"I'M O.K. - YOU'RE NOT O.K."

Many years ago while attending an employee meeting I heard an interesting question asked of our Pennsylvania Deputy Vice-President, Dick Meyers.

It was, "Are this country's ethics worsening?" His response was: "The ethics are not worse - there are just more people."

I've often reflected on that answer, particularly when later on I was a member of an insurance ethics panel and was faced with responding to that same question.

Choosing the coward's way out I used a common Public Speakers bailout and bounced the question back to the individual who had posed it. Like me, he struggled for a reply to his own question before deciding the answer was "Yes".

Today, I'm more and more convinced that both answers above were correct. There are not only many more people around than when Dick fielded the question, but also many indications that our ethical behavior has worsened.

In addition, we have become a nation of investigative reporters and self-annointed Tattle-Tale bloggers. No leaf (bedsheet or spread sheet) is left unturned.

This makes one wonder what could a politician or celebrity have possibly been thinking when he or she was caught performing unethical behavior? And yes, it's obviously not just limited to sexual misconduct, which goes back to at least Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle.

I find that the most interesting reason given for the increase in unethical behavior is the one which blames the decline on an extremely popular book from the pop-psychology of the 60's. It was entitled "I'm O.K - You're OK." and was written by Psychiatrist, Thomas A Harris.

The book sales went "bananas" (over 15 million copies) to which critics of Harris claimed,"It was not only unexpected but ironic!"

The cause and history of Harris's reasoning would take too long to document here. Needless to say it became a sensation.

Remember that the 60's were a breakout decade and it wasn't limited to Woodstock. It was not just a a time of protests and wild sex. It was also a period of self-examination. The print and entertainment media were only too happy to oblige our confusion.

Briefly, Harris's book taught us about the three personalities within us: The Parent, The Child, and (hopefully),The well reasoned Adult. The latter was meant to serve as a graduation of the previous two states and to guide our thinking and decisions in a positive manner.He suggested the Parent state often kept this from happening.

Harris said many things but,it was his treatment of the Parent state and it's impact on us as a child, that he believed too often precluded our transition into a responsible and independent adulthood. That's the part that raised the most flak.

He concluded:(per Wikipedia) "The Parent state was a collection of 'tape recordings' of external influences that the Child observed them doing and saying. He stated, "The recording is a long list of rules and admonitions about the way the world is that the Child was expected to believe unquestionably."

He felt that many of the Parent rules like, "Premarital sex is wrong" and "You can never trust a cop" were opinions that were less helpful to a child than precautionary rules such as "Never run out into traffic".

The critics suggested that this conclusion and it's extraordinary treatise resulted in encouraging too much freedom, independence, and lack of responsibility on the part of the survivors of that generation.

They claimed, that while Harris's intent may have been benign, the wrong Child (those already not receptive to the Parent recordings) as well as those less malleable and/or on the cusp, also got the message that the Parent and society's rules no longer applied to them.

The critics opined this opened the flood gates for subsequent generations that grew exponentially and led to our current permissiveness and lack of ethical restraint.

Whether the critics were correct or not would require a thesis - not a blog.

However, it should be noted the 60's were also the explosion of typical Ozzie & Harriet co-parenting and replaced by two income families and a substantial decrease in stay-at-home Moms.

Mom wasn't always around to constantly remind you that cussing and petty thievery were surely the work of the Devil and the word "Hate" was not acceptable. Experts differ on the effect - if any.

Most of us know of examples where the transistional maternal instinct coupled with a guilt complex caused working Mom to conclude Johnny and Janie could not only have any material goods they wanted but, also could do no wrong.

Anyway, Harris's ideas - good or bad- and his book title caught on. Comedian George Carlin parodied the name in his "Join The Book Club" routine, offering the book "I suck, you suck!"

Hey, who knows? I'm more inclined to believe my blog title best describes where we are now; but, what do I KNOW?