You're Fired!

After a lot of cajoling, I finally watched (as much as I could stomach) of The Apprentice. I say 'as much as I could stomach' because I actually found my reaction to be visceral. The experience of watching it was for me so distasteful that it hit me at a gut level, and in groping for words to name my feelings, the only ones that I could come to were 'soul-wounding'. It simply cannot be good for the soul to watch people go at each other in such an in-human way, and in-human is the only way to describe it. We say no less about ancient gladiatorial games. The only difference seems to be suits rather than arms, but both are savage.  Why do we consider this entertainment?

This is more than simple competition.  It is a mixture of competitiveness and greed combined with an obsessional desire for celebrity status, and as such represents a new development in television programming. The Apprentice is only one example on television. There is Big Brother (and all its little off-shoots), as well as various singing/acting/dancing/cooking programmes which pit people against each other with some promise of wealth (if they 'win'), but no less the possibility of eventual celebrity-ism even if they 'lose'. These latter may not be as nasty or bitchy as The Apprentice or Big Brother but they do amount to the same.

The entire genre encourages an ugly form of individualism, while at the same time giving lip service to the benefits of 'teamwork'.  'Teamwork' is beneficial only in so far as an individual can use the efforts of the team to bolster her or his own position or highlight their own achievements.  There is nothing collaborative here, it is in fact a prostitution of 'teamwork', where working together is merely a means to a very personal and individual end.  When push comes to shove each person will do exactly that.

Perhaps it's me. I am not really competitive by nature and I remember that as a child I enjoyed playing games much more than winning them.  I just didn't care that much.  But, am I the only person that finds this all so inhumanely distasteful?

The Innocence of Youth?

Augustine, the 4th century bishop of Hippo in North Africa, wrote that 'the innocence of children is in the helplessness of their bodies, rather than any quality of soul.' Basically, he gives the lie to what we normally call the 'innocence' of children; that is, the idea that children are born pure and that it is only interaction with us corrupted, 'sinful' grown-ups which pollutes their innocence. What a load of rubbish!  The barest cursory incursion into a school playground - even among the youngest of children - will evidence their misguided idea that they are the centre of the universe. Please understand, I am not saying that this makes children evil or corrupt.  It is simply the way we are made, we are geared to self-preservation, usually manifested in selfishness. Socialisation, far from being a kind of destruction of some innate moral innocence, is rather the very means through which we encourage in children those aspects of the human person and human interaction which we most value and most appropriately call 'human'.  If we are fortunate this transition is undergone without too much pain and frustration, but it is unrealistic to think that the frustration which it necessarily entails can be avoided altogether.

The very human contest between self-centredness and growth into empathetic awareness of others and their needs, is today best exemplified in the debate over rights and responsibilities. Socially, we have created and encouraged an entire generation (or two) of people nit-pickingly aware of their rights (me, me, me), but with almost no sense of their responsibilities (others' needs or rights).  In schools, the demand that young people take real responsibility for their lives and actions is lost in the in the double-speak of modern education: 'behavioural targets', 'time-outs', 'learning contract'.  The entire process seems geared to protecting students from the real consequences of their myopic self-centredness, their inordinate obsession with their 'rights', in attempts to 'honour their innocence as children'.  This is only exacerbated by the fact that their parents have grown up under the same system, both educationally and socially, and developed an equally distorted sense of their 'rights', but with little sense of responsibility to others or the wider society, with little awareness of the rights of others.

All of this begs some questions.  How do we socialise children (and now many adults) into the awareness of a life and a world beyond their short-sighted perspective?  How do we best encourage people into a genuine and realistic balanced view of rights and responsibilities; into a healthy complement of self-centredness and other-centredness.  I am not completely sure, but I cannot imagine that either promoting romantic ideas of innocence or continually rescuing people from the consequences of their inordinate self-absorption will do it.

Ave Caesar!

Frighteningly fundamentalist Christians have always used the decline and fall of the Roman Empire as a stark warning to the 'god-less and immoral American Empire'. What with so many single-parent families and gay rights! Of course, I have never placed any stock in such comparisons; but recently I have begun to wonder if there may not be something to the comparison after all - not morally, but certainly politically. Today I listened to one of the best shows on radio - This American Life. The particular episode was entitled The Audacity of Government and it dealt with the far-reaching and increasing powers which the executive branch of the government of the United States (the President) was taking on. These were powers which up until now would have been unheard of, for example re-interpreting a one-hundred-year-old treaty so that the executive branch can intervene in and even change its present implementation. At the same time, I have been reading a book by Martin Goodman, Rome & Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations. While the book is primarily about the relationship of the two great ancient cities, it also devotes some time to the rise of the caesars, especially showing how one person emerged as imperator through bit by bit chipping away at the ancient rights and duites of the Senate. Does this begin to sound familiar?

When a nation or people is or feels threatened by invasion, destruction or other calamity they look for someone who will protect and rescue them. Couple this with leaders who just might have god-complexes and the similarities between ancient Rome and the United States begin to emerge. From the crises that effected the rise of Julius Caesar, his subsequent murder and the jockeying for power among the triumvirate of Octavian, Lepidus and Marc Antony, there finally emerged someone who promised stability and peace, albeit a harsh one. He was Octavian, eventually Augsutus Caeser and later a god. He continued the work begun by his father Julius by aggrandising his power at the expense of the senatorial class. From his time until its fall, Rome and the empire were governed by sole rulers. Listening to the radio, it seemed I was hearing the same story only in a more modern context. The executive branch has not only taken over privileges that have never belonged to it, but also constructed readings of the Consitution so to increase powers it already had, claiming powers for the President which no other President has ever exercised. Some of this has been at the expense Congress' own powers. At the same it time it has done it all in such a way that no on is actually breaking the law, because it creates the laws to fit its needs.  

It is fortunate for the United States that there is a limit on terms of office. The present Chief Executive will certainly be gone by January. Yet, it must be borne in mind that the powers allocated to the office during his uncumbency remain as a threatening precedent. It will be up to the new incummbent to curb them.