The greatest superpower

If you were invisible, what would you do first?

OK, now wipe the smut from your mind and think of something that doesn’t involve someone being naked.

How would you act if no one could see you?

I only ask because I am constantly astounded by how people behave in their cars. Surrounded by metal and essentially unknown.

How do you behave?

There are roadworks everywhere around me at the moment. And this results in a lot of queuing in cars.

Which is very, very boring. I get it.

But why do some people feel they can just jump the queue?

Yesterday, someone in a car behind me (in a queue of stationary traffic) pulled out of the queue, accelerated up the wrong side of the road and then tried to pull back into the same queue further up!

Entertainingly, he wasn't allowed in.

But can you imagine doing this face to face? Like at the checkout in a supermarket or a line at the bank or at the airport? In real life people don't behave like that.

But they do in cars. And it got me thinking.

How invisible would we need to be before total anarchy broke out?

The Invisible Thread of Accountability

Imagine you can move through the world without anyone seeing you and no one can hold you accountable.

You could break any rule, steal whatever you wanted, and no one would ever know. The world would be your playground, right?

How Good Are You Really?

We like to believe that people are inherently good. Or at least I do.

That, deep down, we all have a strong moral compass guiding us to do the right thing, even when no one’s looking. But is that really true?

Or is our so-called “goodness” largely a result of the social structures that hold us accountable?

Think about it: most of the time, we behave because we know someone is watching—or at least, could be watching. Cameras, laws, and societal expectations all work as checks on our behaviour.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Remove the accountability, and most of us would indulge in at least a little more rule-breaking than we’d like to admit.

It’s not that we’re all bad people, but the temptation of consequence-free action is hard to resist.

What If Accountability Disappeared?

Let’s take this a bit further: What if everyone were invisible? What if accountability as we know it disappeared tomorrow?

If no one could see your actions or hold you responsible for them, what’s stopping you from cutting corners or breaking the law?

Suddenly, the speed limit doesn’t matter (to be fair, I'm not great at sticking to this even when people can see me).

Shop lifting? Why not. And if you wanted to take a little extra 'stuff' from work, who would even know?

Now multiply that across an entire population. Imagine a world where every individual is free to act without consequence.

The result? Chaos. And it’s not because people are evil, but because the systems designed to maintain order have disappeared.

You don’t have to imagine too hard—it’s the same reason why some people loot during blackouts or there are breakdowns in order during natural disasters.

Take away the consequences, and people’s actions change drastically.

The Real Role of Accountability

At its core, accountability is what stitches the moral fabric of society together.

It’s not our inherent goodness that keeps things running smoothly. It’s the knowledge that there are consequences—whether it’s the shame of being caught, the punishment of the law, or the disappointment of those around us.

These social checks and balances keep us all in line. Without accountability, systems break down.

Institutions rely on it to function. Schools, governments, businesses—all of them depend on the assumption that people are acting in good faith because they’ll face consequences if they don’t. Remove that thread, and what remains unravels pretty quickly.

Take corporate fraud, for example. Some of the largest scandals in history—Enron, Theranos, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme—weren’t the result of inherently evil people but individuals who found loopholes in the accountability structures around them.

They had an opportunity to act invisibly and they took it.

Is Accountability the Only Thing Keeping Us in Check?

It might feel a bit cynical to say that without accountability, we’d all descend into chaos. But the truth is, we see evidence of this in our everyday lives.

Even the best-intentioned people often do the right thing because someone’s watching.

This doesn’t mean we’re all bad people. Instead, it highlights how much we rely on accountability to reinforce our moral decisions.

Many of us don’t think twice about holding the door for someone or helping a neighbour, and that’s because those are acts that feel inherently good.

But when it comes to the bigger, harder decisions—especially ones where we could gain something by bending the rules—it’s often accountability that tips the scales.

The “Invisible You”

So, let’s go back to that idea of being invisible. How much of your behaviour would change if no one could see you? What would you do if you knew there'd be no consequences?

It’s easy to say that nothing would change, that you’d stay the same person, following the same moral code. But research tells us a different story.

Studies in psychology show that when people believe they’re unobserved, they’re far more likely to engage in unethical behaviour—whether it’s lying, cheating, or stealing.

Building Stronger Systems of Accountability

If we accept that accountability is what holds society together, then we also have to acknowledge the importance of maintaining and strengthening those systems.

Transparency, surveillance, legal frameworks—all these things aren’t just bureaucratic noise; they’re the invisible threads that keep our moral fabric intact.

We can’t rely solely on individual morality to keep society functioning. We need structures that ensure accountability at every level—from personal interactions to the highest levels of government and business.

When those structures fail, or when we find ways to bypass them, society begins to erode.

I've often been quite negative about reading the news and newspapers in general. But one of their essential functions is to hold those in power to account.

Without the threat of exposure and being front page news, would those in government take even more free dresses and trips to Ibiza? A free press is a vital cog of this accountability system.

Social Glue

Accountability isn’t just some abstract concept—it’s the glue that holds us all together, even when we think no one’s paying attention.

And if we want to keep that glue strong, we need to constantly evaluate and reinforce the systems that ensure we all remain accountable.

Because in a world where no one’s held responsible, the invisible line between order and chaos gets crossed all too easily.

So the next time you think about jumping the queue in a line of traffic, remember, I'm watching you.

You're not invisible.

Jon "Honest Jon" Kaye