ShareFacebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, Email Print Blowers are Flowers by admin 11 March, 2022, 12:33 pm 0 Comments 52March/April 2022IntroductionWhistleblowing is usually seen as a cousin of “snitching”, whereas it might be more helpful to view whistleblowing on a spectrum of willing–ness to circumvent group consensus, either head-on or indirectly.This by-passes the tendency to scrutinise the whistleblower for personal “defects”, as is nor–mally the case in whistleblower conficts.According to a recent Village article, ‘Enemies of the People’ citing Kate Kenny’s book, ‘Whistle–blowing: Towards a New Theory’, journalists often exacerbate the sufering of whistleblowers by scrutinising the whistleblower, as if the answer to the confict is to be found in the whistleblower’s character.Ultimately, no matter what the group might say in its defence, or no matter what allegations the group might make to suggest that a whistle–blower is crazy or criminal or defective in some other way, whistleblowing is not really about the whistleblower at all, it is about the group.MobbedDr Janice Harper, an American cultural anthro–pologist, observed a colleague whistleblowing on a water quality issue. The colleague was then discredited by management with attacks on her character. The usual destroy-the-whistleblower response. Harper had assumed that the people who attacked her friend were “bad” people, in contrast to her own “enlightened” circle of friends and colleagues.But it was only when she herself was demon–ised following a faculty disagreement in the Blowers are FlowersBy Eamonn KellyWhistleblowers save us from ourselves; their bullies driven by primeval instincts for survivalGroup psychology operates very differently from individual psychology – I hadn’t stood a chance when I opened my big mouth and fought for ‘principles’university where she was employed as a lecturer in anthropology that she realised that she had misunderstood the collective “bullying” her friend had experienced. This collective “bullying” she calls “mobbing”, the title of her book: ‘Mobbed: What To Do When They Are Really Out To Get You’.At frst, when she was subjected to hostility by work colleagues, she sought clarity by read–ing up on adult bullying, but discovered, too late, that the advice such books ofered only exacerbated the situation when acted upon.She writes:“What I did not see clearly was that focusing on the ‘bullies’ made it impossible for me to see what was going on with those who were not ‘bul–lies’. What I did not see or understand was that group psychology operates very diferently from individual psychology – and that I hadn’t stood a chance when I opened my big mouth and fought for ‘principles’”.Harper, a university professor who special–ised in organisational cultures and warfare, realised, when teaching a course on genocide, at the same time as she was “battling” with her employers, that many of the same psychologi–cal processes that enable a population to follow an autocratic leader to genocide are apparent in the manner in which management can lead workers towards demonising an individual. This is dramatic stuf.She writes:“Their [the target’s] diference is communi–cated to others and, in time, meaning is conferred on that diference to suggest they are inferior to the rest of the workplace…they are called names to dehumanise them (making it easier to harm them); and the rest of the work–force learns that they could become targets themselves if they align with the target, but could beneft if they help leadership get rid of them…”.In other words, the targets, through pro–cesses of dehumanisation and exclusion become friendless candidates for what psychol–ogists’ call “normative violence”. That is, violence that is morally approved of by the group.One of the greatest ironies about a workplace mobbing is that eventually the target may be given a label that goes against the values of the group, allowing the group to then “legally” be rid of the individual.In Harper’s case she was labelled a bully. This is kind of brilliant in its cheek. But it’s conveni–ent too, not just in getting rid of the by now labelled “trouble-maker” on trumped-up charges, but also making the group “victims” of the target, exculpating the group, in the eyes of its members, of any wrong-doing in the destruc–tion of the target individual.The bully label also had the efect of causing people outside the group to disbelieve Harper’s story.“Somehow the worse my employers and co-workers behaved toward me, the more the perception shifted from what they were doing to me, to what I had done to deserve it”.This idea of somehow “deserving it” possibly OPINION March/April 2022 53also underlies the idea that whistleblowers tend to be “egoists”. But this is just a diferent name-calling that has a similar efect of causing people to believe that they somehow deserve their mal–treatment through some character defect.WhistleblowersOne of the things that happens to a person when they become the target of injustice, is that they become rattled, and when it comes time to say exactly what it is they are rattled about, the story tends to come tumbling out in a disjointed, often garbled way, having the unfortunate efect of causing people to back of in uncertainty rather than engage with the story the person is trying to tell.Village magazine’s series of articles on Frank Mulcahy, former CEO of business group ISME, , who has been in such a confict with various heavyweight parties for the past 20 years, dis–plays this quality of tumbling grievances. Perhaps Frank McBrearty too.This is possibly why it is so easy to side-line whistleblowers, because often they are alone, usually against an organisation or a collective of some description, and they are rattled as indi–viduals, for very human reasons related to group dynamics and a sense of belonging.It is easy then, and even amusing for some, to gaslight such people. This is a standard weapon used by organisations and groups against indi–viduals, often supplemented by accusations and charges of sexual impropriety, as hap–pened with Julian Assange and Maurice McCabe.Primitive GroupsIn Janice Harper’s case, when she found herself the target of a faculty mobbing, her training as an anthropologist kicked in to fnd some per–spective in the otherwise traumatic experience she was undergoing.She was able to bring her learning to bear on the situation, providing some striking insights as to what was actually going on in terms of pri–meval Human group dynamics that are still installed in our biological makeup.In ‘Mobbed’, she shows how ancient group dynamics are triggered by difer–ence, and also shows the manner in which the group behaves to expel unwanted individuals from the group.For instance, in hunter-gatherer groups, one of the safeguards for group survival in a world where wild animal attacks were still a real–ity, was to have a standby sacrifce should the group fnd itself having to ofer up a member to an animal to ensure the survival of the group. This would usually be an individual marked in some way by diference and regarded as more expendable than others in the group. The diference might be a physical defect, or it might be some characteristic the group considered dif–ferentiated a “foreigner” or “outsider” in one way or another. “Diference”, no matter how triv–ial, was the deciding factor.According to Harper it is these primitive con–siderations that are triggered when someone, such as a whistleblower, moves against the group. A new ruthlessness towards that individ–ual is triggered in the group, and has the efect of causing the group to bond against the indi–vidual, more determined than ever to expel someone now regarded as a danger to the secu–rity of the group.LoyaltySo, in this primitive blood-like group dynamic, the accusations of whistleblowers, become not crimes of the group – though in our world they may well be crimes – but instead positive or intrinsic characteristics of the group being attacked by a perceived “outsider” or traitor.A neutral individual happening upon such a confict is likely to be frst greeted by an aggrieved and frightened individual – in primi–tive society it is death to be expelled from the group – with a cascadling narrative of serial injustices perpetrated by various group members.The neutral individual, being themselves nat–urally group-oriented, will, in most cases, be inclined to side with the group. And this is the tragedy of whistleblowing. Though often well-intentioned, the resulting confict has less to do with right and wrong and more to do with blind biology, inadvertently triggering primitive hatreds and alliances, and often only succeed–ing in expelling the individual from the group, to the extent even of destroying that individual, and the Village piece made the case that nearly all whistleblowers get destroyed, rather than the intended reform of group practices which the whistleblower initially might have hoped for.In this respect, it is crucial to enact laws that convincingly protect whistleblowers, not in the often-mistaken belief that such laws will protect the whistleblower only, but in the knowledge Schoolyard whistleblower?that such laws will protect the wider society from the emergence of primitive and often violent group dynamics.Ireland and WhistleblowersThe ‘Enemies of the People’ articel, by Michael Smith and David Langwallner, paints a depress–ing picture of Irish society. A society that appears often to be “underworld” in its outlook and practices, to borrow a concept from Eric Berne’s 1964 book ‘Games People Play’. For instance, we’ve seen time and again that an Irish politician caught in some corruption scandal, and even expelled from the party, is returned to power as an independent with more support than they ever had before.This can only be due to a post-colonial hango–ver of Us vs Them, where Dublin is seen as the home of Them. But “They” shipped out one hun–dred years ago. Since then, there has been only Us.This would also explain the Ansbacher scan–dal, where a bank Guinness Mahon, founded by tofs provided funds for a chippy elite who regarded themselves as entitled, even if nobody else did. It accounts for much of the weakness of Charles Haughey who considered horse-rid–ing, and a taste in historic houses and Charvet Shirts would somehow elevate him to what can only be described as colonial levels of big-man ascendancy.ConclusionThough it may be more comforting to think that whistleblowing is ultimately about some errant individuals who can’t keep their egos in check, and get their noses bloodied for their eforts, the truth may be that whistleblowers are those indi–viduals who have seen through the hypocrisies of the group, inadvertently triggering primitive group dynamics related to survival, a situation further complicated in Ireland by the tendency of groups to adopt underworld understandings as a hangover of colonial rebelliousness. Many of the same psychological processes that enable a population to follow an autocratic leader to genocide are apparent in the manner in which management can lead workers towards demonising an individual ShareFacebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, Email See more Previous article One-off Housing fritters €5.6bn(on Broadband provision) Back All Entries Next article 2022 Media blues
