “creative work.”

By the way, the former Secretary of State Colin Powell didn’t get along with the Bush administration thanks in large part to the fact that he had to publicly defend the same position on Iraq that Miller was “promoting.”

It’s another matter that his successor, Condoleezza Rice, had no problem with publicly defending a lie about the events in South Ossetia in August of 2008. I asked her personally about that and clearly remember how embarrassing it was to watch her prevaricate in order not to acknowledge the facts.

And it’s understandable. Once, I asked the legendary Helen Thomas what would be the most offensive thing she had ever heard about the U.S. president: “Mr. President, you are lying!” said the journalist, who had been working in the White House since the presidency of John F. Kennedy, right away.

Of course, the attitude towards honesty and decency is rooted in the religion and the understanding of the fact that not only it is sinful to lie in front of God, but it is also useless. Americans think that a person who doesn’t believe in God most likely doesn’t really believe in anything at all. Therefore, he himself cannot be trusted. (Perhaps this is the worst damage atheism can inflict.)

Naturally, “not living a lie” is also made possible by the law. But for that to happen, the law must be observed.

I remember hearing a conversation between one Russian minister and a main Hollywood lobbyist about intellectual property rights. The American was arguing ardently that selling pirated DVDs from street stalls was nothing other than stealing. Our guy lazily objected that licensed DVDs were just too expensive for Russians, but people still wanted to watch new movies…

To be honest, back then, I thought that this position had some truth to it. Now I can only see it as the main motto of notorious Russian right-wing nihilism: “It’s prohibited, but if you really want to, then it’s allowed.”

For Americans, “prohibited” means “prohibited.” And not only because the law says so, but, most of all, because the law reflects the general idea about justice. That’s why here it doesn’t occur to anyone to “come to terms” with the traffic police on the spot for cash. And that’s why it’s prohibited to bribe not only American officials but the foreign ones, too.

For that same reason, people don’t buy pirated DVDs. It’s just customary and natural for them to be honest and to respect themselves. Plus, Spinoza’s definition of freedom as a conscious necessity can also be applied here.

In general, honesty is very beneficial for the society. Since Max Weber, it’s been considered that Protestant ethics are the basis of prosperity in modern capitalist countries. The famous philosopher himself thought New England to be the implementation of the contemporary and early “spirit of capitalism.”

Besides, honesty is a powerful drug that helps heal many social plagues, including corruption. For example, “scrupulous honesty” is the basis of the Alcoholics Anonymous movement in America, which helped to almost completely resolve the problem of substance addiction.

Americans do not tolerate lying in any frame of reference (be it tests at school, marriage or filing taxes). In fact, they possess a certain moral absolutism.

Sometimes this quality can appear as psychological narrowness. An American is used to the fact that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. He goes straightforwardly towards his goal, and if he runs into an obstacle he’ll break through it, climb over it or get stuck. So, could it be that Russian programmers are so valued in Silicon Valley precisely because they often can find a solution to “unsolvable problems”? But, of course, they take a circuit.

And besides, lies can be different. When he came back home after a long assignment in Moscow, Baltimore Sun reporter Douglas Birch admitted in his article that he was nostalgic about “Russian culture’s healthy skepticism about the value of always telling the truth.”

Following Mark Twain, the journalist expressed his regrets that “the art of deception” had been lost in America. “We pretend to live in a culture where everyone can and should tell the brutal and uncouth truth, at all times and under all circumstances,” he stated. “Whom are we kidding? Only ourselves.”

Actually, it’s not really clear how much Americans are confused about themselves. During a survey on this topic, only 63 percent of respondents thought of themselves and their compatriots as “honest” – a lot less than “hardworking” or “resourceful.” (But when talking about negative qualities, a whopping 70 percent agreed that Americans are “greedy.”)

The most obvious “exceptions to the rule” in the American conception of honesty are commercials, state propaganda and social political correctness.

The situation with commercials is more or less clear. America is a country of beautiful packaging with rather ordinary content, at least when it comes to mass production.

Officially, it’s prohibited to cheat on customers. But what does it mean to cheat? Not that long ago, no one was forced to sign attractive but virtually enslaving mortgages. As a result, it turned out to be not only an American, but a global financial crisis.