medium | Imagine
working for a corporation that produces a (so far) hidden harm to the
community, in concealing a cancer-causing property which kills the
thousands but with an effect that is not (yet) fully visible. You can
alert the public, but would automatically lose your job. There is a
gamble that the company’s evil scientists would disprove you, causing
additional humiliation. Or the news will come and go and you may end-up
being ignored. You are familiar with the history of whistleblowers which
shows that, even if you end up vindicated, it may take time for the
truth to emerge over the noise created by corporate shills. Meanwhile
you will pay the price. A smear campaign against you will destroy any
hope of getting another job.
You
have nine children, a sick parent, and as a result of the stand, the
children’s future would be compromised. College hopes will evaporate
–you may even have trouble feeding them properly. You are severely
conflicted between your obligation to the collective and to your
progeny. You feel part of the crime and unless you do something you are
an agent: thousands are dying from the hidden poisoning by the
corporation. Being ethical comes at a huge cost to others.
In the James Bond movie Specter,
agent Bond found himself fighting –on his own, whistleblower style –a
conspiracy of dark forces that took over the British service, including
his supervisors. “Q” who built the new fancy car and other gadgets for
him, when asked to help against the conspiracy, said “I have a mortgage
and two cats” –in jest of course because he ended up risking the lives
of his two cats to fight the bad guys.
Society
likes saints and moral heroes to be celibate so they do not have family
pressures and be forced into dilemmas of needing to compromise their
sense of ethics to feed their children. The entire human race, something
rather abstract, becomes their family. Some martyrs, such as Socrates,
had young children (although he was in his seventies), and overcame the
dilemma at their expense.[1] Many can’t.
