Brian Martin
Published in The Whistle (Newsletter of Whistleblowers Australia), No. 114, April 2023, pp. 7-8
Imagine that you disagree with the dominant view. Let’s say you disagree about vaccination: you have some reservations about Covid vaccines, or about the HPV vaccine. How can you be more effective in getting your viewpoint across?
Vaccination is pretty controversial. What about religion or politics? Whatever the topic, your view is widely thought to be wrong, even kooky. What’s the best way to present it?
For ideas, get a new book, The art of insubordination: how to dissent & defy effectively, by Todd Kashdan.It sounds ideal for whistleblowers. It is definitely worth reading, but there are a few twists.
Kashdan is a psychologist and for decades has been committed to learning about principled dissent. Some cases of heroically standing up against the crowd are well known, for example Rosa Parks challenging segregation rules on buses in the US and Edward Snowden exposing government surveillance. The trouble is, most such stories are high-profile, and we don’t hear about everyday challenges, especially unsuccessful ones, like when you question vaccination orthodoxy and alienate your friends and family.
Kashdan starts by reviewing the evidence about why people conform. The reality is that only a few people openly question dominant views or practices. In the workplace, it’s risky to disagree with the boss. In the classroom, it’s hard to challenge the teacher. In a medical practice, it’s hard to express reservations about vaccines. What’s going on?
An answer is provided by the title of one of Kashdan’s chapters: “The strange things we do to be liked.” He says people are mentally “wired” to get along in groups. Conforming is easy psychologically. It feels dangerous or unnatural to upset others by questioning what everyone seems to believe.
Kashdan explains this, but he also explains why it’s vitally important for society to tolerate, even to encourage, dissent, because principled dissent is what drives progress towards a better world. This is an optimistic and motivating message, which is needed given how hard it is to make a difference.
The second major part of the book is titled “The non-conformist’s cookbook.” It provides practical advice for how to be effective when you’re up against the status quo and want to change it. There’s lots of valuable information here, but I’ll put on my sceptical hat and note that only some of it is helpful for whistleblowers. The general problem is that most whistleblowers didn’t set out to be non-conformists. Quite the contrary. They believe in the system so, when they see something going wrong, they trust in authorities to investigate and, fix any problems. The trouble is that they are “conforming” to the system’s idealised picture of itself as honest, public-spirited and fair. They are not conforming to the sordid reality of deception, self-interest and bias.
The first chapter in “The non-conformist’s cookbook” is on talking persuasively when you’re questioning the status quo. This is definitely important. Anyone, whether a conformist or a dissident, can benefit from being able to talk persuasively. So far, so good. Let’s look at Kashdan’s specific advice. He says to be an insider: people will be more receptive to those in their in-group than to outsiders. Australian government officials are more likely to listen to Australians who question refugee policies than they are to listen to questioners from China or Chile.
But does this apply to whistleblowers? It seems just the opposite: the reaction to insiders is far harsher and more unrelenting than to outsiders. If you want to challenge police corruption, will you be more persuasive operating from the inside or the outside? Most police whistleblowers are treated horribly. They are shunned, sidelined, slandered, physically attacked and even framed for crimes. The sad reality is that few whistleblowers are successful in reforming the organisations in which they work. Their best chance of success is by combining forces with groups on the outside. This is where Kashdan’s advice is relevant. He tells how to “attract people who’ve got your back.” An individual has little chance against a powerful establishment. Joining or creating an opposition group improves the odds.
It can be demoralising to confront powerful opponents, as whistleblowers know too well. Kashdan is well placed to advise on how to “build mental fortitude.” He tells of a set of skills known as psychological flexibility that enable you to separate mentally from disturbing feelings, examine them and make decisions with a clearer mind. Nearly everyone can benefit from cultivating psychological flexibility, whether or not you are at risk of trauma. For those few whistleblowers who carefully plan their actions, enhancing psychological flexibility should be part of the preparation. The trouble is that employees who inadvertently blow the whistle didn’t set out to be what Kashdan calls insubordinates, and probably never thought about the need to prepare mentally to survive an onslaught.
On a more positive note, let’s say you’ve been campaigning against an oppressive orthodoxy for many years and finally succeed. You’ve challenged corruption in local government, thrown out a few corrupt operators and been elected on a reform programme. What then? Kashdan says, “win responsibly.” He cites examples of dissidents against repressive governments who finally came to power and then turned into tyrants themselves.
However, not many whistleblowers are so successful that they come out on top of their former persecutors. Nevertheless, Kashdan’s warning is important. Just because someone has suffered for their beliefs does not mean they are necessarily magnanimous. I think the more common problem is that some people, who’ve been involved in shady activities or trying to lord it over others, call themselves whistleblowers to gain more credibility.
Part III of The art of insubordination is on “harnessing disobedience.” Think of a team in a workplace that needs to perform at its best, coming up with creative ways to do the job or adapt to changing conditions. Kashdan cites many research studies showing that having someone in the team who raises awkward questions or proposes unorthodox courses of action can be valuable. Too often, everyone accepts implicit assumptions about how to do things or just keeps quiet for fear of disagreeing with the boss or appearing foolish.
In seeking to harness disobedience, Kashdan is speaking not to dissidents but to everyone else, suggesting ways to tolerate, cultivate and benefit from their input. This can be thought of as transforming organisations so they are more supportive of diversity in thought. This is what some whistleblower advocates — including me —say is most needed: changing organisational cultures so raising questions is routine, and people who ask uncomfortable questions are valued rather than attacked. In such cultures, the very word “whistleblowing” would no longer be needed, because speaking out would be just a normal, unexceptional occurrence. It sounds wonderful, but how to bring about change in this direction receives little attention compared to the incessant rhetoric about protecting whistleblowers from reprisals. Protection is important, but it is inevitably less than ideal because it means speaking out is risky.
Kashdan’s focus is on psychology, on ways to change your thinking so you become less automatically intolerant of dissent. Having talked to a great many dissidents over the years, I’m always surprised how many of them are critical of other dissidents. This doesn’t mean we should endorse the views of every dissident. Just hear them out, not reject them out of hand.
The psychological level is important, but for many issues the driving forces are political and economic. Think of tobacco company executives, arms manufacturers and fossil fuel companies. In these cases, persuasion has a limited capacity because of vested interests. Power and money have an enormous influence on what people think, so often it is necessary to organise collectively to challenge wealthy and powerful groups.
Decades ago, anti-smoking campaigners were the dissidents, challenging a wealthy industry. Would Kashdan’s advice have helped the campaigners? Perhaps to some extent, but it wouldn’t be enough on its own. Even now, the tobacco industry continues to find new ways to continue in old markets and expand in new ones. All health authorities recommend against smoking, so being against the industry is no longer dissent. In a sense, the industry has become the dissenter.
This raises a point that Kashdan does not discuss in depth. He says that dissent is needed to promote causes that lead to social progress, initiated from anywhere on the political spectrum. But it’s not always easy to determine what is progressive. Covid raises many questions and challenges concerning lockdowns, masks, distancing and vaccines. What exactly is progressive? Is it important to defend dissent against the value of lockdowns or Covid vaccines?
Whistleblowers can learn a lot from The art of insubordination. Even better would be to spread the book’s ideas to everyone else, the non-dissenters, so they are more supportive of insubordination. That’s an enormous task.
Todd Kashdan
Kashdan’s final chapter is “Raising insubordinate kids.” It contains lots of suggestions and includes this “big idea”: “Perhaps the most profound way to breed principled rebels is the simplest. You and I must lead by example, becoming more rebellious ourselves and more solicitous of others’ insubordination.”
Brian Martin is editor of The Whistle.
Brian Martin's publications on suppression of dissent