This is another good data-point for my lay-thesis that the dominant tension of our time is between principle and loyalty. Snowden is the ultimate embodiment of this tension. Most other recent news can be seen through this lens as well, particularly the problems with the US criminal justice system, or the controversy over the release of the recent torture report.

The "loyalists" are ascendant (they usually are), and have terrible, strong defenses; the "principled" are a fairly rag-tag bunch, have inherently smaller organizations, although they do manage to organize themselves to some extent (the EFF and the ACLU being good examples). Indeed, the biggest weapon the principled have is to force the loyalists to actually (ab)use their overwhelming power to the extent that they offend the public (who are only loyalists within their own narrow context) and so swell the ranks of the principled against them.

This paper is about the travails of being principled in a loyalist organization. It is an incredibly uncomfortable position to be in, and comes at great cost. To those looking to minimize their personal stress, adopting the loyalist viewpoint and the requisite willful ignorance of the moral hazards and externalities it entails is the better, more rational option. Most people in that position are principled at great personal cost.

This way of seeing allows us to make better sense an array of current events. And indeed, we can come to realize that everyone has both loyal and principled aspects. To that end everyone should know precisely how far their loyalty goes. What actions could your organization take that so violated your principles that you would take action against it? For example, if you are in the Army or the CIA, would you torture someone if ordered? If you're a police officer, would you stay silent if you saw your department bury acts of police violence that you knew to be illegal? If you're a financial analyst or regulator, would you change your analysis to suit your management? If you're in the NSA, would you give evidence against Americans suspected of drug trafficking to the DEA, knowing they will use "parallel construction" to hide the source?

To hardcore loyalists, the answers to these questions are unequivocal "yes". The reason is a mixture of indoctrination, rationalization, selfishness and simple cowardice. But it's not "us" vs "them": almost everyone is a hard-core loyalist within their particular organization, although this is particularly true where there are no competing employers. It is almost impossible for most people to risk their decades-long career over a matter of principle, no matter how bad it gets. It's not right, but it's human.

What can save the day is that loyalty is limited to personal context; this is good because it allows loyalists in one org to be principled about other organizations' behaviors. In other words, there are CIA employees who are disgusted by wall street's systematic, unchecked fraud, just as there are wall street employees who descry CIA torture and cover-up, and that's good.

Culturally need to revere the people throughout history who've taken the hard path, the one's who've said "no" to unprincipled action, which always comes at great personal cost. If there was ever a "noble warrior" culture, let it honor the ones who served Principle not because it was easy, but because it was right.

Sorry for the long post.