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Ladies and Gentlemen,
By 29 I realized something was seriously wrong with what I was doing. Work led to riches - then it all disappeared. That was in 1987. Didn't realize then the economic anarchy of Reaganomics then, but I was greatly impacted by it.
Also, there was the shift to 'Human Resources vs. Personnel' - a serious death blow to civilized society. We are now just a thing in the minds of those who 'use' us. Think about it folks. I may use and put my words differently at times, but think about this new reference to what was once called people or a body. Now 'it' is a resource.
Secondly, about this time another term was starting up or maybe I just noticed it. Qualifications. Sounds ok at first, just like Human Resource did, at first. Qualifications killed my continued employment in the field I spent 9 years in by working up from the bottom.
Qualifications belongs with Human Resources - both should be sent to the bottom of the sea. Qualifications, another bright spot of stupidity, for it limits our economy by its inane classification to what and not how. These new methods of business I saw in the 1980s were and are questionable, because they reduce people and creativity and intelligence and substance to inanimate objects to be mindlessly manipulated solely for the corporate cannibalism to insure the profits go up.
Profits and stock price and quarterly reports and micro-infantilism management techniques have worth to people, just to the Human Resource of today's thoughtless workforce.
Otherwise, our direction as a people is pointless if we continue on consuming products and not work for a greater project such as moving into Space in order to get some of the raw materials out there and to develop industries out there instead of messing with mother Earth.
Assuming I understand what you mean by Qualifications, I'd say it's partly a ploy to drive more business to the Qualifying institutions and partly an attempt to simplify management for the increasing proportion of managers who have no idea what or how to manage.
It's worked really well for the first part and miserably for the second.
Qualifications as in education.
Education wins over experience.
Education wins over abilities.
The business models changed in the 80s in California from the influx of people from the East. People with degrees are in an exclusive club.
So, when people like myself, who can do the work after spending a few minutes or maybe an hour looking over a task or position, die, you'll have a workforce of half-brain-dead people, but they have degrees. The degree is all that matters.
After four or more years in college, the human brain has submitted to a subsevient existence. Their brains have given up on independent thought, mostly, all it becomes seperated from, by and large, the body it is attached to.
Yes, I realize this may be a surprize and a shock to some, but it's mostly a truth of today's college experience. Some may consider my words here troubling.
"who have no idea what or how to manage" - I've heard this description used before. Why ? Well, if you have a degree and are not threatening ( slightly dull ), then you get the job.
Most people don't like to be bettered even when it's an innocent exchange.
Eric, I can hear what you're saying. There's an Alvin Toffler/Ayn Rand thing going on; that is a bad analogy.
All I can say to that is, here at MWP, individual participation IS the goal. Primacy of the individual, particularly those who can share their creative thinking to help find solutions, are the key to our success.
No human resources, just humans, aligned like a million light bulbs into a focused laser. But not in the context of reductionism, or the collective.
With the amount of input that's gone into my brain over the years, coupled with current events and activities, and the time of day, while I control the fingers, the phrases can be influenced by what I've recently read.
Have me read what they wrote back in 1700s, and I'll write that way. Besides our own, Gibbon is an example of the same period but on the other side of the pond.
I've started reading recently - a book that is - The Campains of Napoleon by Chandler, again. Napoleon invented some, but exploited much. And I think he invented the 'hold them by the nose and kick 'em in the ass' tpye of warfare.
But, I'm digressing.
Yeah well he messed up in the end, so dont put too much faith in his tactics. Check Clauswitz.
NvEric,
As a business leader and an educator, I'd like to think that you've gotten stuck with some bad leadership over the years.
Personally, I opt for education AND experience, but in hiring choices I will go with experience over education in most situations (and I don't think I'm unique).
There is value, however, in that education, and I disagree with your premise that continued education creates a submissive brain.
Understanding that there is good and bad everywhere - good leaders and bad leaders, good educators and bad educators - my education resulted in an increase in independent thought. This was after more than a decade in business with little formal education, and going back to finish school.
As with anything in life, people will get out of opportunities what they put into it, so we should be careful not to prejudge. The smart educators encourage independent thought and the smart employers go with innovative thinkers over brain dead zombies, and the successful in both realms are those who do like to be, and look for opportunities, to be bettered.
Dan
Without personal self-control and responsibility from all Americans towards each other, why bother doing anything remotely aimed at betterment?
Why have Government?
At 6' 3" 250 lbs. I might do better without all of these bothersome laws getting in the way of my gaining over others, grabing all I want, and beating the shit out of most other people.
But, I'd rather be civilized, because it's healthier and a better way of living. However, when rational discussions don't transpire, there can be no advancement.
When inability of improved thought guides some people, as though stupidity were a virtue, we are all let down and hindered by those people.
Understanding yourselves as apart of this country is currently required, but it's not by consent freely given. Remaining comfortable as a serf with a master works for most people.
Geez, I'm 250 and only 5'10" . :)
I think I could survive better in a less civilized world. In the civilized one, true strength sometimes goes unnoticed. While school yard chickenshits get the press. In our world Eric, they'd be culled as the cowardly losers they are and sent back to their Maker for some reprogramming.
And thats about the only good thing I can see about it. Not a world I would have had a family into.
Which brings us to our world, and the presciptive world we want to craft. Please understand the different form of "epistemology" modern Whigs carry with us, or are suppsoed to carry with us. ( I'd say require, but thats a mite strong).
Not CONFRONTATIONAL politics, but politics of collaboration. Not faux creativity, but true creativity borne by questioning all assumptions, and then using collaboration and multiple intellects to craft solutions.
Our whole "way of being" should look, feel, and sound different from politicians. The modern Whig movement, you see, is as much a political movement, as its is a shift in personal epistemology, or the nexus of cognition and philosophy that all of us "see" through.
To my mind's eye, the destruction of today's antagonistic political epistemology and replacing it with one characterized by respect, collaboration and solutions to benefit the whole is our mission. And that mission goes way beyond getting folks elected, its drives to how each of us view fellow citizens, how each of us view our communities, and how each of us view what ties all of our communities togehter. Also, it requires one to be PRESENT, to your point about serfs.
This new ethos will have enormous side payments. From your original post of faux creativity and "human resources", to how our kids are taught in school, which is failing to teach creativity as well as, ironically, simple problem solving skill sets.
In case y'all thought that modern Whigs are simply a "political" party. Ladies and gents, we are an "epistemological" party. We are here to change the way you think. About politics, about governance, about how corporations ought work.
Unfortunately, the system has trained us to parrot other people's thoughts and carry ourselves like spineless jellyfish, folks look to MWP and other parties for their answers. The serfs and masters Eric refers to. WRONG!!!!
WE DONT HAVE THE ANSWERS! The other parties sure as heck don't by empirical observation, they seem to eff up even with a gun to their heads. The answers, like the answer to personal salvation, goes something like, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within." We're not here to provide answers, we are here to help folks "see" truth, so THEY can find the answers themselves.
And that process, if successful, will have deep deep side payments across many fronts. If you desire a strong Republic, that is the only way to get there. The ONLY way. We must empower the serfs, so that all are masters to some extent. As we can clearly see, if too many people become serfs, our whole Republic is jepordized by masters running amok.
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