Ethics in a House at War

Perhaps I should speak of ethics today.

I am forever circling that wretched question of ethics. The moment people enter the frame, it grows murkier still. How is it possible for ethics and people to inhabit the same room without poisoning one another?

There is a saying in Portuguese, something about ethics and integrity: if someone is no longer your friend, you must still respect their secrets.

But by what measure is that meant to hold? There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of reasons why friendships die. Sometimes they curdle into enmity. And is there such a thing as ethics in war?

There are people I know who speak monstrously of me. Not in whispers, not in truths sharpened by resentment, but in lies. That is worse. And yet the world, with its relentless machinery, always seems to bring them back around to me at the precise moment of their desperation, asking for help.

My rational mind says: let them burn.

And still, some weaker part of me insists on entertaining the possibility that they may have changed. But that hope is false. I have seen this before. You may feed a crocodile, but it does not cease to be a crocodile. Everything is a matter of timing. What makes the criminal is often nothing more than the proper hour.

I have tried to remain silent. Omission is better, perhaps, than the deliberate practice of harm.

So I have ignored those who come to me seeking help after having once tried to ruin me. They want my allegiance. They want me to stand beside causes they themselves would have gladly buried me under.

And that leads me to another question about human bonds: why would you spend years confessing your most sordid, disturbing, ruinous secrets to someone you intend, one day, to destroy?

There is no ethics in war.

If you possess a little more courage than I do, then use the secrets of former friends against them when they become your enemies. Yes. Do it. They will not spare you.

I wish I possessed something of Christ’s light, enough to turn the other cheek without bitterness.

Unfortunately, 'the mondo is cane'...