Whistleblowing: The Contagious Illness Everyone Should Enjoy

Team Player vs Telling the Truth: Why do so few follow/support the scapegoat/Whistleblower.

“It is far from wrong to state that the whistleblower is sacrificed as a lesson to others in the group, so that they will see the price of acting as an ethical individual who remembers that he or she belongs to the world. But this is not all that is going on with the sacrifice of the whistleblower. The whistleblower must know these truths for the rest of the organization, dying for the organization so that its members might live with these truths at a distance.” (Pg 125)
When the whistleblower blows the whistle, it is clear that they are scapegoated. Some whistleblowers realize the potential consequences like Daniel Ellsberg, but others are unaware of the events to come. Regardless of knowledge of the potential consequences, a whistleblower acts because they have knowledge of an unethical action or actions. The difference between the team player and the whistleblower is that the team player will not act on the knowledge for fear of consequences. With that said, it is very clear why others don’t follow. They remained silent out of fear, so once they see the consequences of the whistleblowers actions, they are even less likely to act then before.
The whistleblower is like a martyr because they sacrifice themselves so that the rest of the members of the organization can see that standing up for what’s right is possible. If however the majority of the members followed the whistleblower, changes would be made because the organization would then become the outcast. Unfortunately, this usually is not the case. “The purpose of sacrificing the whistleblower is to prevent the outbreak of an epidemic of ethical and moral responsibility that would threaten to engulf the organization, destroying its ability (or so its members fear) to maintain its boundless autonomy in a hostile world.” (pg 130)
To the organization, the whistleblower is viewed as a potentially contagious illness that could become fatal. The organization tries to rid itself of the “illness” and by doing so it hopes that its members will avoid being contaminated. In a sense, the organization is like the human body in that many individual components work towards wellbeing and functionality. The illness that is the whistleblower is removed from the system and the system returns back to its normal function. What many team players don’t realize is that they can play for the other team. An illness can overrun the system and change the functionality of the system. Unlike an illness though, the whistleblower is not bad. An overrun of the system would lead to positive change in a moral sense and the organization would become the outcast unless they conformed to change out of fear of the consequences.

By Justin Salter