To answer Alex’s questions: I believe it is absolutely imperative that each one of us stand up to what we see as evil and that as soon as we do not, especially as adults, we are complicit. As the adage goes, it’s no wonder to me at all that evil is triumphing, because it’s SO rare to see folks stand up, even against the small things. I can also imagine what Kevin is going through, because I agree with another adage—once you stand up to evil you find you’ve got both hands tied and are blind in one eye—or something like that! He’s absolutely correct about how whistleblowers are generally treated, and not just by the evil-doers. There’s the a whole slew of flying monkeys to contend with, the minions of the evil-doers, who know how deeply complicit they are and rely on plausible deniability and scapegoats.
The issue I see is the system is so inverted that just to bring up ethics is confusing to folks. It’s like in the hilarious first part of Idiocracy (before they lost the plot)
“there you go with the fag talk again” ! LOL!
Now I don’t agree with Kevin’s assessment that we are all capable of great evil the likes of the SS or whoever. I believe there’s such a thing as moral superiority and those driven toward it belong in roles of leadership in our world. The opposite has happened, precisely because so few stand up to evil, or model virtue. It’s very ‘uncool’.
Clearly the pedophilia is happening and it’s a vast conspiracy of the most evil order. We don’t need Kevin to know that! We don’t even need to know the many dozens of other whistleblowers to know that, because we can look at the magazines and billboards and TV and films and ads and see very clearly children are being exploited. If that’s what happens in front of the camera, you don’t need much imagination to KNOW what must then be going on behind closed doors.
I intend to read Kevin’s book in order to get a better picture of his journey and his discoveries. One thing in the interview, which prompted me to look for his detractors, was his tone (and the fact that I don’t agree exactly on his view of the nature of evil.) He speaks without a trace of empathy in his voice when talking about some really vile things. This happens often with dissociation. I actually had to turn off the interview twice to regain my rationality after hearing his matter-of-fact tone, which concerns me that he has actually become detached, (disillusioned too even?) maybe too much so to make a positive impact at this point. This is not to belittle his work and effort AT ALL, but just to say, could there be some burnout now (and who’s to blame him that with all he’s had to battle with so little support!) that is actually contributing to him not being as effective, or even attracting the wrong kind of support and doubt?
Anyway, if more folks would fight the small battles they’d get a clue how huge the big battles are, and I applaud anyone approaching them with such conviction and courage as Kevin seems to be, going on his word and interviews. Though I’d keep digging for myself before donating! :)
Here’s a great podcast on standing up to evil, in small ways. Some very interesting commentary too, demonstrating how divided and confused our culture is when it comes to ethics.