You may not want your garbage but your garbage wants you

The are many angles on the Fort Hood tragedy, but there is one that brought to mind Trotsky's saying regarding war (simply substitute "war" for "garbage" in this entry's' title. There are numerous stories from organizational life where incompetence, rather than being dealt with directly, is simply shuffled off to some other location. The same cowardly dodge was used when pedophilic priests, rather than being dismissed were simply relocated. Apparently there was ample evidence of Major Hasan's instability but rather than being dealt with he was simply moved along. The common theme: This is no longer my problem. But, in all these cases he is someone's problem! The principle is: You might prefer not to handle your garbage, but as Trotsky might have put it: You may not want your garbage but your garbage wants you. There are larger system consequences to our inability to face uncomfortable facts and take the difficult actions.

Comments

[Matthew Heusser]

Is is really that simple?

I suspect the systems those officers worked in who supervised the major actively punished them for taking appropriate action. Perhaps they would have been labelled as bigoted, judgemental, and so on.

Or perhaps they were just /afraid/ of being labelled so. Or perhaps they were actively rewarded for supervising someone 'diverse' and having no major issues.

In any event, I expect that if we worked on the system, the individual behavior would improve. (Consider the college faux-prison experiments in california, for example)