Ethics & The Police Band

Professor J.M. Subramanya spoke with us about ethics and how it plays into business philosophy. His lecture was interesting in that it touched on Mahatma Gandhi and his teachings of altruism as the highest form of morality because one of our assigned books brings light to the other side of Indian moral behavior.

On page 76 of Being Indian, Pavan K. Varma states that "corruption is, of course, not unique to India. What is unique is its acceptance, and the 'creative' ways in which it is sustained...Their understanding of right and wrong is far more related to efficacy than to absolutist notions of morality. An act is right if it yields the desired end; it is wrong if it does not". The idea of this blows my mind. I cannot imagine living in a place where offering and accepting bribes is legitimate in nature. As a business student myself--and living in a world where globalization has taken individuals into an international market--it scares me to know that I will be among other individual businessmen that are so focused on the final result that they disregard the morality of the means. If this corrupt way of doing business and making connections remains prevalent in the future, I am not going to be able to compete.

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I really enjoyed listening to the Police Band in the campus Amphitheatre. It got a little loud at times, but it was a perfect night to relax and hear traditional Indian music. It was beautiful outside, and it was nice that some of the other SDM students showed up to listen as well. I also couldn't believe that the soloist's phone went off during his performance. Moreover, I couldn't believe that he actually stopped in the middle of his song to answer it! I feel like mishaps with the cell phones around here happen all the time. It seems odd that the professors and businessmen keep their phones on all the time, and always make time to answer it even if they are in the middle of speaking to a group of people. Maybe it's a status thing... or maybe they just don't know that they can easily change the settings to 'silent'... either way, I find it pretty strange and somewhat distracting. I probably have a biased opinion on the situation though because if someone did that back in the US, it would be considered disrespectful and terribly rude.