What Happened to Morality
Sunday
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
— W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming (1919)
Two lines from 1919.
I’ve been sitting with them for some time…
The world feels like it’s being built by people with no regard for the future. And the ones who have the wisdom just quietly walked away.
When did the physicians stop fighting?
Was there a moment? A meeting?
A turning point where someone said, “It’s not worth it anymore”?
Or did it happen slowly?
One quiet resignation, one silence in the meeting, one compromise at a time.
The lobbyists didn’t hesitate.
The consolidators moved fast.
The administrators filled the vacuum with policies, dashboards, and passionate intensity.
Did they know what they were building?
Or were they just moving up and to the right, blind to what was falling apart?
“We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men. Headpiece filled with straw.”
— T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men (1925)
Eliot wrote that in 1925, but it feels like a performance review I once got.
Is the insurance executive who denies care evil?
Or just hollow? Is there a difference?
What happens when the people making decisions have credentials but no character? Process but no principle?
What happens when form survives, but the soul is gone?
A profession has a code.
Something you inherit.
It tells you what you cannot do, no matter what the market rewards.
A job is an exchange. Hours for dollars. Values optional.
When medicine became a “provider network,” what did we lose that we can’t name? We still have the white coats. But the spine underneath them is harder to find.
When you’re under pressure, you do not reason from scratch.
You reach for the file.
Something you’ve built.
Something that tells you,
”Here’s what to do. Here’s what not to do. Here’s who you are.”
Religion used to build that.
So did the military.
So did families.
Professions formed it.
What builds it now?
TED Talks? Slack threads? Compliance training?
If the scaffolding collapses, what holds the roof up?
Fortifications are built to protect something valuable. The gates stand open now.
Could I have been a good Marine without a moral base?
Can you be a good parents without one?
A good leader?
I’ve watched people make decisions with no file.
Just incentives and improvisation.
No architecture underneath. Just vibes.
What did it cost?
Or maybe the question is “what will it cost?”
“As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.”
— Rudyard Kipling, The Gods of the Copybook Headings (1919)
The old truths always come back.
Usually after we’ve mocked them into exile.
What are the copybook headings of medicine?
Do no harm? Tell the truth? Protect the vulnerable?
When did we stop teaching them?
And what happens when they return?
Can morality be rebuilt once it’s gone?
Can it be taught to adults?
Or only planted in the young?
I don’t know.
But Kipling knew something we keep forgetting.
The old truths always return. The only question is what they find when they do.
If you’re still reading, you’re probably one of the people with the file.
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-Rojas out.
Did the Sunday Contemplation hit?
Here is a bit more…
FROM THE ROJAS REPORT LAST WEEK:
Seven States Ran a $24 Billion Scam on Federal Taxpayers. The Medicaid provider tax loophole that lets states extract billions from Washington. The money doesn’t go to patients.
The Charity That Pays Like Wall Street Nonprofit hospital CEOs earn eight figures while their ERs sue patients. The 990s tell the story.
The Tax Shelter with an Emergency Room $125 billion in tax exemptions. 2.3% on charity care. This isn’t charity. It’s market capture with a 501(c)(3) wrapper.