• Ethical Training Home
• Ethics: What and Why
  • Why Study Ethics?
  • Indian County Ethics
  • Need for Ethics
  • Ethics and money
  • Return to tradition
  • Dirty Laundry?
• Theories of Ethics
• Ethics in Indian Country
• Traditional Ethics
• Modern Indian Ethics
• SLC Research
• Myths of Ethical Change
• Moral Collapse
• The By-Stander
• Emotional Intelligence
• Joe Tribal Worker
• Susie Sainte
• Positive Ethics
• Action Plans

Dirty Laundry or Ostriches

Now some people might criticize us and say, why are you airing our dirty laundry for the entire country to see? Good point. However, I don’t agree that we are airing dirty laundry for a couple of reasons.

a. First, we have our head in the sand if we think non-Indian people are not aware of the ethical issues on our reservations.
b.Secondly, I wonder how sincere people are when they claim this. In my view they are trying to cover up behavior that needs to be brought out in the open so we can start to address it.

Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc. President Erich Longie asserts,

I like to think the most important reason to teach this class, in addition to learning about ethics, is to galvanize tribal members to action. There are tribal members/workers out there who are highly ethical people. These people often stand-alone and could use some help. I know of another former tribal business manager who for many years fought hard against unethical financial practices, but this person left the job after many years of fighting alone.

Why develop a course on native American ethics? In summary, our reasons are, to foster new hope in our culture and in our beliefs in ourselves, to live in honor as our ancestors once did and to honor our ancestors by preserving their traditions when we can, and by creating new traditions to preserve their values in our modern society.