swatkat

Since we were talking about harshness - are we, the Michael/Nikita fans, too harsh when it comes to Paul and Madeline? Even those of us who actually like and admire them (including myself)? We're always going on about their cruelty and how Michael or Nikita (Nikita for me *g*) would've done a better job as Operations - why is that so? Now that we know all about Oversight and Centre, wasn't what Paul and Madeline did for their own survival, just like the way Michael and Nikita fought to survive in Section? And what is the guarantee that Michael and Nikita wouldn't do the exact same things when they got the power? Your thoughts here. *g*

Nell, tell me why Nikita wouldn't fall in the same trap as Paul in order to survive.

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From:

jaybee65.livejournal.com

Corman was the poor Birkoff replacement who figured out what was going on in the Catch a Falling Star ep - the one in 'Tennessee' with the downed satalite.

LOL, that’s an episode I’ve tried to push as far out of my mind as possible -- I think it might make the number one position in my list of the worst LFN eps of all time. No, wait, the one where Nikita was kidnapped and held in a basement was the worst. *Rolls eyes*

>>I don't think the vast majority of it was capricious, in the sense of it being simply on a personal whim (although there was some of that).<<

I think there was enough to undermine any respect for the system.

And I don’t. I also don’t think the system would have had any respect even in its absence. And that, quite obviously, is where we’ll have to differ. Which is no problem -- it’s been fun hashing it out this far. *g*

>>I think it was capricious in the sense of being used against people who had committed all sorts of minor errors -- but that seems to have been built into the system.<<

Perhaps - but that also passes the buck from Madeline and Paul, which I'm not keen to do.

Poo! You’re no fun at all. What’s the good of this if I can’t lure you over to the Dark Side, hm?

Seriously though, my position, so that we can be clear, is this: (1) Paul and Madeline were not perfect leaders, even accounting for the handicaps that they operated under, but to place the *bulk* of the blame for Section’s dysfunctions on them individually is incorrect and unfair; and (2) even their mistakes and instances of abusive behavior were in large part a natural outgrowth of being forced to operate over the long term in the dysfunctional environment imposed upon them from above -- very few, if any, people in their positions would be able to resist the temptation to act in a similar way. The problem in Section is thus mostly systemic, and not personal, and therefore would not be cured merely by replacing the leadership. The nature of some of the abuses might change depending on the quirks of the leader, but it’s never going to be a healthy place.

Paul made a big deal about how much power he had more than once, so he can take the rap too, however much he didn't like that part.

Well, my argument is not that he should be deemed blameless, but that the blame also needs to be shared among other people -- something very few HRs seem willing to do. Hence my conclusion that many HRs are somewhat one-sided. I think in large part it is because if they conceded my point about the systemic nature of the problem, that would mean that Bulletproof!Michael or Saint!Nikita might actually succumb to the same kinds of pressures/temptations that led Paul and Madeline astray if they took over -- I know you’ve conceded this possibility, Nell, but most others don’t, and there are times it drives me batty.

Paul was free to use and interpret the cancellation option however he wanted, and unless we posit that Center had a 'cancellation' quota he had to meet, he could choose how frequently he turned to that tool - and he choose to use it often (though I'm not sure I think he used it as often as once a week! But then, I think Section was a lot smaller than you do, I think.....).

We don’t know how much scope he really had, nor how much his practices were being measured either in comparison either to the other Sections and/or to statistical predictions of expected attrition rates. Judging by the outsiders that they brought into Section from other parts of the organization (Petrosian during S2, and the two people who were being considered as Paul’s replacement in S5), people in other parts of the organization were equally if not more bloodthirsty. And when your own neck is on the line, you don’t want to be seen as unusually lenient or lax compared to others.

From:

jaybee65.livejournal.com

And slave/conscript armies have different structures and discpline issues - but respect for officers and morale turns out to matter even in those armies.

You’re the historian, so I’ll have to defer here, but my impression of such armies is that they were indeed run in large part on brutality and intimidation -- and relied on the fact that the conscripts/slaves often had no other options in society or places to escape to. And that corruption and abuse among officers/commanders was in fact commonplace if not the norm. In other words, they were run very much like Section.

Some historians of the Vietnam era army would tell you that mutinies were nearly out of control as it was - not of the group rebellion kind, but of the simple refusal kind. That the high levels of drug and alchool use and abuse and consequent unfitness for duty were a form of mutiny, and while I'm sure the stories have grown in the telling there were enough instances of soldiers killing their own officers while 'in the field' that it kept everybody looking over their shoulders. If you think you might die before your term is up - it is a life sentence.

That was exactly my point. If you had that much trouble building loyalty there, just imagine what it would be like in Section!

No - it doesn't. The whole point of conscript armies most of the time is to pull into service those the leaders of a society/nation feel are most expendible. During WWI, in the US - Selective Service drafted overwhelmingly single, young, uneducated men from rural areas.

Ah, I should have been clearer in my statement. I didn’t mean cross-section in terms of age, race, gender or economic strata, but rather in terms of psychological profiles. A group of conscripted civilians, even drawn from the narrow group you define, is going to have a very different psychological range from a group of convicted felons.

I would guess that Section had to be very careful of the kinds of criminals it selected to recruit and train, and people with obedience and self-control problems would probably be far down on their list, barring other qualities they were interested in.

On average, a group of criminals is simply going to have more of those problems than a group of non-criminals, and no amount of care in their selection is going to eliminate that problem.

But even so, I don't think loyalty would be as big a problem as you do - I think people *want* to be loyal and to belong (those who don't actually get labeled as psychologically ill....), and one of the things that drove section operatives batty was that this desire was constantly stifled/rebuffed in Section as we saw it.

I don’t think the drive to be loyal is particularly strong one, and especially not in people who have already demonstrated a criminal disregard for others. I think what drove them batty was the constant fear for their lives.

From:

jaybee65.livejournal.com

Most of the post-operation studies, starting with WWII, suggest that overwhelmingly, men fight and die for the others in their unit - and not for patriotism or the defense of family. They are loyal to each other, they trust each other, and their morale depends on how they feel they, as a group, are being treated by their superiors. This turns out to be equally true of draftees and volunteers.

The shared experience of abuse by superiors can actually create small-unit loyalty. That’s in part why drill sergeants behave the way they do.

Small group loyalty is the glue that holds armies together - huge to tiny. (It is also the foundation of many criminal gangs and terrorist cells - for the same reasons.) I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work in Section too.

It often doesn’t work very well, especially in criminal gangs and terrorist cells (which are probably closer analogies to Section than a military unit, in many ways) -- factionalism and coups and fights for seniority are very common.

I think Section could also have fostered an "elite of the elite badasses of the world attitude" - a "no one else is tough enough to risk death daily we the unsung heroes!" 'tude; plus a 'no one else will ever understand/value you the way we do' vibe.

I disagree. The minute you have to cancel one of them for anything less than a horrific error you undermine the pretense at valuing them. The reaction would be something along the lines of: “Hypocrites! They talk about how much they appreciate us, but look what they did to Freddy!” It’s a losing battle.