Sunday, April 25, 2004



The man who tells you that there is no such thing as truth, or that truth is relative, is asking you not to believe him. So don't...
Roger Scruton

People have eyes: On whistleblowing and why it's so hard to do
The reprisals for being a dissenter are extremely serious in many cases, which is why you often get either the young or the old being rebels. Less to lose. The balance in society is way too skewed towards conformity. Dissent is becoming more important, but it's also more difficult to take on powerful corporations. And if you're on the inside of the corporation, it's easy to be targeted vehemently.
For speaking out, and bringing the wrongdoing to the attention of their superiors, employers, or an external agency with, at least on paper, the power to investigate and do something to remedy the situation, the employee, far from receiving praise for their honesty or rectitude, often receives the kinds of persecutions metéd out to Franz Kafka’s Joseph K in The Trial or Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984. In other words, it seems far more important to conform, stay silent, go along to get along, exist only for the advancement of your superior’s career, keep your mouth shut, don’t cause trouble, etc. and similar, because if you don’t, this is what will happen to you.

· Taxing World of Whistleblowers [ courtesy of Webdiary ]
· See Also Five years ago a brilliant man hanged himself: The spy chief left out in the cold (A tale of two thieves, in their own words)

Linking to political tales, Is the socially conscious novel a dead genre? Whatever happened to the idea that a book can change the world? Are authors so intent on their own characters that they can't be bothered to make their plots politically relevant to our increasingly dangerous world? Ray Conlogue is only asking, but modern authors seem increasingly hostile to the notion that they could actually advance political ideas or social agendas with their works of fiction. These days, novelists are perfectly within their rights to spend hours working on behalf of whatever causes they support, but to put the crusade to paper would apparently cross some invisible line of decorum.
· See Also Maybe it's that political writers tend to be such tortured souls. Or maybe the constant battle for public understanding and acceptance is just too much for some... Whatever Happened to the Political Novel?
· See Also Woodward chose to be a rich, not great, writer (TNR)
· See Also Dad ... what's a drug dealer? Someone carrying a small amount of cannabis on a suburban train...