Ethics

"Once you get past ethics, the rest is easy."
-J. R. Ewing (Character on TV show Dallas)

For some reason this line sticks in my head. I think the line was in response to J. R's brother Bobby, played by Patrick Duffy, asking him how he had managed to become so successful. He may have also been asking J. R. how he could live with himself. In any event, J. R's answer, delivered with Larry Hagman's trademark little smirk was something like, "You know Bobby, once you get past ethics, the rest is easy."

I've often wondered what percentage of highly successful individuals and organizations, achieved their success by way of very compromised ethics. Is integrity a success inhibitor? How many people who achieve high public office are viewed as uncompromised in their integrity? How many of us believe that those politicians who promote themselves as virtuous, really are more virtuous than their competition? Do hardworking, intelligent individuals achieve only mediocre professional success because they are unwilling to lie, cheat or take undue advantage of others? Where does the concept of winners and losers fit into this discussion?

I have no answers to these questions. Maybe the predatory super achievers have a chronic stomachache from devouring all those ethical, rule abiding sheep on the way up the professional food chain. I certainly hope so. Perhaps it is true that those who believe in and follow some sort of ethical code get more satisfaction from their lives than those who don't.

For those who watched the very last episode of Dallas, we see J. R. at the end of his rope. He is staggering around an abandoned Southfork Ranch in a drunken funk wondering where his family has gone. A rather sinister character, played by Joel Grey, appears at the Ewing mansion and confronts J. R. He seems to know a lot about J. R's life. The character eventually convinces an inebriated and broken J. R. that suicide is the only escape from his ruined life. In the final frames we discover that the mystery character is actually Lucifer who has come to collect this corrupt soul. The credits roll with the sound of a gunshot.

Perhaps the journey, after you get past ethics, isn't so easy after all.