The end justifies the means and entitlement beliefs raise ethical issues

Wikileaks

"The journalists that are out of work deserve it.  Its a new world now, and the alternative media has took up the task because the journalists you admire so much failed to do their job."

This was the response of a "citizen journalist" to Wikileaks.  He goes on to say that Julian Assange, the founder, is a "hero to many, and his courage has put him in the line of fire."

There is little that hasn't been said in the debate about Julian Assange, who leaked more than 250,000 documents of information that was stolen from a fellow computer hacker of classified U.S. documents.

So what was Assange's purpose?  To really educate, inform, hold power to account on matters that elevate man?  Or was it to serve his sense of entitlement and to set a dangerous precedent, already manifested in many ways that lead not to enlightenment but the reverse.

For if anyone can take the responsibility for disseminating classified documents by initially stealing them, it is a statement certainly the end justifies the means.  The other dark precedent is the statement that says I need no education, training, review or control to do what I do.  This is manifested in many areas outside of journalism as well, and the problems are much the same thing.  The fellow who takes a weekend course on a multilevel marketing scheme of a product overnight presents himself or herself as an authority on wellness,usually denigrating the medical profession as irresponsible and not up to the task.  The argument is that the medical profession makes mistakes, doesn't resolve all the problems and therefore is not up to the job.

Furthermore, If  someone like Assange has the protections afforded the press, than why not give these protections to everyone else?  Why not arm everyone with a notepad to report on everyone else, willy nilly, since the chances are your neighbor has secrets to hide?  Should the neighbor kid with a grudge get a press pass and cover the local politician or even something that appears inane like the opening of a local supermarket?  Even that supermarket can be a target for denigration by someone who has lost a job and has an ax to grind.

Institutions certainly have issues and fail in what they should do, but opening floodgates against them abruptly rather than in ways that protect people too can create worse conditions in the future as all hell breaks loose everywhere from Chicken Little.  So is it reasonable that any individual action is appropriate if the end result justifies it?  The author of the reference would not say it is.

Interestingly enough, as one writer observes,  Nicollo Machiavelli, author of the saying, "the end justifies the means," did not mean this philosophy could be applied to any individual action no matter how unethical it may be for the purpose of acquiring a needed outcome.  In fact Machiavelli maintained that the philosophy was not to be applied for personal greed nor to incite rebellion.  Indeed he believed that the governments should act to minimize any harmful outcome on citizens in a government.

While governments and institutions around the world are falling or are the targets of widespread demonstrations and protests, who should do the reporting of these key events?  Many times it is the armchair journalist and not the reporter on the ground who is quoted by many people.  Furthermore, even the trained journalist on the ground may not get all the facts, as was demonstrated in the town of Ferguson, where a number of different stories and observations needed rethinking in a matter of days because reporters interviewed different people at different times with different perspectives.  Michael Brown was shot by a policeman, and after the news broke the media's versions of what happened and how multiplied, were retracted, denied and moved on.  Still the traditional press has some safeguards, as editors have the task of reviewing work and making sure it has some semblance of accuracy and takes the brunt of the blame when problems happen.

A Pakistani blogger who uses a personal name as the calling card for his website often alerts the public about the problems and pitfalls of immunization.  Because of his tendency to become verbally aggressive when challenged, his identity is being withheld.  When confronted with the fact he used a defrocked doctor for much of his interview about the pitfalls of immunization and very small samples not statistically significant in a large population of those said to have suffered problems from immunization, his answer was simply to say, "I'm a writer, not a journalist." This declaration presumes writers should not have the ethics of everyone else reporting the news,  and thus need not abide by any ethical guidelines that counter one's own beliefs.

There are those citizen journalists, however, who are a hybrid group from the citizen community yet have an editor and others evaluating the work.  This type of oversight at a citizen journal allows these citizen journalists to bring their individual take on the news, while doing original reporting with the protection afforded by editing oversight.  This reduces the tendency for writers to play lightly with the facts.

While bloggers and overnight health experts,  point to the arrogance of doctors, lawyers, and trained journalists, the arrogance of the citizen practitioner without any level of oversight or training can be far worse, in believing he or she can get something for nothing, a sense of entitlement that has reduced the number of traditional news outlets that can survive in a market where anyone can and does report the news, too many with little regard for evidence, facts or the recognition of individual and collective security.

Unemployment, social and political rancor related to sense ofentitlement

[caption id="attachment_7756" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Unemployed in California 2007"][/caption]

Carol Forsloff - “$8.50?  I wouldn’t work for that.  Besides I don’t want to have to stand on my feet all day if I can help it."  The twenty-something who had been unemployed for nearly a year was looking for “something better,” which raises questions about work and attitude and how much of the latter figures into the nation’s unemployment figures.

At the local Bed, Bath and Beyond in the Hillsboro area near Portland a sign spells out visibly to passersby the words “Help Wanted.”  The sign has been in the window for more than three months.  When a journalist asked if the management was truly looking for new employees or just wanted to keep a list for reference on an ongoing basis, the message was clear that the store needed additional personnel.  An additional comment came with the information, “it’s hard to find good people for this kind of work.”

Work values are in part a cultural issue mixed with age and education.  These are not, however, the main areas of focus when unemployment figures are given.  We don’t know how many jobs remain vacant vs. those who won’t fill those jobs because the work itself is not of the nature an individual might like to perform.

A study in the UK reported in 2004 provides some answers about unemployment and worker preferences.   The research was based on 300 registered unemployed people in Scotland.  The issue is whether there is a reluctance among the unemployed to seek service work and how that might differ from other job seeking groups.  The study also examined differences in job seekers’ attitudes towards entry-level work in retail, hospitality and call center work.    Results showed that a considerable minority of research subjects said they would not accept entry-level service work in retail and hospitality.  Older men were particularly reluctant to consider these jobs.  Young people without specific experience in these areas also were reluctant to consider these jobs.

An important study conducted in 1978 gives substantial clues to the attitudes of youth towards entry level and service work.  In an economy where there are a substantial number of college and trade school graduates, there has been a growing sense of entitlement for higher paying jobs with career ladders and social acceptability.  That sense of entitlement prohibits the notion of accepting the job that is lesser than one’s preconceived expectations of work even during difficult times.  In fact researchers found this attitude responsible for large numbers of unemployed among college-educated young adults.  Research also found a higher level of radical response to the unrealized aspirations of these youth, which may be one of the reasons for violence during periods of unrest, as has been demonstrated recently in Europe and the Middle East.  The highly educated worker is apt to have a radical approach towards having the right work with the right pay.  At the same time the findings also determined that there is a far broader base of entitlement belief that is more universal and found among the less educated, working-class young, what researchers call “individualistic” or “universalistic” entitlement.     This is seen as potentially responsible  for discontent during periods of social and economic change.

This attitude towards work and resistance to jobs considered below one’s expectations is not confined to the developed nations of the world.  In Africa there are ongoing discussions about long-term unemployment among the youth and how attitude impacts job choice.  A blog specific to the issues of education and work in Ghana tells us that as an increasing number of institutions have churned out more and more college graduates, these new graduates have certain work expectations that include salaried jobs with status.  The young people have a fear of self employment, or ventures that require individual initiative and work that does not have a predictable income at the outset.  The result is that large numbers of young adults are unemployed.

Unemployment is an issue around the world and not confined to one age or ethic group.  Seniors face the dilemma of competing with younger people for those salaried, status jobs and are also reluctant to work considerably below their previous wage and status.

High unemployment is related to economic conditions, but research shows it also has to do with attitude.  There are jobs that are not being filled and workers reluctant to take these jobs.  Some say the responsibility is that of prospective employers to raise wages, while others maintain there should be an attitude change instead.  But whatever the solution becomes, the sense of entitlement and rising expectations in an economic downturn are at the core of social and political unrest.

Narcissism and a sense of entitlement are epidemic experts say

Carol Forsloff - Pride goeth before a fall," a sage once said, and research proves this right, telling us that a sense of entitlement is epidemic and that's what causes conflicts.

Paris Hilton, whose behavior is associated with a sense of entitlement

Dr. Shock, a physician who lists both M.D. and Ph.D. credentials,  tells us academic and intellectual dishonesty are caused by narcissism.  It is characterized by the following, Dr. Shock points out:

• "Plagiarism: The adoption or reproduction of original creations of another author (person, collective, organization, community or other type of author, including anonymous authors) without due acknowledgment.


• Fabrication: The falsification of data, information, or citations in any formal academic exercise.


• Deception: Providing false information to an instructor concerning a formal academic exercise—e.g., giving a false excuse for missing a deadline or falsely claiming to have submitted work."

Research out of the University of New Hampshire indicates that workers who have a sense of entitlement and want preferential treatment usually get into conflicts more often than other workers. This seems to be on the rise and occur more with younger than older workers. 

Paul Harvey, assistant professor of management at the University of New Hampshire, led the team in making a study of this phenomenon, writing about research results recently in the Journal of Organizational Behavior. The article is entitled, “An empirical examination of the role of attributions in psychological entitlement and its outcomes.”

Studies indicate that those who want favoritism tend to blame others when things go wrong and demonstrate self-serving attributes. They often have problems with supervisors and tend to thrive in workplaces where the rules are in flux or are ambiguous.

Entitlement is often considered a component of narcissism. People with this attitude believe they are entitled to rewards that are out of line with their productions, talents or behaviors. Those involved in this study suggest that employers screen job applicants for these traits prior to hire.

In 2007 another paper was presented at the University of Indiana that discussed the characteristics of the workplace narcissist and offered suggestions for coping. The paper observed that there are more narcissists than there are leadership positions ready to be filled. There were five coping strategies the researcher found were used to deal with narcissists in the workplace that included not responding, trying to befriend the person, confronting the narcissist, quitting one’s job and going to management. Only the latter two were found to be effective.

Some researchers believe we are experiencing a narcissism epidemic. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell say in their new book The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement that we are increasingly becoming a nation of narcissistic, self indulgent people. This characteristic is exploding rapidly among college students, especially females, these writers found. They say that narcissism has grown rapidly because we are constantly being told by talk shows that we need to love ourselves, because the world is becoming very competitive to the point of being cutthroat. The writers also maintain that this characteristic contributed to the economic crisis with everyone wanting too much too soon.

A representative sample of 35,000 Americans last summer was used to determine the presence of or treatment for NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) revealed that 6% of those surveyed had received treatment for it some time in their lives. That contrasts with 3% of those over age 65, or twice the rate for older persons.

So when older people say to younger ones, “You’re spoiled and want too much that you haven’t earned” they may be right, according to these studies.