The intensity of changes in the system of social relations irreversibly points to the necessity to explain and understand such an important phenomenon as corruption. After all, a descriptive attitude towards corruption and its constant “denunciation” is not efficient – corruption is insuperable, which points to the underlying context of its functioning. We can assume that corruption is not only a phenomenon of social relations in the triad “man-state-law” but also an integral part of the human personality. Consequently, it would not be wrong to look at corruption from the perspective of manipulative psychology.
Thus, for the last ten years, a very fashionable message of many election campaigns of political leaders, parties, and public organizations is “the fight against corruption”.
It is a qualitative indicator of the formation of civil society and political activity in the presence of one thing – why all actions are not efficient enough.
From the viewpoint of science, if a phenomenon does not form or if some unpredictable changes in its dynamics are recorded. It means that we should look for a particular factor, a cause (an independent variable), whose existence the researcher doesn’t guess. But it is this factor that determines the result.
A good experiment is when this factor is found, defined and manageable. Perhaps it is worth looking at an undefined corruption factor called the personality itself, or the transformations it undergoes when it enters the system of corruption. If we take this standpoint, the focus on explaining and understanding corruption will move from the social space of study to the psychological one. Consequently, it is interesting to look at the corruption factors as a unique phenomenon of an individual who can function both as a subject of social and political relations (as someone who fights corruption) and, in fact, as a corrupt individual.
The first important thing is the definition of corruption as measured by the properties of a personality. Corruptness as a personality trait, is expressed in the willingness of a person, who belongs to the state nomenclature to “sell” a public service twice, or more precisely to sell it, namely: an instruction, a method of solving difficult situations and tasks, a means of decision-making, lobbying interests, at the very least. A corrupt person is a person who profits twice. The first time is by receiving a salary from the state, which is disastrously degrading to the corrupt individual. The second time is a kind of resale of the “state function”, where the justice of the “economic man”, whose theory is actively imposed on society as a self-actualised and self-actualised individual, is restored. It turns out that “if you want to be ahead, become a person, the main quality of which is corruptibility”.
The second, no less important factor, is the state’s role in organizing a system of targeted training and formation of the corrupt person as the only possible fighter for the rights and freedoms of citizens. A person with this characteristic is “split” in a peculiar way. It believes so much in “creating” the good that it does not even assume the existence of the second “dark” side of its personality – the violation of the moral and formal side of the Law. It is, of course, a moral choice of the individual rather than his definition.
The third and the most crucial factor is that carriers of corruption have so “driven” social standards into a system of “hand-washing and both living well” that it is no longer possible, not only to be conscientious but also, in principle, impossible for a person to be honest.
The most tragic thing in all of this is that, with the traits listed above, people who hold power and state authority have “lowered” the Law with their unprofessionalism, transcending all kinds of morality, responsibility and mercy.
All the rest, not involved in the system of actual corruption as a process, not a slogan for the voters, are just helping each other, compensating for the consequences of total corruption.
Summary…
In the context of the correlation between freedom and responsibility, mental health indicators, the corrupted personality deserves separate scientific consideration.
One should distinguish freedom, which relies on a clear awareness of one’s own life strategies, criticism in assessing oneself, one’s actions, and responsibility, as a conscious measure of concern for oneself and for another, from empty words, which lack the qualitative connection of thought, word and activity.
Because these are the components that are the distinctive qualities of a free person ready to accept responsibility. Consequently, corruptibility indicates a person incapable of being free, while slavery does not entitle one to be responsible, for this function is always in the hands of the master of the slave.
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