ABSTRACT
Corruption in an earlier, historical sense refers to the dissolution of the body after death: spoilage. Corruption subverts laws and customs and ensures beneficial returns to its lawless practitioners. From the perspective of the pervasive law-based culture inside which cultural studies in the United States are premised, corruption distorts the institutions and practices that are the basis for comparisons with other cultures. The technical theoretical literature on corruption extends widely over the social sciences, encompassing cognitive as well as political and economic views, and converges on corruption viewed as a cultural phenomenon. Recent political events in the United States have expanded the range and definition of what might count as corruption. The subject of corruption leads to considerations of other pervasive ways in which societies or cultures may be metaphorically said by some to be perverted or sickened—for instance, by lessening emphasis on self-reliance or on military preparedness.
