Episode 30
classified decisions
Classified documents in Mar-a-Lago and the way that individual decisions about self-preservation can do large harm; and a path towards decision making that makes space for the humanity of those who will be affected by our choices.
Links:
An NPR story regarding the photography of classified documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago.
Wikipedia article about Tank Man and CNN footage of most, but not all, of the encounter (this video was chosen because of the available options it contains the original ambient audio, even though it does not show the end of the encounter when the man was rushed out of the road by other people.) Content Warning for threats of violence and gunshot sounds in the background.
Wikipedia article about Arthur Miller's play The Crucible
Transcript
Hi, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. I usually
Leela Sinha:like to talk in generalities on here. And I usually like to make
Leela Sinha:things as broadly applicable as possible. But given that this is
Leela Sinha:a podcast about power, and its location, and its sharing or not
Leela Sinha:sharing and the ethical use thereof, I don't think I can
Leela Sinha:continue to ignore the situation with the classified documents at
Leela Sinha:Mar-a-Lago, any longer. Last night, the Department of Justice
Leela Sinha:made a filing that included photographs of the documents
Leela Sinha:that they found. Some of them. They all clearly have a
Leela Sinha:classified document cover sheet. And as one of my military
Leela Sinha:colleagues explained, those cover sheets are only present
Leela Sinha:when the materials underneath them are still classified. And
Leela Sinha:they're unique in a number of ways. You don't fake those
Leela Sinha:easily. So every single person who touched those documents knew
Leela Sinha:that they were classified, still classified. Still contained
Leela Sinha:sensitive information, still could endanger people's lives.
Leela Sinha:There's this funny thing that happens when self preservation
Leela Sinha:comes to the fore. And while I don't think it's the only thing
Leela Sinha:at play, I think it is becoming increasingly significant. When
Leela Sinha:we hold power in a particular arena, and we really know we're
Leela Sinha:in power, and we're not worried, and we're not insecure, and
Leela Sinha:we're not fretting about it, it's very easy for us to be
Leela Sinha:generous, magnanimous, and honest. The minute that our own
Leela Sinha:integrity is shaken, it becomes harder to be those things, it
Leela Sinha:becomes harder to be an exemplary leader, it becomes
Leela Sinha:harder to be a person that people would want to follow. And
Leela Sinha:it becomes harder to do the right thing because, because
Leela Sinha:that sense of self-preservation, which most people have, starts
Leela Sinha:to drive the bus. So instead of making the correct decision,
Leela Sinha:what we know is the right decision, we are deeply tempted,
Leela Sinha:and sometimes almost feel compelled, to make the decision
Leela Sinha:that will preserve us, that will keep us from harm. This is not a
Leela Sinha:new impulse in humans or animals or the natural world. This is as
Leela Sinha:old as survival. In the end, almost always, people will
Leela Sinha:preserve themselves. That's why scenes like the death scene in
Leela Sinha:The Crucible, the play by Arthur Miller, are so striking. Because
Leela Sinha:when he makes his choice, he is making that choice against self
Leela Sinha:preservation of the bodily variety. But even then, he
Leela Sinha:explains it by saying that he is preserving his soul by not
Leela Sinha:lying. And so there are at least two kinds of self-preservation
Leela Sinha:available. Integrity, preservation of integrity, and
Leela Sinha:body. Most of us have learned at some point in some way that
Leela Sinha:there are kinds of bodily harm that cannot be recovered from
Leela Sinha:and that we have a better chance of recovering our integrity if
Leela Sinha:we're alive to do it. Sometimes, the world goes upside down
Leela Sinha:enough or the moment goes upside down enough that it's no longer
Leela Sinha:clear that that's the case. That it's no longer clear that the
Leela Sinha:integrity that we are about to lose is recoverable. In which
Leela Sinha:case, preserving that integrity starts to feel like a reasonable
Leela Sinha:thing to balance against one's own life. I think of the Tank
Leela Sinha:Man in that incredibly famous photograph from Tiananmen
Leela Sinha:Square. I think of various other kinds of bodily harm-risking
Leela Sinha:protest, resistance, or as in The Crucible, simply refusing to
Leela Sinha:confess to something he didn't do.
Leela Sinha:So how do we, as leaders as people with power, most of us
Leela Sinha:with a lot less power over many fewer lives, but still with
Leela Sinha:power, power to cause harm, power to restore, how, how do we
Leela Sinha:determine what kind of preservation what kind of
Leela Sinha:engagement or withdrawal is the best choice in a given
Leela Sinha:situation? Because there are a lot of people who touched those
Leela Sinha:documents at Mar-a-Lago, a lot of people who had to have
Leela Sinha:interacted with them, who had to have moved boxes, who had to
Leela Sinha:have denied that those boxes were there who had to have
Leela Sinha:opened and closed them. And every single person who knew
Leela Sinha:that they were there, who denied that they were there, who did
Leela Sinha:not report, who denied by omission, that they were there.
Leela Sinha:Every one of those people committed a crime. A crime that
Leela Sinha:could potentially compromise other people's lives. And every
Leela Sinha:one of those people decided that whatever their self-preservation
Leela Sinha:stakes were, in that moment, they were more important than
Leela Sinha:the lives of the people on the other end of those pages. I
Leela Sinha:don't know the whole map. None of us do right now. But it is
Leela Sinha:clear that some people decided that they were more important
Leela Sinha:than some other people. Now, to be fair, we make those decisions
Leela Sinha:all the time. All the time. When we hurry to get in line before
Leela Sinha:somebody else, because we're both approaching the line at the
Leela Sinha:same time. We're making a decision about whose priority is
Leela Sinha:more important. When we choose to spend money, in one way, when
Leela Sinha:somebody else needs money for survival, which is always the
Leela Sinha:case in our world, we're making a priority decision about
Leela Sinha:ourselves, our own comfort. It's everywhere. And so I'm not
Leela Sinha:condemning it, I think making a different decision requires a
Leela Sinha:different kind of interconnected relationship that we don't
Leela Sinha:generally have with strangers. And often, we don't even have
Leela Sinha:with friends. But how do we decide? How do we decide? How do
Leela Sinha:we get out of that survival instinct far enough to solve our
Leela Sinha:own trolley problem? To look at the trolley, and the two sets of
Leela Sinha:tracks and decide do I save myself? Or do I save a bunch of
Leela Sinha:other people? Or maybe just one other person? What are the
Leela Sinha:consequences in each case?
Leela Sinha:Who can recover better? What does recovery look like? What
Leela Sinha:will the moral injury be? What will the damage to my integrity
Leela Sinha:be in each case? What does survival actually mean?
Leela Sinha:Because that's the key is we have to get outside our own
Leela Sinha:survival panic. It's one of the hardest things for intensives to
Leela Sinha:do because we tend to work on gut and we tend to work rapidly.
Leela Sinha:We tend to feel like we know what the answer is almost
Leela Sinha:immediately. And then we want to just do it and move on.
Leela Sinha:Especially if it's painful to sit with, we would just want to
Leela Sinha:do it and move on. And those are the moments where, unless the
Leela Sinha:danger is imminent, those are the moments where it's best to
Leela Sinha:take an extra moment, an extra breath, sit, to sit quietly with
Leela Sinha:it.
Leela Sinha:If you're a praying sort, to pray on it. If you're a
Leela Sinha:meditating sort perhaps allow it to be informed by your
Leela Sinha:meditation. If you're a list-making sort to make some
Leela Sinha:lists, to take a walk, to eat dinner, to stop thinking about
Leela Sinha:it, stop spinning in, it stop stewing in it, to consult with
Leela Sinha:some people who are enough outside the situation, that they
Leela Sinha:will give you an honest evaluation of your
Leela Sinha:circumstances, an honest evaluation of the thing you're
Leela Sinha:probably leaning toward already, because it doesn't take long for
Leela Sinha:an intensive to form an opinion, to tell you if your own sense of
Leela Sinha:self-preservation is going to do outsized harm somewhere else.
Leela Sinha:And ultimately, if you are going to do some kind of harm, if
Leela Sinha:perhaps it's a situation where there is no escape without harm,
Leela Sinha:to come to terms with that, and to see what you can do to
Leela Sinha:mitigate it ahead of time. Hopefully, most of our choices
Leela Sinha:are not life and death. Hopefully most of the people
Leela Sinha:that we are connected to are not connected only to us. And
Leela Sinha:hopefully, we have people of integrity, people of fierceness,
Leela Sinha:other intensives who get what we're doing, who get our
Leela Sinha:passion, who get how badly we want to do the right thing, and
Leela Sinha:are willing to help us find that thing. The least damaging thing,
Leela Sinha:the best possible choice, even in a hard situation.
Leela Sinha:We can do better with power. It doesn't have to be like this. We
Leela Sinha:can make decisions that make space for the humanity of
Leela Sinha:everyone involved. And decisions that move us forward. Thanks for
