By Gabriel Shapiro

We must hold our society’s venerated institutions to higher standards. They occupy much indulged positions that bring them many rewards; therefore, they must continually prove worthy of such regard and accord. There are many institutions in this position, but the following ones must be subjected to even higher expectations by us all: education, healthcare, religion.

Why these three?

Worldwide, for thousands of years, these three institutions have been accorded high respect and expensive deference. In different cultures, they have appeared in different forms: From education by elders to formal education, from tribal healers to elaborate corporate healthcare systems, from ritualized nature worship to the Catholic Church. In our United States, highly formal, highly organized institutions dominate these three areas. Here, two of the main benefits conferred on them have been the imprimatur of being unquestioned fonts of positive forces within our culture and tax-free status. Because of the high status of these institutions, a large subscriber base has been almost automatic, with societally endorsed people, such as parents and community leaders, strongly directing the average citizen to Get Educated! Get Healed! Get Religion!

At times, each of These Three has earned its vaunted status by educating, healing, and spiritually coaching people without expecting increased hegemony. [One could say that the very act of increasing their ministered scope did increase their hegemony, but that is more of a long-term factor, one that could arrive via societally beneficial (generally selfless) or societally detrimental (generally self-centered) institutional behavior.] Where necessary and possible, and without presuming full repayment, they have educated the poor, healed the sick, and coached the lost toward an improved life of the soul. Obviously, there must be some self-interest: The blood must flow through the body at large for the arm to chisel the stone; the hospital must pay its utilities, must exist, to heal the ill.

Of late, it is easy to find publicized refutation of the positive essence of These Three. Whether these aired stories represent majority corruption of the souls of the institutions or only represent important cracks in their foundations is not known, but, either way, their ventures into moral turpitude are highly relevant, not only morally but as regards societal imperative and structure. These respected institutions have the undeniable responsibility of acting as lights in the forest; as societally selected bearers of high principle, they are seen and valued as some of our highest institutions and must act so. If these institutions are no longer as vaunted as their long-held positions proclaim, society should not only reconsider their status but consider revoking the benefits that are attendant to such high status.

Self-Parodying?

This term came to me when hearing about the latest in the lengthy parade of sexual crimes committed by members of the clergy. The very people telling us how to behave in so many ways, including a strong focus on our sexual conduct, have been very much in the child-abuse business. This is insane! Of course, not every priest or religious officer has been defiling our young, but it was/is far more than rare anomaly, and the institution, the bearer of the highest voiced standards, was acting in truly evil – let’s just say it: devilish – ways by hiding and thereby fomenting the further perpetration of heinous crimes. Everybody knows this, and, yes, some have stopped sitting in the pew. But acknowledgement, condemnation and some desertion are not enough.

I probably don’t have to delineate further what I mean by self-parodying, but I will: To act in such opposition to your core expressed beliefs that you have become a parody of yourself. The church acting the devil. The surgeon who doesn’t wash properly before transecting the artery, the librarian who turns up the boom box in the research area of the library, the gym guru who routinely takes the elevator up one flight, the merchant of veganism who eats double burgers in the office closet. The public pacifist who beats his/her spouse.

Yes, humans are fallible. In some ways, I am self-parodying. My wife points out that despite my high safety focus, particularly with our 6-year-old boy, I sometimes take silly risks in my own life. I believe I have humane views on humanness. But to have such obvious, repeated transgressions by people employed and rewarded to model the very behaviors they continually declare in strong rhetoric, that is worthy of knocking them off their gleaming plinths and into the darkest cellar of our regard. And not just via individual protest and condemnation, but necessarily and logically through unified governmental and community actions.

And the Transgressions?

I’ve already mentioned the well-known crimes of the church. Another example: With so many poor and suffering, why not expect the Vatican to empty its vast basement of priceless art and artifacts. Many of the “transgressions”/operational modii of These Three are not covered by criminal law, but are, I believe, easily captured under the rubric of societal transgressions: For instance, the trusted father/mother spending the weekly paycheck on their pleasures without enough remaining to properly benefit the offspring and spouse. Much of this seems obvious but needs delineation because of the stupor we seem to be in that permits These Three’s commitment to these transgressions.

Here are three major and ruinous sins that I regularly see promulgated by These Three:

Entrusted and supported (financially and otherwise) to care for others but primarily focused on self-care/self-gain. Why must the presidents of small, minimally endowed colleges make a corporate president’s salary? The minions of the typical non-profit, university or not, are told to happily weather the inconveniences of lower compensation because they are reaping the self-enhancing benefits of being in their chosen, societally hallowed field of work: teaching, ministry, healthcare, etc. (Some, like me, do consider that benefit to be worthy of tens of thousands of dollars per year.) Further self-parody: The college presidents are often otherwise festooned with very expensive perks: free residential lodging (often in the best campus manse or mansion), personal assistants, entertainment budgets, etc. Extreme self-parody: Sometimes the head honchos (boards and administrators) have the gall to cover the president’s tax bill.

Holding a kingdom-centric focus. Most often, we see this when human capital (a disgraceful term) is forsaken to acquire more property (more land, more buildings, etc.) when it is not essential to preserving the very life of the institution. You’ve seen it many times: large layoffs even as the institution is expanding its shiny physical presence. Once again, I’m trying to be as fair as possible; I understand that some interest in the corporate self of These Three must be maintained, but that preservation must be to abet the institution’s main spoken purpose of continuing to serve – to serve others, not themselves.

Abandonment of central, bespoken role. These Three have willingly accepted their mantles and the perks inherent to wearing them. Rhetorically, politically and otherwise, they have strongly agreed to their roles in society. They have not been forced to assume those roles. When these entities forsake their chosen jobs as societal leaders, they must pay the consequences for these breaches. For instance, more and more universities favor costly expansion in areas not connected to their missions, primarily to educate, thereby imperiling the viability of their main goals. How many universities do we need that serve sushi in the dining hall, that sport luxurious student lodging, that have many expensive teams (with expensive coaches and expensive insurance policies and expensive travel budgets and many costly etceteras)? Administrators keep precise track of the number of student butts filling each course’s seats and frequently cancel classes for the semester if numbers fall even one student below rigid class-size rules; let them be as exacting about the costs, attendance, and payback for every sports team and other major outlays. Excellence in education is directly connected to excellence in teaching, not high-grade seafood and the harboring of many sports teams. Likewise with remunerating administrators and other university bureaucrats with high corporate salaries. [I know one Chicagoland dean that “was embarrassed” by how high his pay was; “I was making almost four times as much when I was a (middle-level) dean as I was when I was as a professor.”]

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Overall, we must adamantly pressure These Three and other high-status institutions to rededicate themselves to the people at large before we continue to allow them to claim the high and tangible benefits of their societally granted positions. Purely hegemonic approaches should be stricken from their agendas – clearly, it is not what they are paid to do.

These Three must institute rigorous self-critique that yields the results that will match their proclamations of societal benefit and their expectations of high social status and consequent high reward.

If you’re just going to be another commodifying, self-serving organization, then call yourself a business and, among other things, pay your taxes.

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