The Ends ARE The Means

In June, 2011, while he was under house arrest in the UK, Julian Assange (founder of WikiLeaks) had some visitors and chatted about a bunch of interesting stuff.  A full recording and transcript are available. His guests included Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, Jared Cohen, a former Secretary of State advisor to Hillary Clinton, and Lisa Shields, VP of the Council on Foreign Relations (and allegedly consort of Schmidt a that time).

One part I found rather interesting was Assange's reaction when asked about "winning" the war he seemed to have started against the major powers in the world, and against the concept that authorities are best suited to determine what information is suitable for release to the public.  Here's the relevant portion of the transcript:

LS (Lisa Shields): How do you know if you've won?
JA (Jilian Assange): I've won?
JC (Jared Cohen): Lisa asked the best question of the day.
ES (Eric Schmidt): How do you know if you've won?
JA: Well it's not possible to win this kind of thing. This is a continuous striving that people have done for a long time. Of course, there is many individual battles that we win, but it is the nature of human beings that human beings lie and cheat and deceive and organized groups of people who do not lie and cheat and deceive find each other and get together... and because they have that temperament, are more efficient. Because they are not lying and cheating and deceiving each other. And that is an old, a very old struggle between opportunists and collaborators. And so I don't see that going away. I think we can make some significant advances and it is perhaps, it is the making of these advances and being involved in that struggle that is good for people. So the process is in part the end game. It's not just to get somewhere in the end, rather this process of people feeling that it is worthwhile to be involved in that sort of struggle, is in fact worthwhile for people.

Two themes resonate: The concept that "playing fair" has been, and still is, a superior strategy in terms of achieving goals; and the concept that the Ends ARE the Means.

I find both of these consistently reinforced in my work with leaders and leadership training, and wonder why they aren't more universally recognized and practiced.