The complicity of compliance

By Hari Heath

Most people, like water, choose the easiest path. It is much easier to just go along to get along. Some talk of standing strong, but few actually do it. We conjure up heroes to promote our images of greatness, but Americans are not free, nor brave, because they have chosen the path of compliance. That path is now a super highway, thanks to our complicity with the forces of government and commerce -- real, imagined or otherwise.

Where did such complicity begin? It began before our time and will no doubt continue as long as the forces of power can find ways to obtain our compliance. Compliance and complicity are not synonymous words. But compliance creates complicity when we comply with something that is morally, ethically, lawfully or legally wrong. Our act of complying, makes us complicit in the operation of such a wrong.

What do the definers of words have to say?

COMPLIANCE: “Submission; obedience; conformance.” Black's Law Dictionary, 5th Edition.

“Action in accordance with a request, a command, etc. A tendency to submit easily.” Oxford American Dictionary, 1980.

“The act or an instance of complying; obedience to a request, command, etc. The capacity to yield under an applied force. The degree of such yielding. Unworthy acquiescence.” Reader's Digest Oxford Complete Wordfinder, 1996.

COMPLY: “Act in accordance (with a wish, command, etc.). Agree, obey, conform, consent, acquiesce, concur, submit, yield, accede.” Reader's Digest Oxford Complete Wordfinder, 1996.

“To yield; to accommodate, or to adapt oneself to; to act in accordance with; to accept.” Black's Law Dictionary 5th Edition.

What happens, as a natural consequence, when we “act in accordance with a wish, command, etc.” that is morally or lawfully wrong, or we “obey, conform, consent, acquiesce, submit, accede,” or “yield under an applied force” to what would ordinarily be a crime if it were not sanctioned by the powers to which we are complying? We “accede,” “acquiesce” and “submit” into complicity.

COMPLICITY: “The state of being an accomplice, as in a wrongdoing.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 1969.

“Partnership in a crime or wrong doing. [complice (see ACCOMPLICE) + -ITY].” Reader's Digest Oxford Complete Wordfinder, 1996.

“A state of being an accomplice; participation in guilt. Involvement in crime as a principal or as accessory before fact. May also refer to activities of conspirators.” Black's Law Dictionary 5th Edition.

When we comply with that which is a wrong we become a complice or an accomplice.

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