http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffe ... anguage=en
The story to which that link connects relates a particularly stark (and deadly) form of wilful blindness operating at a societal level. On its own, the article is very interesting as to what this whistleblowing woman faced, and the danger of vermiculite (very widely used in horticulture throughout the world, particularly in Western countries).
On a wider level, wilful blindness is a political issue - in Autism politics (just look at Austism Speaks' propaganda) and politics generally. There is wilful blindness toward the atrocities still being perpetrated by Big Pharma, by the tobacco companies (though not so much as it was in that instance), by doctors who refute anything that "I wasn't taught at my medical school twenty years ago" and so on; but this is matched by the wilful blindness at a community level. I grew up around someone whose truth index entirely consisted of "If it was true I would have read it in the paper" - newspapers were, to her, the absolute arbiters of truth. OMG..
There are some terrible stories about what happened to whistleblowers and the one the springs to mind is outlined in the book "Blood Medicine". Johnston and Johnston were selling a product - and paying people to prescribe it - that they knew was deadly. The whole story of what happened after the whistle was blown is blood-curdling.
New Zealand passed legislation to 'protect' whistleblowers some years ago. It has been an abject failure. Typically the whistleblowers within companies and government departments are still treated as fair game for workplace bullying, character assassination, harrassment, exclusion, and other punitive actions. I have been a whistleblower at governmental level(though would not do that now, for my health's sake).
Anyway. Autism activists put stuff out there and it is often ignored, ridiculed, attacked. This is because you are up against powerful vested interests, who are actively practising the politics of denial, encouraging wilful blindness, and shaping perceptions to their own benefit. This is not a reason to stop; it is a reason to keep chipping away. I know how discouraging it can be; you feel like a voice in the wilderness. But if one person hears and isn't in wilful denial, than progress has been made. The chain of awareness just got longer because of you.
01 Jun 2015, 10:00 pm
