Reading Sunday at the Pool in Kigali and subsequently speaking with people with first-hand experience in Rwanda, makes one wonder about gradual disengagement from morality. For example, anti-Israel sentiment can morph into anti-Jewish sentiment. Del Amitri warned 30 years ago that "they'll burn down the synagogues at six o'clock and we'll all go along like before".
Slippery Slopes and Misconduct: The Effect of Gradual Degradation on the Failure to Notice Others' Unethical Behavior summarised four laboratory studies showing that people are more likely to overlook others' unethical behaviour when ethical degradation occurs slowly rather than in one abrupt shift. Participants served in the role of watchdogs charged with catching instances of cheating. The watchdogs in studies were less likely to criticise the actions of others when their behaviour eroded gradually, over time, rather than in one abrupt shift. This is the slippery slope effect. Studies also demonstrate that at least part of this effect can be attributed to implicit biases that result in a failure to notice ethical erosion when it occurs slowly. Broadly, these studies provided evidence as to when and why people overlook cheating by others and examine the conditions under which the slippery slope effect occurs.
More recently, according to political writer Slavoj Žižek, market values determined the contours of Russia’s war in Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, appeared to have had a crash course in how global capitalism and democracy really work. During the first two months alone of the war, Europe sent Russia almost US$40 billion in payments for oil and gas, prompting his observation that Western countries were more concerned about rising energy prices than Ukrainian lives. This recalls (later) UK prime minister Lord Palmerston's 1848 observation that "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."
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