Comments for The Way of Ages

Comment on Sanjuro by Dave

Dave — Thu, 21 Nov 2019 21:17:55 +0000

It took me a while to discover Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins (2010), which establishes a clear trend in the focus of Japanese-made samurai movies toward social justice. These 13 hand-picked assassins mete it out in droves as they descend upon a human monster (masterfully played by Gorô Inagaki) and his growing entourage to interdict his political career and save Japan from descending back into feudalism on the brink of the Meiji Restoration.

Comment on Institute for 21st Century Agoras by Dave

Dave — Mon, 09 May 2011 02:08:38 +0000

Global agoras aim to extend the reach of democracy into regions and institutions traditionally exempt from the implicit mandate for democratic controls and due process. Democratic controls and due process are implicitly mandated by the same token that the U.S. Constitution characterizes human rights as inalienable and self-evident, for it always takes the former to protect the latter.

Comment on Ubiquitous Democracy by Dave

Dave — Mon, 09 May 2011 01:42:04 +0000

An Argument for Corporate Democracy by Reductio Ad Absurdum (ibid.) The historical lessons of tyranny and democracy must be re-taught and re-learned for implementation inside of the corporate veil. While these lessons have evolved over time they have not substantively changed. Inevitably they will nevertheless be perceived differently when applied within the corporate context. This is not because they are different or achieve different results in that context but because of the inertia of public perception about corporate tradition and executive privilege. The paradigm shifts when companies begin to outgrow themselves. An entity too big to be privately owned is too big to be privately run without devolving at length into a thinly-disguised tyranny as subject as any political tyranny to the pitfalls of complacency, corruption and oppression.

Comment on Sanjuro by Dave

Dave — Mon, 09 May 2011 01:23:43 +0000

Sanjuro in the Context of Corporate Culture Sanjuro is not the only samurai film whose story bears on modern politics or corporate culture – indeed not even the only Kurosawa samurai film. Seven Samurai illustrates the highly context-dependent treatment of competent players and Hiroshi Inagaki's Chūshingura chronicles the so-called Akō incident of 1701-1703 in which a clan leader's refusal to submit to corruption and his subsequent unjust conviction leads his most loyal vassals to take a politically spectacular and historically iconic revenge in strict accordance with samurai tradition.

Comment on All or Nothing by Dave

Dave — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:34:54 +0000

The Seven Samurai in Corporate America
In times of growth, peril or uncertainty, those who can, do and those who benefit shower them with accolades. In times of decline, retrenchment or stagnation, those who can’t, bully and trample underfoot those who can while those who benefit turn a blind eye. Democracy was invented to eliminate this harmonic from the cycles of history. Its implementation must be accordingly pervasive, strong and unrelenting in order to effectively manifest its intended results.

Comment on No Democracy by Dave

Dave — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:08:58 +0000

The Usurpation of Democracy by Corporate Tradition
To be publicly traded, a corporation assumes public responsibilities. Chief among these but heretofore overlooked should be the implementation of democratic processes throughout the organization at every level. This is in fact the only way to ensure the ongoing enforcement of the other elements of public responsibility and the only reason for their heretofore typical neglect. The honor system never did work and this is why democracy was invented so long ago.

Comment on Tim Field Foundation by Dave

Dave — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:30:08 +0000

Those who can, do. Those who can't, bully. From Hannibal to Hitler and from corporate doer to corporate deadwood, this quote by the late Tim Field rings as true today as it has throughout recorded history.

Comment on Bubbles of Tyranny by Dave

Dave — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 08:42:43 +0000

Both tyrannies and tyrants can be good as well as bad. As the ancient Greeks and Romans found out the hard way through centuries of trial and error, the problem with tyranny is the basic problem with life itself as famously compared by Forrest Gump to a box of chocolates: “You don’t know what you’re gonna get”. While it may spoil the surprise for some, in a strong democracy you do know what you’re gonna get: the people’s choice, each and every time. How boring is that would depend to some extent on how recently you had emerged from the last bad tyranny.

Comment on Ubiquitous Democracy by Dave

Dave — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 08:31:33 +0000

In considering the alternatives to corporate democracy we face the same problem domain as did the ancient Greek inventors of democracy. The Athenian solution inspires the scenario outlined above, whereas in the Spartan solution we would settle for a more centralized organization that systematically filters out those whose attitudes and psychological profiles have been found through experience to impede rather than propel productive work and beneficial organizational and social development.

A potential problem with the Spartan approach in modern corporate society is its susceptibility to corruption in practice. One might easily envision, for example, a nightmare scenario in which the Machiavellian schemers gain control of the pre-filtering program and turn the whole system on its head. Many of us know all too well how commonplace and pervasive this dynamic can be.

This is the thinking behind the Athenian approach outlined above wherein pure democracy is expected to foster an environment whose inherent dynamics work of their own accord to constantly neutralize and sideline counterproductive behaviors, inexorably paving the way for unlimited progress, sustainable productivity, entrepreneurial agility and societal improvement ad infinitum.

The only twist for the Athenian school is that it takes a good measure of individual Spartan courage and discipline to keep a strong democracy strong. The end is swiftly sighted when democratic principles begin to yield the right of way to corruption and the insidious creep of tyranny. People worn out by the routine just stop caring, bog down in the bureaucracy and succumb to the inexorable encrustation of functionally obsolescent hierarchies and the machinations of those who thrive in the stifling conditions that always set in around them.