HOW TO FRAME EVERYDAY ETHICS FOR THE NEW ERA

Old moral codes are inadequate for dealing with new dilemmas like trading with Trump, rebuilding Gaza, engaging farmers and developing Andaman. We need fresh codes for the common man

- SHIV VISVANATHAN

Transitions tend to be fluid at most times. We cross a year, flip a calendar, or turn a diary without a thought. But there are other moments when transitions appear to be caught in a quagmire. The old and the new struggle, and citizens have to find a new language to understand the new.

When one looks at 2024-25, four events stand out. The first is Donald Trump's return to power. This year, it was announced that Trump was no longer an aberration, but a new establishment of power politics. The encounter with Trump's announcements is almost pathetic. He is the crudest figure in international politics today. Yet, no one wants to confront the obscenity. Everyone wishes to trade with him because they want to be seen as being realistic and pragmatic.

Trump adds crudeness to obscenity. He recently described the reconstruction of the devastated Gaza Strip as an act similar to building a riviera. To him, it's a real-estate operation in which people can be easily discounted and citizens, in the demographic and democratic imagination, make little sense. Trump has created a new sense of democracy where the people are no longer important.

The problem in confronting Trump pragmatically is the missing sense of ethics. No major NGO or dissenting group has come forward to say the American government is becoming a global immorality. The silence adds to Trump's power while he behaves like a mix of a comic-book character and a science-fiction monster.