A couple of decades ago I was lucky enough to visit Europe, which was pretty awesome at the time. Amongst all the usual happy touristy things, however, I made a point of visiting a former concentration camp in Germany. I think it was actually Oranienburg, just north of Berlin. You might ask why I would go to something so - depressing. I mean, I'm in Europe. I visited London. Paris. Barcelona. Berlin. Got to see the Eiffel Tower. And here I am going to a place that will only make you feel awful about humanity.
I went because I feel it's important to acknowledge these thing. To face them. To admit that they exist, they can exist here. Now. And that evil doesn't often come with neon signs and devil horns. There's a phrase out there, made somewhat famous, about the banality of evil. When I deployed to Iraq and worked with an alleged murderer, part of what was so shocking was that this involved someone I had actually met. Personally. (I periodically check up on the case and as you can see, he was acquitted...so I'm discussing the impact of the event on me rather than making any real judgment on whether or not he did it.)
The thing is - nobody wants to believe that people we actually know and work with can be bad. It's always some stranger out there. Someone you hear about on the news, and never meet in real life. We can make all sorts of judgments about the people we've never met, harshly claim that they are evil incarnate...and be completely blind when it comes to someone we actually do know. After all, would someone so awful do something nice, like build a soccer stadium, or joke around and play basketball. In some ways, I think the worse evil comes from those who have so distanced themselves from the results of their actions that they can obfuscate the cause. If everyone is to blame, nobody is to blame.
It's important to me that anyone in a leadership position understand the role they play in creating the work environment. For signaling what is acceptable and what is not. For holding people accountable, and making it clear who is responsible (or, alternatively, making it too easy to deny responsibility).
I suppose that's part of why I'm interesting in (boring, to most) things like organizational behavior.
So anyways. Here we are in this complicated, fascinated world. A place where people can think all sorts of different things, feel justified in supporting all sorts of different policies. And yet we don't want to admit that we can do something to make things different. Sure, we're vaguely aware that modern slavery exists. And if some news story flashes and we hear that Nike has slaves making shoes, we might decide not to buy Nikes until we hear they've fixed their supply chain. But good luck making sure every purchase you make was done without slave labor. (The attempt to do so is prohibitive. I shudder to think how long a shopping trip would take if I had to look up every item.) And even if you think you've checked, in this day and age where finished goods are made by a variety of different companies how can you ever truly know? Even good companies may not realize how their suppliers produce things.
It's a lot of work. Much easier to just worry about gorillas getting shot, or share pictures of cute little cats. (No, not trying to cynically discuss how awful people are. I share pictures of cute cats too.)
I'll probably post more on this topic later. I want to explore the disjunct between what we claim we'd do (i.e. stand against evil wherever it is) and what we actually do.
I went because I feel it's important to acknowledge these thing. To face them. To admit that they exist, they can exist here. Now. And that evil doesn't often come with neon signs and devil horns. There's a phrase out there, made somewhat famous, about the banality of evil. When I deployed to Iraq and worked with an alleged murderer, part of what was so shocking was that this involved someone I had actually met. Personally. (I periodically check up on the case and as you can see, he was acquitted...so I'm discussing the impact of the event on me rather than making any real judgment on whether or not he did it.)
The thing is - nobody wants to believe that people we actually know and work with can be bad. It's always some stranger out there. Someone you hear about on the news, and never meet in real life. We can make all sorts of judgments about the people we've never met, harshly claim that they are evil incarnate...and be completely blind when it comes to someone we actually do know. After all, would someone so awful do something nice, like build a soccer stadium, or joke around and play basketball. In some ways, I think the worse evil comes from those who have so distanced themselves from the results of their actions that they can obfuscate the cause. If everyone is to blame, nobody is to blame.
It's important to me that anyone in a leadership position understand the role they play in creating the work environment. For signaling what is acceptable and what is not. For holding people accountable, and making it clear who is responsible (or, alternatively, making it too easy to deny responsibility).
I suppose that's part of why I'm interesting in (boring, to most) things like organizational behavior.
So anyways. Here we are in this complicated, fascinated world. A place where people can think all sorts of different things, feel justified in supporting all sorts of different policies. And yet we don't want to admit that we can do something to make things different. Sure, we're vaguely aware that modern slavery exists. And if some news story flashes and we hear that Nike has slaves making shoes, we might decide not to buy Nikes until we hear they've fixed their supply chain. But good luck making sure every purchase you make was done without slave labor. (The attempt to do so is prohibitive. I shudder to think how long a shopping trip would take if I had to look up every item.) And even if you think you've checked, in this day and age where finished goods are made by a variety of different companies how can you ever truly know? Even good companies may not realize how their suppliers produce things.
It's a lot of work. Much easier to just worry about gorillas getting shot, or share pictures of cute little cats. (No, not trying to cynically discuss how awful people are. I share pictures of cute cats too.)
I'll probably post more on this topic later. I want to explore the disjunct between what we claim we'd do (i.e. stand against evil wherever it is) and what we actually do.
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