Can a Macaw correct Bad Habits?

My son’s teacher repeats to me from time to time that we must make children see the consequences of their actions. From the most obvious: if you put your hand in the fire you will burn; even those that could be otherwise: if you scream over and over again, I get upset. I don’t know how, but it’s possible that the high-pitched screaming didn’t bother me. That the children can calculate the consequences, the teacher tells me, is shaping their behavior. She makes them more restrained, responsible. What happens when wrong actions do not have clear consequences? They are repeated ad nauseam, they become a bad habit. Parents, and the rest of those committed to education, we become containment of wrong behaviors. Where there are no consequences remains the autocracy: the government where the will of the supreme is the only law. And it makes sense, we humans tend to behave better when we’re being watched. There are many experiments that show it. For example, if we leave a ticket on the floor in an office with hidden cameras, the number of people who keep it is greater than if we throw it away in an office where the cameras are visible. A ruler watched over by control bodies, by the press, and by an informed citizenry, will be much less likely to become corrupt, to steal, to abuse his power, than one who is not watched by anyone. Because also, if he behaves incorrectly, his behavior will have consequences: be it jail, disqualification, political defeat. When no one is watching, and wrong behaviors have no consequences, it happens like with children: rulers tend to develop bad habits. That is why in a healthy and consolidated democracy, power is watched and incorrect conduct has consequences. In contrast, in weak democracies, surveillance is lax or absent and the consequences never come.

Due to the considerable hacking of SEDENA documents, we have been finding out for several days about behaviors that would deserve consequences, all possible: jail, disqualification, political defeats. How were weapons sold to the CJNG in military camp number one? How did the army know that the section of the Mayan train from Playa del Carmen to Tulum would run on risky ground? How that the head of the Ministry of the Interior was related to the huachicol when he governed Tabasco? How does the secretary of defense make luxury gifts with public money? How is it that the Army behaves like the Church and covers up sexual abusers? How is it possible? And the consequences? Well, contrary to what we would expect, they are good: the legislature gives the Armed Forces a constitutional change so that they continue on the streets until 2028, it gives them permission to operate a commercial airline. And we keep the Secretary of the Interior, by default, as a candidate. Mexican democracy, which was never full and vigorous, is very sick, and as we know, there are no medicines.

Twitter: @munozoliveira