What is the cost of dignity?

In recent weeks, I have spent a lot of time talking about dignity, in various contexts and before different audiences. The topic of dignity is eternal — it responds to the question of who we are and who we are called to be. While interesting to some as a philosophical abstraction, the phenomenon of dignity is compelling to all in its concrete dimension. This holds true for our life in contemporary Ukrainian circumstances.

My discussion with Kyiv managers and business owners, as part of the BiznesCredo project launched on Feb. 3 at Kyiv’s Opera Hotel, was focused on the topic “What is the cost of dignity?” Creativity, crisis and pressure, essential aspects of business, frame the issue. Entrepreneurs are influential people. Through their activity they can raise – or crush – people’s dignity.

Our discussion concerned less the regular aspects of business – efficiency, processes, profits – than the spiritual question in the minds of entrepreneurs. The more difficult the administrative decisions, the deeper the spiritual quest and desire to answer some of the hardest questions: Am I doing what is right and what is the ultimate goal?

Or in the direct words of one participant: “Is giving a bribe a sin?” The conversation was about the philosophy or rather the spirituality of business. Together we reflected openly on issues that underlie the surface questions, looking for plausible, if not compelling, answers.

Now and again every manager or business owner has to make difficult and unpleasant decisions. In this regard the topic of cynicism came up. Cynicism is when a person makes a decision without considering its real consequences, particularly its effect on other people.

The way we make decisions either inspires or belittles our counterpart, either builds or destroys his/her dignity. One can say “no” in many ways – by showing one’s power (“because I said so”) or by asking someone to participate in a dialogue.

This is not an easy art, but it must be mastered. The journey is as important as the point of arrival. There is no definite line between where truth (righteousness) ends and begins – rather, it is connected to interpersonal factors. This is not a relativistic statement but rather a relational one. Truth is not so much “what” as “who” and the very relationship between two “whos,” i.e. persons.

As a historian I often peruse history for answers to questions about life today. Ukraine’s problems are associated with social atomization. Throughout many decades interpersonal human trust and communication were destroyed. The vulnerability and risk necessary for authentic relationships required a sacrifice that became next to impossible. The experience of past violence remains in the memory of most Ukrainians. History has traumatized us.

A striking example is the history of 20th century Lviv, the city I live and work in. The Jewish population was exterminated during the war. Poles were deported at its end, and Ukrainians were decimated throughout the war and afterwards purged by the Soviet authorities. A city of 300,000 inhabitants in 1939 was left with 50,000 or 60,000 native residents in 1945.

By 1985, through urbanization half a million rural western Ukrainians and the importation of close to 100,000 Russians and many eastern Ukrainians, Lviv’s population rose to a daytime level of one million. Obliteration and engineered growth: From 300,000 to 50,000 then to 1,000,000 in less than 50 years!
Such brutal and radical transformation cannot be assimilated in the span of two generations, especially when people do not have the freedom for mourning, remorse and the arduous and subtle process of reconciliation. Such assimilation entails not simply rational and conscious processes but deep spiritual, psychological, and emotional experiences of trauma, displacement and radical change. These, in turn, influence all aspects of life, including business.

In Lviv, less than 10 percent of its residents can say that my parents and grandparents were born in this city. The urban fabric, social discourse, and city culture needed for fruitful business in Lviv are only slowly being reestablished.

The 2008 crisis, which followed a period of optimism and high expectations, caused the business world to lose faith. The pressures felt especially by small- and medium-sized businesses lead to gloomy outlooks. To overcome fatalist attitudes attention and energy need to be directed toward long-term processes and not toward epiphenomena.

Life’s challenges are less overwhelming when we accept that we never can control everything and overcome our sense of hopelessness and guilt. In other words, we must not allow external challenges to capture our inner life, instead maintaining our God-given inner freedom and peace. It is important to fight evil, but it is even better to witness. A witness does the right thing whether or not the outcome is guaranteed. When the circumstances do not allow for the desired result, we should not judge ourselves in a self-destructive manner morally or professionally.

During a lecture at Lviv’s Ukrainian Catholic University where I serve as rector, Krzysztof Zanussi argued that a true businessman is someone who has gone bankrupt at least four times. Without hope for the future, it is impossible to risk to be fully honest, open, and truly creative.

Many Ukrainian businessmen are masters at swimming against the current, but they are tempted by conformism. The strength of the current and the lack of ways to resist it and steer the desired path can be discouraging. Often our decision to be conformists is related to an inner feeling of predestination — we think there is no other way out and thus we reject bold, creative solutions.

A broader perspective, one which shows that fatalism is ultimately false and that the future can be different, is needed in order to swim against the current. When we have wisdom — that is life experience that reveals broad possibilities— we can be nonconformists.

It is important to maintain the posture of freedom. I think that in Ukraine today the most important struggle is the one for inner space. Checking our inner microcosm is vital: Have we allowed circumstances to dictate our lives? When we are free inside, then there is no inevitability to swim downstream.

The issue of social responsibility is becoming more and more important for Ukrainian companies. Many of them are signing the Charter of the United Nations. Social responsibility is also related to charity. Charitable organizations often ask themselves whether they should take donations from Ukrainian oligarchs. Our university is faced with the same issue.

Only 15 percent of our budget is covered by tuition fees, while the rest is from donations. We started building a university campus and we need $4 million to 5 million every year for construction. I believe that the donations should be accepted. The director of the Washington-based Kennan Institute, Blair Ruble, recently said to me: “For me it is more important what the money is used for than where or whom it came from.”

In the Ukrainian reality it is vital to remember that a donation cannot buy absolution. But repentance, which is required for absolution, can be manifested in a donation. Can any money be considered a donation? Not if it is at the cost of moral principles or if the donation is an investment. Then it is no longer a donation. Ukraine still has a long way to go to realize the impact and responsibility of capital.

I believe that social responsibility and charity is an expression of love to others, and I am certain that Ukrainians are no less capable of expressing this love than anyone else. No country has a monopoly of the virtue, just as no nation has a monopoly of the vices.

Borys GUDZIAK

14 February 2011 KyivPost