Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Serious People Have Serious Enemies
Serious People Have Serious Enemies ~ Maude Barlow
If I'm not pissing off some corporate hack every day, I'm not living right.
Power, money, and vast feel-good public relations campaigns does not a moral institution make.
Each of us must decide whether to serve the interests of power, and the abuse of power, or to serve humankind. Biting the hand that feeds me is not easy. Nothing worthwhile is easy.
The most important lesson I learned from having a doctorate from U.C. Berkeley is to talk back to power. Nothing is more difficult. Nothing is more forcefully resisted, spanning from the tacit coercion of the educational system itself that pushes for conformity and complicity with power.
Finding a source of inner reward, and outer reward, for resisting the abuse of power, corporatte and stae power, is a great challenge. State-sponsored schools, and the corporate workplace are shaped to punish critical thinking and expression.
I piss off people every day. Every day I lose clients, and potential clients, because I reject service to corporate power.
The home office, and the nonprofit, can be relatively free of corporate coercion.
It's not enough to make money, but making money must fit within a context of moral action.
Every human action is a moral action.
To perform my consulting services by hiding my belief system would be opportunistic and dishonest, although that is the standard model of "professional consulting." I reject the standard model.
Making the right enemies is the right thing to do. Making no enemies is the path of complicity with the abuse of state and corporate power. Few acts are more difficult that "talking back to power." Some of us are punished from infancy onward to avoid "talking back." One of the most important lessons to impart to a child is that it's okay to "talk back."
The truth is subversive and dangerous, but authenticity has it's own deep psychic rewards.
Are you making the right enemies today?
If I'm not pissing off some corporate hack every day, I'm not living right.
Power, money, and vast feel-good public relations campaigns does not a moral institution make.
Each of us must decide whether to serve the interests of power, and the abuse of power, or to serve humankind. Biting the hand that feeds me is not easy. Nothing worthwhile is easy.
The most important lesson I learned from having a doctorate from U.C. Berkeley is to talk back to power. Nothing is more difficult. Nothing is more forcefully resisted, spanning from the tacit coercion of the educational system itself that pushes for conformity and complicity with power.
Finding a source of inner reward, and outer reward, for resisting the abuse of power, corporatte and stae power, is a great challenge. State-sponsored schools, and the corporate workplace are shaped to punish critical thinking and expression.
I piss off people every day. Every day I lose clients, and potential clients, because I reject service to corporate power.
The home office, and the nonprofit, can be relatively free of corporate coercion.
It's not enough to make money, but making money must fit within a context of moral action.
Every human action is a moral action.
To perform my consulting services by hiding my belief system would be opportunistic and dishonest, although that is the standard model of "professional consulting." I reject the standard model.
Making the right enemies is the right thing to do. Making no enemies is the path of complicity with the abuse of state and corporate power. Few acts are more difficult that "talking back to power." Some of us are punished from infancy onward to avoid "talking back." One of the most important lessons to impart to a child is that it's okay to "talk back."
The truth is subversive and dangerous, but authenticity has it's own deep psychic rewards.
Are you making the right enemies today?
