Letters to the Editor
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@quickstrategy
Your point about principles and when to resign and how we cannot get inside the situation of the person to see how they are negotiating the problem seems dead on to me. There comes a time when you have worked your way up in a system and began to realize things about it you simply didn't see before: and then you have to ask yourself what to do now, because you are in a place no one else with your new insights could possible be in (because having those insights from the outset would have precluded you ending up there). So you try to balance it out: how much good can I do, how much can I ameliorate this situation, etc. etc. And at the end of the day from the purist point of view they will always say: why were you in there? Why didn't you leave sooner. A nice quote from Peter Berger seems apropos:
"Fanatics have a big advantage in politics: They have nothing else to do. This is what Oscar Wilde had in mind when he quipped, "The trouble with socialism is that it takes all of your free evenings." The rest of us do not have this advantage. Our free evenings are taken up with family, hobbies, vices. Even if we bring ourselves to act politically, we do so without the comfort of absolute certainty enjoyed by fanatics. We are rarely truly sure. We cannot suppress all doubts. We weigh the pros and cons of possible actions."
You hang in there hoping to have good effect and always not quite sure and doubting yourself and hoping you do some good. And then someone says to you: well, you resigned, didn't you? I could respect you if you did that. And they have no idea what you were able to do or tried to do.