Many life events have led me
to think a lot about collusion lately. Collusion is when two people or
organizations come to a secret understanding or conspire. It is often seen
as negative. We all collude on a normal basis without realizing.
TACIT COLLUSION
Tacit Collusion is when two
people or organizations come to an understanding without explicitly saying so. The
difference between tacit and normal collusion is whether the two people are
actually communicating. Think of a sidewalk. Why do people only walk on the
right side? No one ever said that all pedestrians must walk on the right side
of the sidewalk. We have a mutual understanding with the rest of humanity that
if we all walk on the right, we will never have to worry about walking into
each other.
The Declaration of Independence
states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness." We all retain a
mutual agreement that liberty is a right. This right is
"self-evident". No one needs to say that everyone deserves life,
liberty and happiness. (However, I notice the irony in the fact that our
founding fathers had to explicitly state that everyone is entitled to these
rights.)
Let’s get spiritual.
There exist higher and lower
laws. Evidence of such laws can be found using the Christ’s teachings and the
Law of Moses. Under the Law of Moses were many commandments, even the Ten
Commandments. When a lawyer posed the question “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”, Jesus
Responded with the following:
“Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And
the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets.”
How can two commandments
possibly trump all others? If we understand the importance of commandments and
their purpose, silent commandments do not need to be declared to be lived.
Tacit collusion. In a perfect society, each would abide by unspoken rules
knowing that society is better off as everyone lives them. Murder, rape, and theft
need not be spoken because it is self-evident that these are evil.
You can tell how untamed a
society has become by the number of laws required to discipline it. We are more
free with lesser laws while choosing to abide by principles of righteousness.
It takes one stupid action to
change the rules for everyone else. For those interested in economics, we call
this a grim trigger strategy. Sometimes we laugh at all the wacky laws adopted
by certain states (example: It is illegal to sell your children in Florida), but have you ever thought, “Who
was the guy who actually did it, forcing the government to create a law?” One
idiot ruins it for the rest of us.
I have one last point.
We cannot force everyone else
to tacitly collude with us. And communicating such collusion is essentially
what law is. So if we can’t force others to obey with us, and you can’t reach
tacit collusion by open communication, what can we do?
We live to be the best people
we can be. We strive to look for ways that we can help other people and make
society better. Many times this will require us to check our selfish interests at
the door, but it is worth it. And maybe if we live in a noble manner, others
will notice and tacitly collude with
us.
