The Anxiety of the Whistleblower

How do whistleblowers fare in America, in one of the oldest and most advanced democracies in the world? Whistleblowers are employees who expose the misconduct of the companies in which they are employed. There are laws made to protect whistleblowers, to be sure. However, whistleblowers often suffer terribly for their actions. They lose their jobs and careers. They experience loneliness and depression. Political theorist Fred Alford writes that whistleblowers in America usually get to discover the deception underpinning official state ideology. They find out, for example, that the following statements are wrong:

"That if one is right and persistent, things will turn out all right in the end
That it makes sense to stand up and do the right thing.
That the family is a haven in a heartless world. Spouses and children will not abondon you in your hour of need.
That ours is a government of laws, not men.
That loyalty isn't equivalent to herd instinct." (Whistleblowers, page 49)

Public life, whistleblowers discover, is anchored in conformity. It is more prudent to obey and conform than commit to truth. This holds for democratic public orders as well. Democracy, in fact, exerts forms of social pressure that are often more effective than the chain and the knout. This is not just a contemporary phenomenon. It has historical roots. Consider Tocqueville's observations about 19th century America in his Democracy in America:

"When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of anyone of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast with so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness. The same equality which renders him independent of each of his fellow-citizens taken severally, exposes him alone and unprotected to the influence of the greater number. The public has therefore, among a democratic people, a singular power, which aristocratic nations cannot conceive of, for it does not persuade to certain opinions, but it enforces them, and infuses them into the intellect by a sort of enormous pressure of the minds of all upon the reason of each...."(Tocqueville, Book 2, Chapter 2).

The families, organizations and political parties that compose the public sometimes act in conformity and unison. They thus create a 'singular power.' Think of this as the center of a circle drawing multiple forces around it into itself. Whistleblowers are the best people to tell us about how strong that force is. This is because they resisted that force and suffered for it.

This does not mean, however, that the American society, whether in its historical or contemporary form, is overwhelmingly uniform. There are divisions and conflicts between the forces composing the American public. Furthermore, these are not minor divisions: they are about ultimate values of life. American democracy, to its credit, contains their conflicts effectively.

Philosopher Thomas Nagel describes this containment as follows:

"[Moral and political conflicts in America] are not just about the best means to pursue generally accepted ends. They are about ultimate values. Yet they do not threaten the stability and legitimacy of the system. Except for a small lunatic fringe, citizens of the United States are prepared to accept the results of the political and legal process even when those results contravene some of their most fundamental convictions. Americans may vilify one another as bigoted religious fanatics or morally depraved atheists, racist reactionaries or crypto-totalitarian socialists, but they know they will not be put up against the wall if their party loses an election" (Thomas Nagel, "Sandel and the Paradox of Liberalism", p.110).

This organization of the political space demands from us fortitude and tolerance when we lose in social and political contests. But, again, some losses, like the losses endured by whistleblowers, take place beneath the register of electoral politics. They are hard to discern. True, whistleblowers are usually not 'put up against the wall.' But, they suffer in a heartless world and end up severely alienated.

Let us think, now, with political theorist Sheldon Wolin:

"While the powers and responsibilities of the presidency have accordingly kept pace with the growth of Superpower, the powers and responsibilities of the citizen have shrunk- also accordingly. This becomes most apparent when important elections loom. The media aided by the pollsters proceed unchallenged to construct either a Pavlovian democracy conditioned to respond to stupefying questions("public opinion polls show that 60 percent of the voters believe that the president is doing a good job"), or a democracy fragmented into abstract categories of citizens who do not consciously know, associate, or colloborate with each other on the basis of such categories-"over thirty years old," "women earning over 50000 a year," and so on"(Politics and Vision, p.509).

Is the contemporary American democracy, then, a Pavlovian democracy with a diminished sense of community? Fragmentation seems overwhelming. Our civic preferences are aggregated by putting us in abstract groups- boxes- that do not mean much to us.

But maybe we should not rush ahead too far like this. We are allowed to seek solidarity outside these given boxes: we can find our own ideological niche.

Yet, again, the moment the whistleblower tries to deny fragmentation and connect to others, to the public at large, he or she is pushed away. He or she is rendered insignificant and weak. Can the society contain his/her resultant anxiety? That seems to be the great challenge of our democracy now- more so than public opinion and the problems associated with majority rule.