The Procrastinationist

[This is an open source sort-of work in progress which I'll be adding to continually as my thoughts crystallize through other discussions. I'll take any critiques, but realize that my phrasing and argumentation is still very much in draft form. This post is heavily influenced by the documentary, The Corporation (below), Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians, and David Brin's lecture on dealing with accelerating change in a burgeoning technocracy Evaluating Horizons, as well as my own personal experience in and about the corporatocracy. I would highly encourage anyone who agrees or disagrees with me to join in the conversation and point out where I you feel I'm wrong or right.]

I think the danger of many top-down corporate structures is that too many of them shut out criticism from the people at the bottom who do the actual work. Many are organized as to be essentially a web of disconnected bureaucracies, each with a top-down hierarchy. In a very real way, they can often resemble an oppressive government, or a poorly functioning democracy where power is never honestly criticized from within and dissent is consistently discouraged. As an interactive designer/programmer in the advertising industry, I’ve been mostly tertiary to this decision making process, but I have on occasion seen how the authoritarian nature of some corporate mechanisms can be harmful on a number of levels.

First and foremost, I’m quite simply someone who hates to do something that I find to be illogical or pointless, or the worst reason of all “because I say so”. Over the years, though, I’ve conditioned myself to know what battles to fight in order to maintain a career and “go along to get along”, but my battles usually consisted of merely having to “make the logo bigger”, change this button from blue to red, etc–nothing I’ve ever “gone to the mat” over.

But now that I’ve been on my own freelancing for the past year, this self-conditioning process looks more and more like collective insanity to me.

For instance, a old college friend of mine is now a data-analyst for a major pharmaceutical company. On many occasions he has casually explained how his job is essentially to participate in a highly sophisticated system of targeted payola aimed at getting doctors to prescribe his company’s drug. Never once does it occur to him that his drug may be less effective than his competitors and that it is (in my opinion, at least) fairly amoral for such an aggressive system of coercion of professional medical opinions to be implemented at all. Unfortunately, it’s all about his “team”, not the positive or negative effects of his job or the results of his company’s success upon society.

I deliberately chose “amoral” and let me explain why. The people who are contributing to this destructive system, like my college friend, are not necessarily “immoral”. To me that word means that you know what the right thing is, but you do the opposite deliberately. My faith in humanity is not so shaken as to believe that even a super majority of the people working in corporations and other social institutions are immoral. That would be too painful a world to imagine living in.

I choose to believe that they are merely misguided by people whom they, reasonably or not, consider to be an authority. This creates the means for one bad decision to go VERY FAR, often to fruition, and all because no one had the means or the motivation to say “NO”. It is our job to provide them with the motivation and remind them that they have the means to stand up and put an end to this madness.

We are seeing examples of this now with Scott McClellan stepping forward, and even in great Britain, somewhat reasonable people are displaying the courage it takes to admit they were wrong and vocally challenge the people they previously considered an authority. Stop and think for a moment how hard that can be if it took you a LONG time to realize that you’d been led astray by people you trusted dearly. People like your own parents, or perhaps a church you belonged to, or perhaps even a spouse who steered you towards believing a lie. People who loved you, and whom you loved back dearly. Imagine they all were following the same lie and encouraging you to join in. Should this ever happen to you and you are fortunate enough to see the truth, it will be your job to stand up and say, “Sorry, this goes too far. I have to go with the evidence.”

Many people like these were simply never exposed to the process of questioning authority fully, never given enough chances to practice the art of criticizing their leaders. It is part of the conditioning of submission that we all are subjected to, at least those of you who endured a school system, public or private. I was diagnosed with ADD in the fourth grade, but believe I was just bored and suffer from a powerful compulsion to be free to follow my interests. This led to many many clashes with authority figures with whom I disagreed or was the victim of their dislike towards class clowns. It took me a while to learn how to form an argument and gain the respect I needed to make it in the world and continue my own education once free from the confines of arbitrary assignments that ignored the roots of my arguments.

So back to my point of using amoral. I have been given the gift of understanding the value of criticism in my life by certain authority figures who invited and valued criticism. Some have not been so lucky. They are either paralyzed from offering it to their authority figures, and often these people become very disinclined to accept it from anyone outside of their in group. It is the out-group’s job to refine our criticisms so that they are accepted. And it is important to offer these criticisms with love. I can love an immoral person even if that love is hated, but I can change an amoral one by creating understanding.

As I mentioned above and in other posts, I’ve been acutely aware of my personal relationship to authority figures and a keen observer others’ ever since reading Bob Altemeyer’s long-term psychological study of authoritarian tendencies, The Authoritarians (available as a free pdf). In a super-small nutshell, we all must struggle against our desire to grant certain authorities unquestionable fealty. Authority can be defined as just about anything, a parent, an idea, a religious leader, hell a can of soup. It’s been one of the most enlightening reads I’ve had in my ongoing struggle to understand our ongoing struggles, and most everyone I’ve recommended the book to has tended to agree it changed the way they see the people they perceive to be their opponents. Ironically, the book has become my authority on the value of questioning authority, especially of my in-group.

So while I do agree with the fundamental critiques contained in the film “The Corporation”, I would not necessarily personify them as BEING insane, but rather they are systems which tend to condition people to not question authority. This often leads to people working against their own interest without ever fully realizing it. This is largely accomplished by the mere fact that most large corporations prevent honest and pointed criticism at the bottom from rising to the failing leadership at the top (something that most people would call democracy).

They seem to forget that unions exist merely to get the bosses to sit at a table listen. It’s only their fevered egos that require us to amass such great numbers just to attain their presence, but usually not their respect. I don’t know why this is, other than some people just didn’t have the experiences necessary to understand the value of and invite criticism. When someone says you suck, just see it as an opportunity to either improve, or justify your actions when questioned. Don’t just tell them to shut up.

Perhaps a good regulation would simply be for every employee to be required by law to read independent analysis of their corporation’s behavior. I do believe that we can all only be expected rise to the level of our awareness. Unfortunately, many corporations take an active roll in propagandizing from within and to without.