Flutterby™! : Banality of Systemic Evil

NY Times: The Banality of Systemic Evil:

For the leaker and whistleblower the answer to Bolton is that there can be no expectation that the system will act morally of its own accord. Systems are optimized for their own survival and preventing the system from doing evil may well require breaking with organizational niceties, protocols or laws. It requires stepping outside of one’s assigned organizational role. The chief executive is not in a better position to recognize systemic evil than is a middle level manager or, for that matter, an IT contractor. Recognizing systemic evil does not require rank or intelligence, just honesty of vision.

A system which does not, from the top down, actively reward rooting out corruption and doing the right thing will inevitably reward conformity over ethical behavior, and with conformity comes not speaking up, and the inevitable slide to evil. That whistleblowers prior to Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, who worked through the "proper" channels, were drummed out of those organizations, rather than being rewarded, demonstrates how necessary the actions of Manning and Snowden were.

That they are being hounded and punished illustrates that those organizations are, if not already evil, on the path that direction.