Usually cults have a charismatic leader (e.g. Lenin), a separation
between "us" (the good or enlightened ones) and "them" (satanspawn),
and lots of minions to do the scud work. This in addition to many
other qualities.
One could make a case that Microsoft is cultic because of Gates, etc.
but, John is correct, most corp.s are less cult, more fiefdom, if
anything because you can voluntarily leave (or get terminated), you
can choose what to eat outside of the corporation, you can live away
from the corporation. In short, you can have something of a life
outside of a corporation. Plus corporations want your skills - that's
why they hired you.
Cults want to control the enviroment - what you eat, when you sleep,
what you think (or not). Cults want your energy but not necessarily
your skills - they want your body for the scud work (namely to recruit
other minions and to tithe, tithe, tithe).
The 12:45 bell has sounded. I will proceed to the nearby cafeteria and
get my quota of soylent green and inigest for 45 minutes before
returning to my cubicle to work on pretty pictures for Upper
Management. JPL rules!
-H.G.
--- In OliveStarlightOrchestra_at_yahoogroups.com, "tschibasch"
<tschibasch_at_y...> wrote:
> This is an excellent piece!
>
> I agree that some (many?) corporate settings are like mini-feifdoms.
I
> don't know the numbers. I have seen some amazing stuff at some of my
> jobs. And yes, the people who work the hardest often get little or
no
> credit.
>
> And continually obsessing is an unhealthy trait, which some people,
> cults, religions, and governments will do. Atheistic governments
> especially can be accused of being religious, in their own way:
>
> In 1985 when I was in the USSR I saw Lenin's face everywhere. Though
> my Russian guides boasted there were no tacky advertisements,
banners
> were plentiful, saying "Long Live the Communist Party of the USSR",
> "Lenin - a Friend of the People", and my own favorite, "Glory to
> Labor". These beautiful colorful banners were mostly on top of ugly
> crowded apartments which looked like they were about to fall apart.
> All the newspapers had Lenin's face on the cover, and boasted about
> the 'great achievements' of the USSR. On almost any subject, it
> seemed, we would always return to how great the government was, how
> great Lenin was, etc, etc.
>
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- In OliveStarlightOrchestra_at_yahoogroups.com, "debadger"
> <debadger_at_p...> wrote:
> > There are a lot of folks who do their best to use any and all
tools
> to keep
> > the sheep in the pen - in the CorpRat world the worst are the ones
> who keep
> > insisting on 'this is a family' and other buzzwords all designed
to
> try to
> > keep that warm fuzzy "wooly blinkers" feeling while extracting as
> much work
> > from the underlings as possible. Naturally the head CorpRat likes
> to think
> > of his/herself as the daddy or the mommy and the senior execs
believe
> > themselves to be the elder sibs who can of course demand their due
> from the
> > younger ones - like forcing them to do the onerous chores and
> hogging the
> > credit and the goodies. I'm not sure this is quite a cult in the
usual
> > sense of one though, despite the very real similarities.
> >
> > Could we say a cult is a religion in its earliest stages? I'm not
sure.
> > I've met fans, SciFi and Fantasy and SCA who were unhinged in a
way I'd
> > actually call cultish despite the fact that I too have a lot of
fannish
> > interests. I am profoundly nervous around someone whose entire
life
> > revolves around only one or two things - whatever they are. I
> almost wrote
> > "one or two things that aren't real" but then I realized that
while
> unreal
> > interests - fantasy, SF, religion (if it takes over a very
significant
> > portion of your mental and physical resources) are indeed
dangerous
> but so
> > is investing a great deal of one's self in only one or two 'real'
> pursuits
> > too - work, children, spouse/lover, hobbies, volunteering... if
they
> are the
> > only thing a person ever does and all resources are focused only
on
> that one
> > thing, there's something wrong.
> >
> > Are cults part of some sort of obsessive/compulsive streak in some
> people?
> > Maybe. We all want to belong, we all want simple answers, to feel
> > absolutely right and at ease. Ok, I like it for a while, but then
I
> start
> > to wonder what I'm forgetting or leaving out. But I know I'm
> peculiar and I
> > know very few people actually cannot be sheep or shepherd. I wish
I
> could
> > remember the title of a really good book about Fuzzy Logic which
really
> > helped me see how much of our thought patterns are binary, thanks
> not just
> > to Judeo Christianity but the old Greeks. Yes/no, black/white,
with
> > me/against me... Binary is a useful tool, we couldn't have
invented
> > computers without that logic pattern. At the same time, almost
this/not
> > quite that is also valid and true - the world is not really, after
all,
> > black and white. It isn't shades of grey either, it's in color;
it's
> > analog. But if you spend a great deal of time staring at the
marvels of
> > color and form in a single rose you won't notice the other
flowers.
> >
> > Meanwhile, I gotta clean up the kitchen - the contractor has found
> he needs
> > access to a wall which is, of course, above the ONE counter I did
> not clear
> > yesterday. Sigh.
> >
> > Elena
Received on 2004-07-27 12:45:34
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