Whistleblowers

The idea of narcissism moralized was an interesting way to start out this reading. When one usually thinks of narcissism, one thinks of someone who is vain and obsessed with oneself. When one thinks of whistleblowers, one tends to think of someone who is standing up for what is right regardless of what it will do to his or her self. The two notions do not usually overlap. In fact, I had never before fathomed the term used by the author of a whistleblower being narcissistic in a moralized way. According to the author, "Shame is wounded narcissism. To be overcome with shame by the acts of others is to be wounded narcissistically by being associated with corruption. Doubly wounded, as one was too weak to do anything about it" (Alford, 76). There is a sense of shame lurking in most whistleblowers for being involved in or having knowledge of something that could harm another person or groups of people. It is completely logical when the author describes the whistleblowers as being unable to live with themselves having the knowledge that they posess. In my opinion, this is a good way to describe a moralized narcissism. The whistleblowers in this sense are acting because they cannot live with the guilt that what they are doing or have knowlege of within their company. This is brought up quite a bit in my service learning. It is amazing to think that there are people working for the sanitary district who would have no problems with not telling the public that there was a sewage spill in the creek, but it does happen. When I heard the amount of spills that were not reported to the public throughout the past few years, I was appalled. There is no way that I, personally, could live with the knowledge that hundreds of gallons of sewage get dumped into the creeks annually without the attention brought to the people who live in surrounding areas. It is amazing that there are people who can sit by and watch children go into the creek after there has been a sewage spill and not say anything about it. This comes back to the whistleblowers. Some people of course will be unhappy with the term narcissism being used to describe whistleblowers. It is not a vain, self-helping situation. The term that needs to be paid more attention is the "moralized" portion of the term. There is a completely moral and ethical responsibility that whistleblowers feel toward the people who they want to help, and that is why they blow the whistle on the companies for which they work.