Dysfunctional Corporations and Families #2: Balancing Greed with Social Responsibility
Picture me graduating from U.C. Berkeley in the 60’s. Free Speech Movement, Vietnam War, Unitarian mindset, experimenting with Zen, self-hypnosis, Transcendental Meditation. English fiction major.
I was there at the first Earth Day.
Altruistic to the core. I decided not to drink alcohol the day I found out that the grain consumed in the making of booze, put to its normal use, could feed all the hungry in the world.
I was certain the world’s problems could be solved by a team of flower children with moderate intelligence.
All it required was an unselfish attitude, sober mind, self discipline and my favorite coffee house. Greedy materialistic adults had messed the world up, that’s all. We’re reasonable people, basically good. It was just a matter of education, that’s all. I became a teacher: a very responsible teacher.
According to Fish! by Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen, quoting David Whyte, “the needs of the organization and our needs as workers are the same. Creativity, passion, flexibility, wholeheartedness.”
I agreed with this. I was blind to the lack of truthful, relational ethics in this picture.
I saw traditional rules for living as counterproductive and obsolete, especially Christianity. A bunch of myths. Unrealistic denial of reality.
I really believed that I had the honest truth, based on scientific inquiry and Berkeley pride.
The first years of teaching were stressful but challenging. I taught disadvantaged youth, pregnant minors, English, Remedial Reading and Math at a Stanford-based high school and later at an alternative high school. I wanted to solve the problems which were preventing reasonable, good people from being highly productive and happy.
I worked with a Stanford mentor in small groups and had an intimate look into dysfunctional students’ family life.
At the same time I was privy to the lives of the corporate high echelon, the country club set, educated middle classes and the poor. I was creative, passionate, flexible and wholehearted. I was intelligent, skillful and compassionate.
After six years I found myself floundering in a cesspool of disillusionment.
The high calling I had chosen was completely polluted by real life.
We’re not reasonable people, basically good. To my disgust I saw that all of us–rich or poor, smart or not–are basically greedy and selfish, with no internal change made by our education, religion or culture.
Rules for living in this Lord of the Flies world are truly a thin veneer over basic lust and pride. Science, after all, cannot even predict the weather more than a week in advance.
The Butterfly Effect–dynamic weather responses to complex conditions–takes precedence over the best predictions of science. Why should I believe that Science can reach into History any better than it can predict the weather?
My liberal failures could not be fixed by any amount of denial, by my spiritual buffet or by any self-help methods.
Berkeley pride, creativity, passion, flexibility and wholeheartedness are not all we need.
They were not enough to satisfy me or to make permanent change in the butterfly stew of chaos stirred up by human behavior. They were not enough to provide an answer to basic questions.
Harvard Law School ethics carried with them no compelling reason to conform or reform. Enlightened self interest is never enlightened enough or far-sighted enough to predict all the variables. The ultimate commandment is “Do not get caught.”
Sets of spiritual rules, shared almost universally, were not enough.
Victorious life is not a simple matter of values. Values change with every computer model, with human intelligence, with new discoveries and theories. I needed something more practical, dependable, and truthful. I wanted something that works and is historically accurate. I wanted more than feel-good faith and Harvard brains.
When I came to the end of my options, I found that a love relationship with Jesus Christ motivated me, met my needs and a few of my desires, and is very practical.
It is amazing.
