Why Don't We Speak Up?

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”—George Santayana

Many professionals and academics have avoided criticizing the Trump administration. Indeed, the American Psychological Association the Goldwater rule, (Section 7.3 of the American Psychiatric Association’s ethical code (2013), the rule prohibiting the diagnosis of public figures without a personal examination.

My perspective is that citizens in a democracy have the right and obligation to speak out when they become aware of amoral, immoral or unethical behavior by leaders in institutions and business. This also applies to leaders who are sociopaths, psychopaths or malignant narcissists who engage in behavior that damages other people, our society or this planet.

It has nothing to do with which political party you may favor.

History has shown that when citizens don’t speak out during the early stages of fascism or dictatorial power, it helps to allow these destructive movements to advance more readily.

"First they came ..." is the poetic form of a post-war confessional prose by the German Lutheran pastor MartinNiem?ller. It is about the cowardice of German intellectuals and certain clergy—including, by his own admission, Niem?ller himself—following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent incremental purging of their chosen targets, group after group. Here it is:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—

   Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

   Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

American writer and activist James Baldwin wrote in "Open Letter to my Sister, Angela Davis. "If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you in the night."

Our Lessons from History

In December 1936, for example, the exiled German novelist Thomas Mann responded to notice of the revocation of his Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Bonn University. To a dean at Bonn, he wrote of his “irrepressible disgust” for the Nazi regime and then accused German universities of “a heavy responsibility for the present sufferings which they called down upon their heads.” He added, “This responsibility of theirs long ago destroyed my pleasure in my academic honor.”

Wilhelm R?pke, professor of economics at Marburg University until his dismissal in the spring of 1933, agreed with Mann’s accusation. He wrote that “it was precisely the university professors that failed when the need came for courageous defense of the ultimate values of our civilization.” Their inaction was fatal because “it resulted in the crippling of the conscience of the German nation.”

In the last years of the Weimar Republic, as the Nazis continued to gain electoral strength, some academics and professionals became uneasy. But they genuinely thought that exerting political influence would damage the integrity of their profession. 

What did they do in the last years of the fading republic? Most did very little to make their influence felt against the Nazis. But at least two striking exceptions were Gerhard Ritter and Friedrich Meinecke, both of whom actively urged Germans to vote for Hindenburg against Hitler.

Perhaps the most common problem of perception was the inability to take Hitler seriously. Cultivated men thought that Hitler, the uncultivated street ruffian, could scarcely govern a complex, industrialized country. Many thought that he would never last more than six months in office. 

Although crude, the substance of Nazism appealed to the strong nationalism of many professionals and promised to be a bulwark against socialism. While few academics themselves were Nazis, they were willing to remain passive until they had more time to observe the outcome of events.

In December 1933, university professors hired after 1918 had to take a new oath of loyalty to V?lk and Fatherland. By August 1934, civil servants had to swear loyalty to Adolf Hitler. In Italy, many professors refused to take a similar oath of allegiance to Mussolini and Fascism, but in Germany this kind of resistance rarely occurred.

Many professionals under Hitler appointed themselves guardians of the purity of scholarship but refused to accept the responsibility of being, as Mannheim urged, “night watchmen” for civilized values. Perhaps their example is the most forceful sanction possible for the role of the intellectual as adversary and critic. When German intellectuals abdicated that role, Hitler’s Germany became, as Mannheim feared, a pitch-black night.

Why Do People Not Speak Up in the Face of Amoral, Immoral or Unethical Behavior?

Here are some reasons that people in general do not speak up:

1.    They are unclear what is acceptable and what isn’t. So much of who we are stems from what we learned in childhood, and many people were taught lessons that harmed them about what is acceptable and what isn’t. If you had emotionally manipulative or narcissistic parents, for instance, or were abused in any way, you most likely weren't able to develop sufficient and appropriate boundaries that allow you to say "NO!" to behavior that is violating, manipulative and suppressing. And that makes you more susceptible as an adult to tolerating behavior that should not be allowed.

            But even if you weren’t mistreated or neglected as a child, were you taught that it was okay to stand up for yourself and speak up to authority figures and others when     something felt wrong? Were you able to trust your own instincts and act on them? Did you get to know yourself deeply, to learn how to discern what feels wrong? 

2.    They don’t feel they have the internal power to stand up for themselves. Many people understand that the behavior they’re experiencing is wrong and shouldn’t be tolerated, but they just can’t muster the strength to say or do anything about it. This too has to change. If you feel you can’t address this negative or unacceptable behavior by yourself, reach out today and get some outside help. 

3.    They’ve been punished in life and are afraid of what will happen if they do speak up and stand up. Others have been strong in the past and spoken up for themselves, but have been punished in doing so, and don’t want that behavior repeated. Women and racial and ethnic minorities have been retaliated against for being forceful, assertive and strong. Stories of the harm or revenge visited upon whistleblowers can cause us to refrain from speaking up. 

4.    Deep in their hearts, they don’t realize how important, deserving, and valuable they are. So many people don’t understand (and haven’t been taught) that they are extremely important, valuable and needed in this world. They possess great talents and skills that others need, and their perspectives and experiences are tremendously helpful to others. Once you tap into the process of recognizing and honoring your talents and capabilities and learn how to apply those talents to outcomes that are meaningful to you, you’ll begin to experience more personal power, and become more comfortable exercising it for what you believe in and care about.

5.   They think the current situation is temporary, or the forces of “good” will prevail. People place undue faith in the strength of institutions in a democracy “holding” in the face of a destructive onslaught, or that “this too shall pass” and we’ll return to normal.

The Bystander Effect

The term bystander effect refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the number of people present; the less likely people are to help a person in distress. When an emergency situation occurs, observers are more likely to take action if there are few or no other witnesses. Being part of a large crowd makes it so no single person has to take responsibility for an action (or inaction).

In a series of classic studies, researchers Bibb Latané and John Darley found that the amount of time it takes the participant to take action and seek help varies depending on how many other observers are in the room. They found that 70% of people would help a woman in distress when they were the only witness. But only about 40% offered assistance when other people were also present.

Explanations for the Bystander Effect

There are two major factors that contribute to the bystander effect. First, the presence of other people creates a diffusion of responsibility. Because there are other observers, individuals do not feel as much pressure to take action. The responsibility to act is thought to be shared among all of those present.

The second reason is the need to behave in correct and socially acceptable ways. When other observers fail to react, individuals often take this as a signal that a response is not needed or not appropriate.

A crisis is often chaotic and the situation is not always crystal clear. Onlookers might wonder exactly what is happening. During such moments, people often look to others in the group to determine what is appropriate. When they see that no one else is reacting, it sends a signal that perhaps no action is needed.

Preventing the Bystander Effect

What can you do to overcome the bystander effect?Some psychologists suggest that simply being aware of this tendency is perhaps the greatest way to break the cycle. When faced with a situation that requires action, understand how the bystander effect might be holding you back and consciously take steps to overcome it. Don’t make the assumption that someone will do something about the situation.

The Current Political Situation in United States

 Anne Applebaum, a staff writer for The Atlantic and author of Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, was recently interviewed about her article, “History Will Judge the Complicit.”

She writes about collaborators with the Nazi regime in France during World War II, the Vichy regime, when a lot of people accommodated the occupying German army and the Nazis. In her article she compares Republicans to those who collaborated with Nazis or fascists. 

She argues, Trump’s presidency “brought a very different ideology to the White House, a completely different set of values, which bore no relation to anything that we've known in American history for the last hundred years. He was seeking to use the presidency for his own personal and political gain, for his own psychological gain. He was seeking to game the system. He was seeking to go around bureaucracies, to have a secret police, to deploy people throughout the system, you know, in order to undermine it.”

Applebaum says Trump was not interested in running the American government in any recognizable way. That meant that senior figures in his administration had to make a decision at some point how they were going to cope with this new ideology. It was radically different from what they believed in. It was different from anything they've grown up with or ever known. So how would they accommodate themselves to it?

And in that sense, Applebaum argues, they were acting very much like people behave in an occupied country like occupied East Germany, like occupied France. They began to make excuses. They began to explain themselves. They began to accommodate themselves to Trump.

Social scientists who have studied the erosion of values and the growth of corruption inside companies have found, for example, that “people are more likely to accept the unethical behavior of others if the behavior develops gradually (along a slippery slope) rather than occurring abruptly,” according to a 2009 article in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. This happens, in part, because most people have a built-in vision of themselves as moral and honest, and that self-image is resistant to change. Once certain behaviors become “normal,” then people stop seeing them as wrong.

In authoritarian regimes, many insiders eventually conclude that their presence simply does not matter, Applebaum says. Trump’s former Economic Advisor, Gary Cohn, after publicly agonizing when the president said there had been “fine people on both sides” at the deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, finally quit when the president made the ruinous decision to put tariffs on steel and aluminum, a decision that harmed American businesses. Trump’s former Defense Secretary James Mattis reached his breaking point when the president abandoned the Kurds, America’s longtime allies in the war against the Islamic State.

Although both resigned, neither Cohn nor Mattis has spoken out in any notable way. Their presence inside the White House helped build Trump’s credibility among traditional Republican voters; their silence now continues to serve the president’s purposes

Applebaum argues in her article and in her book, that fear is a powerful force that can explain why people don’t speak up: “Fear, of course, is the most important reason any inhabitant of an authoritarian or totalitarian society does not protest or resign, even when the leader commits crimes, violates his official ideology, or forces people to do things that they know to be wrong. In extreme dictatorships like Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia, people fear for their lives. In softer dictatorships, like East Germany after 1950 and Putin’s Russia today, people fear losing their jobs or their apartments. Fear works as a motivation even when violence is a memory rather than a reality.” 

In the United States, Applebaum contends, it’s not fear of being imprisoned or meeting with violence, it’s the fear of being attacked by Trump on Twitter. “They are scared he will make up a nickname for them. They are scared that they will be mocked, or embarrassed, like Mitt Romney has been. They are scared of losing their social circles, of being disinvited to parties. They are scared that their friends and supporters, and especially their donors, will desert them. Former Speaker Paul Ryan is among the dozens of House Republicans who have left Congress since the beginning of this administration, in one of the most striking personnel turnovers in congressional history. They left because they hated what Trump was doing to their party—and the country. Yet even after they left, they did not speak out.”

They are scared, Applebaum says, and yet they don’t seem to know that this fear has precedents, or that it could have consequences. They don’t know that similar waves of fear have helped transform other democracies into dictatorships. They don’t seem to realize that the American Senate really could become the Russian Duma, or the Hungarian Parliament, a group of exalted men and women who sit in an elegant building, with no influence and no power. Indeed, we are already much closer to that reality than many could ever have imagined.

Democracies can very easily slide into becoming autocratic regimes. Corporations can very easily engage in business practices that harm people and our environment. And we can readily choose leaders who are sociopaths or malignant narcissists to lead us. These dangers require us to speak out when we see wrong and stand up for what’s right.

Read my latest book: I Know Myself And Neither Do You: Why Charisma, Confidence and Pedigree Won’t Take You Where You Want To Go, available in paperback and ebook formats on Amazon and Barnes and Noble world-wide.