A SYSTEM OF ILLUSION
Steve Davies of Ozloop has posted a brilliant article on the barbaric practice of compulsory psychiatric assessments of employees. It was followed with a very insightful comment from Arey Aitch who said of the system which underlies that practice:
. . . . as long as it is
divided up into little pieces, each of the assessors of those pieces (unless
they are incredibly special and unique humans, and thus not likely to keep
their jobs for long) will be able to sleep at night because they will not have
to confront the bigger picture of what their little piece of assessment means to
the human being that they are assessing.
Arey has described the phenomenon of “wilful blindness” at work. Margaret Heffernan has written a confronting book about how truly awful things are allowed to continue unabated. Examples are the German people turning a blind eye to the brutality of the Nazi regime, child sex abuse by the Church, the behaviour of US banks in relation to sub-prime debt, and drug abuse in sport.
Ms Heffernan has said that we should by now be wise to the excuse that these disasters are caused by a few rotten apples. She has pointed out that what all these crimes have in common is that they involved large numbers of people and persisted over many years. They were allowed to continue because “there were multiple failings on the part of individuals who made choices, the wrong choices, to remain silent.”
Why do otherwise good people choose to remain silent when faced with something that is, or should be, unacceptable to them?
Ms Heffernan has said that we should by now be wise to the excuse that these disasters are caused by a few rotten apples. She has pointed out that what all these crimes have in common is that they involved large numbers of people and persisted over many years. They were allowed to continue because “there were multiple failings on the part of individuals who made choices, the wrong choices, to remain silent.”
Why do otherwise good people choose to remain silent when faced with something that is, or should be, unacceptable to them?
Among the reasons put forward by Ms Heffernan are:
· Our modern lives are busy and full of distractions. The busier we are the less capable we become of critical thinking.
· We are averse to conflict. Few people have the courage or skills to start or conduct a coherent argument. People have been educated to be obedient and conformist. The tactic of demonizing whistle-blowers and perpetuating the myth that they are all always crazy has been effective in rendering intelligent people silent
· We mistake talk for action. In many instances of abuse, many people have been talking about the problems, but
only to each other, not to anyone who is prepared to take action. She says the iron rule of bystander behaviour is that the more people who witness wrong-doing, the less likely it is that anyone will intervene.
The most frightening quote from Ms Heffernan is:
· Our modern lives are busy and full of distractions. The busier we are the less capable we become of critical thinking.
· We are averse to conflict. Few people have the courage or skills to start or conduct a coherent argument. People have been educated to be obedient and conformist. The tactic of demonizing whistle-blowers and perpetuating the myth that they are all always crazy has been effective in rendering intelligent people silent
· We mistake talk for action. In many instances of abuse, many people have been talking about the problems, but
only to each other, not to anyone who is prepared to take action. She says the iron rule of bystander behaviour is that the more people who witness wrong-doing, the less likely it is that anyone will intervene.
The most frightening quote from Ms Heffernan is:
.
. . . the truth is that for truly bad things to happen on the scale of any of
these nightmares – Armstong, Savile, PPI, the Catholic Church, BP, Barclays,
HSBC etc – you need hundreds or thousands of people to turn a blind eye. Which
we very reliably do.
Government employment offers long-term security, at least to those who conform with the particular expectations of those who supervise them. The expectation of long-term security underlies important life decisions made by those employees – such as the quality of the home they can afford, the size of the family they can afford, the quality of the education of their children and the retirement benefits they will receive. To question, let alone challenge, the employer is likely to put these things at risk. Expulsion from that secure employment will impact not only on the
employee, but on his or her family and their future. The price is too high.
And the system makes it easy to avoid looking too closely. As Arey Aitch said, each employee is a small part of the chain of actions that ends up coercing a particular employee to under a psychiatric examination. Each employee in that chain only ‘did their job’. They could not, or would not, see the bigger picture. The price for seeing is just too
high.
But there is another way, which is beautifully demonstrated by Steve Davies’ post. The employee, together with Steve as her advocate, opened the psychiatrist’s eyes to the reality of what was before him – a non-consenting employee attending the appointment under duress from her employer. The illusion, under which he proposed to
perform the assessment, was broken. When the illusion was exposed to the daylight of reality, the psychiatrist realised there was a serious ethical issue associated with the proposed assessment. And he decided not to proceed.
The price would be too high.
This then must be the way to bring about the changes. Ways must be found to introduce reality into transactions that impinge on the rights of employees (and any other victimised group). With planning and imagination, the transactions of the type described by Steve could be repeated in other situations. It may require imagination and initiative, but just as the system’s illusion is comprised of many apparently innocent little pieces, so too can reality be rebuilt by many
insightful (and lawful) acts of awareness.
employee, but on his or her family and their future. The price is too high.
And the system makes it easy to avoid looking too closely. As Arey Aitch said, each employee is a small part of the chain of actions that ends up coercing a particular employee to under a psychiatric examination. Each employee in that chain only ‘did their job’. They could not, or would not, see the bigger picture. The price for seeing is just too
high.
But there is another way, which is beautifully demonstrated by Steve Davies’ post. The employee, together with Steve as her advocate, opened the psychiatrist’s eyes to the reality of what was before him – a non-consenting employee attending the appointment under duress from her employer. The illusion, under which he proposed to
perform the assessment, was broken. When the illusion was exposed to the daylight of reality, the psychiatrist realised there was a serious ethical issue associated with the proposed assessment. And he decided not to proceed.
The price would be too high.
This then must be the way to bring about the changes. Ways must be found to introduce reality into transactions that impinge on the rights of employees (and any other victimised group). With planning and imagination, the transactions of the type described by Steve could be repeated in other situations. It may require imagination and initiative, but just as the system’s illusion is comprised of many apparently innocent little pieces, so too can reality be rebuilt by many
insightful (and lawful) acts of awareness.
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