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From Soc 334: Women in Society

On Wednesday, October 23, Denise Vokoun wrote:

Dear Jeanne,

In class we talked about transparency. My understanding of transparency is that people should not do things without the knowledge of those that are supposed to know. One of the articles that I pulled off the web site about transparency uses the incident that happened with Enron. Enron employees falsified financial statements and fraudulently used company money without the knowledge of others within the company. Transparency can also be linked to war and President Bush. President Bush holds a position that we look to for guidance and protection when in reality he is doing the complete opposite. President Bush tells us only things that will gain him support to justify his actions. For example, the war that is going on in the middle East President Bush wants to go and attack because he says it's necessary despite the fact that this action will kill many innocent civilians and cause the likelihood of future war. I just don't feel like President Bush is telling us everything there is to know.

Denise Vokoun

jeanne's comments:

Good statement of transparency, Denise. I think you've got it, and it's a little tricky to explain. I think you need the words "should not" in yoursecond sentence above. That's because transparency is the desired situation, when those who make decisions keep others who should know about those decisions well informed of what's going on. In the Enron situation and in the present War with Iraq situation, trnasparency would be the ideal situation, in which executives informed other executives and in which the government informed its citizens (at least to the extent possible within national security concerns.)

Perhaps I could elaborate like this: transparency may not mean that each of us tell all the others everything we're involved in or do, but that each of us recongizes an ethical and fiscal responsibility to be sure that those who will be affected by the transaction, whatever it is, are as informed as it is possible to keep them without unduly disclosing corporate privacy or national security, as the case may be. Should we later discover, as we did with Enron, that some officials were using the corporate cover to make illegal private gains, then transparency and fiscal responsibility have been violated. Should we later discover that the evidence we have against Saddam Hussein does not indeed justify a war with Iraq, then the government has misled us and we must then demand greater transparency in future transactions.

Laws in Calfirornia demanding transparency in our government transactions are called "sunshine laws." The term indicates that decisions should not be made behind closed doors that exclude those who should know how these decisions are beng made, including the public.

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