25-10-20
it took quite a while to get to sleep last night because i was wondering if i had a functional brain what i would think about the ethical dilemma you spoke to about. at some point during the day or evening my brain becomes so tired that any serious thinking is quite impossible. but now i am relatively fresh and i banged out a thousand words and it's a bit rambly and incoherent. sorry it is not a more concise and straightforward answer!
parrhesia
towards the end of his life a famous bald french philosopher called for parrhesia, that is, the imperative to speak up when you see something that is clearly wrong or unjust, to speak out against injustice whenever you encounter it and ethically this is a position which can hardly be faulted, if the truth is that which cannot be denied — but there is a danger inherent in this practice which he recognised, and it might be problematic. in other words speaking the truth and/or calling out injustice can be risky. he says that we have to be prepared to take that risk but i am not completely convinced that this is a position which is as good as untenable for people who are not white middle class men of a certain age.
the irony is that this same bald french philosopher was one of those responsible for the movement or school of philosophy which called into question the existence or possibility of absolute truth. he would have been appalled that several decades later this idea became popular amongst reactionary conspiracy theorists who used concepts like 'posttruth' and 'alternative facts' as euphemisms for straight out lying and denying the undeniable.
the world anno 2020 is so different to the one in which the bald french philosopher lived that it is not unreasonable to wonder whether the call for parrhesia is not even more urgent, but also more risky, than ever. and so i feel your pain. and the gnawing.
... let's call it 'speaking your mind' instead of 'speaking the truth' because there are lots of people out there who claim that something is 'their truth' and that makes it seem much more important and valid than speaking your mind, and they feel entitled to act upon it.
i cannot say what i would do if i was you because i don't know what it is to be you :) but i offer the following observations :
first : clearly your boss erhan is an arsehole of the first order. he is a narcissist and he is ruthless. he is looking after number one and that is his priority and he could justify it by saying if there is no longer a restaurant then the syrian man wouldn't have any income at all, and neither would you.
this the same argument that is mounted by almost everyone who has a business in the corrupt world of late capitalism. the people with the least power (read : money) are the most abused and they have no choice but to allow themselves to be abused.
it is a form of slavery, in effect. most forms of agriculture rely on this kind of slavery ('illegal immigrants' harvest the crops in greece, italy and spain and in the netherlands workers are imported from east european countries and live in appalling conditions for abominable wages) and on the exploitation of the earth's natural resources on an unimaginable scale.
but you knew that as well.
secondly, here is an instance of tension between allowing something to be what it is and intervening in a situation. whenever you feel moved to intervene in a situation i recommend considering the role of the ego and the superego.
i am not finished thinking about the role of the super/ego in this context but righting something that is clearly wrong is very attractive to the super/ego because if you succeed you would feel more than a little pleased with yourself. (there is a seinfeld episode on this topic!)
in terms of trusting the world and allowing things to be what they are, injustice and cruelty are part of the very fabric of the way the world is organised. it is endemic.
so what to do? this is why the work has two aspects : the work on and with the self and the work one does in the world with others to help them be in the world in a different way.
but yes so what to do in this specific situation?
one way of parrhesia here would be to speak to the syrian man and acknowledge that he is being treated unjustly, to tell him that you can see the injustice and that it must be very difficult for him and to give him the space to speak if he wants to. the effect on him will be that he feels less alone in his suffering. this is what we might call a pastoral work approach. in the hospital working with people dying of cancer this was all i could do for them. and for some of them it made a difference.
as for a more direct intervention, what you would need to consider here is the amount of risk you are prepared to take. your boss is not likely to look kindly upon anything which he would interpret as an attempt to interfere with the way he runs his business and this might have consequences, at best a further deterioration in your relationship with him and at worst losing your job altogether.
but you already knew that.
you could say to your boss that losing 20% of his income is a complete disaster for the syrian man and his family and then you've told him the truth and you've answer the call for parrhesia but i think if pushed to say what i would do if it was me (given the problem of hypotheticals in general) i would look for a way to assuage my guilt which does not involve a confrontation with the boss and choose the pastoral worker approach. maybe i would discretely slip the syrian man some of my own cash now and again when i have some spare but did you say you already tried that and he refused?