It's the Cover-Ups_2

cheapbag214s

and institutional life, let me repeat and explicitly clarify: I am not comparing the harm and horrors of covering up child abuse to the harm of, say, covering up a petty embezzlement to avoid embarrassment. I am comparing the institutional dynamics that allow people to rationalize tolerating and concealing mistakes and misconduct -- from actual or metaphoric misdemeanors to serious felonies. As I observed in Worst Instincts, my book about malfeasance at the ACLU, when a belief in institutional virtue calcifies into an article of faith -- immutable and not contingent on behavior -- then the harm of grievous as well as petty misconduct is readily minimized (or denied),[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the cost of acknowledging it is maximized, and members can tell themselves that concealing it is not self-serving cowardice but unselfish service to the institution, and, by extension, the greater good. Virtue is presumed to lie in protecting the institution, instead of protecting its individual casualties. Loyalty to the institution