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
Leela Sinha:

Hi, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. I usually

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like to talk in generalities on here. And I usually like to make

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things as broadly applicable as possible. But given that this is

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a podcast about power, and its location, and its sharing or not

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sharing and the ethical use thereof, I don't think I can

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continue to ignore the situation with the classified documents at

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Mar-a-Lago, any longer. Last night, the Department of Justice

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made a filing that included photographs of the documents

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that they found. Some of them. They all clearly have a

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classified document cover sheet. And as one of my military

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colleagues explained, those cover sheets are only present

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when the materials underneath them are still classified. And

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they're unique in a number of ways. You don't fake those

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easily. So every single person who touched those documents knew

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that they were classified, still classified. Still contained

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sensitive information, still could endanger people's lives.

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There's this funny thing that happens when self preservation

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comes to the fore. And while I don't think it's the only thing

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at play, I think it is becoming increasingly significant. When

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we hold power in a particular arena, and we really know we're

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in power, and we're not worried, and we're not insecure, and

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we're not fretting about it, it's very easy for us to be

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generous, magnanimous, and honest. The minute that our own

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integrity is shaken, it becomes harder to be those things, it

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becomes harder to be an exemplary leader, it becomes

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harder to be a person that people would want to follow. And

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it becomes harder to do the right thing because, because

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that sense of self-preservation, which most people have, starts

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to drive the bus. So instead of making the correct decision,

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what we know is the right decision, we are deeply tempted,

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and sometimes almost feel compelled, to make the decision

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that will preserve us, that will keep us from harm. This is not a

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new impulse in humans or animals or the natural world. This is as

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old as survival. In the end, almost always, people will

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preserve themselves. That's why scenes like the death scene in

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The Crucible, the play by Arthur Miller, are so striking. Because

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when he makes his choice, he is making that choice against self

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preservation of the bodily variety. But even then, he

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explains it by saying that he is preserving his soul by not

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lying. And so there are at least two kinds of self-preservation

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available. Integrity, preservation of integrity, and

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body. Most of us have learned at some point in some way that

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there are kinds of bodily harm that cannot be recovered from

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and that we have a better chance of recovering our integrity if

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we're alive to do it. Sometimes, the world goes upside down

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enough or the moment goes upside down enough that it's no longer

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clear that that's the case. That it's no longer clear that the

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integrity that we are about to lose is recoverable. In which

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case, preserving that integrity starts to feel like a reasonable

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thing to balance against one's own life. I think of the Tank

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Man in that incredibly famous photograph from Tiananmen

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Square. I think of various other kinds of bodily harm-risking

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protest, resistance, or as in The Crucible, simply refusing to

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confess to something he didn't do.

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So how do we, as leaders as people with power, most of us

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with a lot less power over many fewer lives, but still with

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power, power to cause harm, power to restore, how, how do we

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determine what kind of preservation what kind of

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engagement or withdrawal is the best choice in a given

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situation? Because there are a lot of people who touched those

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documents at Mar-a-Lago, a lot of people who had to have

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interacted with them, who had to have moved boxes, who had to

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have denied that those boxes were there who had to have

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opened and closed them. And every single person who knew

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that they were there, who denied that they were there, who did

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not report, who denied by omission, that they were there.

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Every one of those people committed a crime. A crime that

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could potentially compromise other people's lives. And every

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one of those people decided that whatever their self-preservation

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stakes were, in that moment, they were more important than

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the lives of the people on the other end of those pages. I

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don't know the whole map. None of us do right now. But it is

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clear that some people decided that they were more important

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than some other people. Now, to be fair, we make those decisions

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all the time. All the time. When we hurry to get in line before

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somebody else, because we're both approaching the line at the

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same time. We're making a decision about whose priority is

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more important. When we choose to spend money, in one way, when

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somebody else needs money for survival, which is always the

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case in our world, we're making a priority decision about

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ourselves, our own comfort. It's everywhere. And so I'm not

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condemning it, I think making a different decision requires a

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different kind of interconnected relationship that we don't

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generally have with strangers. And often, we don't even have

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with friends. But how do we decide? How do we decide? How do

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we get out of that survival instinct far enough to solve our

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own trolley problem? To look at the trolley, and the two sets of

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tracks and decide do I save myself? Or do I save a bunch of

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other people? Or maybe just one other person? What are the

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consequences in each case?

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Who can recover better? What does recovery look like? What

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will the moral injury be? What will the damage to my integrity

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be in each case? What does survival actually mean?

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Because that's the key is we have to get outside our own

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survival panic. It's one of the hardest things for intensives to

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do because we tend to work on gut and we tend to work rapidly.

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We tend to feel like we know what the answer is almost

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immediately. And then we want to just do it and move on.

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Especially if it's painful to sit with, we would just want to

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do it and move on. And those are the moments where, unless the

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danger is imminent, those are the moments where it's best to

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take an extra moment, an extra breath, sit, to sit quietly with

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it.

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If you're a praying sort, to pray on it. If you're a

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meditating sort perhaps allow it to be informed by your

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meditation. If you're a list-making sort to make some

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lists, to take a walk, to eat dinner, to stop thinking about

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it, stop spinning in, it stop stewing in it, to consult with

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some people who are enough outside the situation, that they

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will give you an honest evaluation of your

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circumstances, an honest evaluation of the thing you're

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probably leaning toward already, because it doesn't take long for

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an intensive to form an opinion, to tell you if your own sense of

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self-preservation is going to do outsized harm somewhere else.

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And ultimately, if you are going to do some kind of harm, if

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perhaps it's a situation where there is no escape without harm,

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to come to terms with that, and to see what you can do to

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mitigate it ahead of time. Hopefully, most of our choices

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are not life and death. Hopefully most of the people

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that we are connected to are not connected only to us. And

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hopefully, we have people of integrity, people of fierceness,

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other intensives who get what we're doing, who get our

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passion, who get how badly we want to do the right thing, and

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are willing to help us find that thing. The least damaging thing,

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the best possible choice, even in a hard situation.

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We can do better with power. It doesn't have to be like this. We

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can make decisions that make space for the humanity of

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everyone involved. And decisions that move us forward. Thanks for