THE GENESIS OF A THINK TANK, NOT ALWAYS SMOOTH SAILING!

THE GENESIS OF A THINK TANK, NOT ALWAYS SMOOTH SAILING

Reference: As a founding member of THE NAPLES INSTITUTE, conversations between members can set off sparks. What follows is a reaction to a piece by a fellow member. He was sharing how a family friend rose from humble beginnings to some wealth, and his own personal connection in that drama from being a boy of three until the present, nearly forty years later. We are working out the bugs as to what THE NAPLES INSTITUTE proposes to be as a "think tank." This is my reaction to my colleagues defense of his family friend.


START WITH A DEFINITION OF WHO WE ARE

This is touching and personal, but I am still mystified as to what THE NAPLES INSTITUTE is meant to stand for:

(1) Is it to be a think tank to manufacture ideas, or

(2) Is it to spawn millionaires and billionaires, or

(3) Are we to be about wealth creation or

(4) Are we to be about ideas meant to influence people to accept their freedoms and the responsibilities that they entail, or

(5) Are we to be an extension of your interventions into neglected communities?

Notice I’ve not mentioned an “enlightened leadership” foundation. There are enough of those. If our pandemic of leaderless leadership is any indication, they still have not touched the surface of their mission. No, I think a clash of ideas with no single thrust but around a common theme is more appropriate.

There is a Talmudic saying:

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am for myself only, what am I? If not now -- when?"

I WHAT DO PEOPLE WANT?

That is the conundrum of life in which you share quite beautifully the nature of yours, and as I have often done, I share the nature of mine.

They are both subjective truths that are relevant to each of us, individually. In getting beyond ours, we open others to discovering their own. To my mind, it is all about freedom, something that terrifies us, and which few of us practice in its most elemental form, while projecting the blame for our angst everywhere but where it belongs -- with us!

We want comfort not conflict, security not opportunity, safety not challenge, someone to think for us not to think for ourselves. We are attracted to the cage, and it is of our own making, while conning ourselves to believe that "we are free!"

The world is turning a corner that I see very clearly and wonder if others do as well. That corner is less interested in wealth creation than better asset distribution so that people, for starters, can have safe drinking water and adequate plumbing to combat disease.

You give an example of rags to riches. That is a Horatio Alger story, a good story, a personal story, and one that resonates with you. I don't happen to think most of us can identify with Warren Buffet, nice as he is, or Bill Gates, as generous as he is now that he is wealthy. They are like Rock stars in a celebrity universe that doesn’t interest much less touch us.

II THE IDOLS OF OUR WAYS ARE NOT NEW

So late we learn. Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) took to science to get away from idolatry. He came up with impediments preventing people of his times from seeing things clearly and called them "idols":

(1) Idols of the tribe. Bacon was referring to the sense of self-importance some people have of their place in the scheme of things. Hollywood actors, who mouth other people's lines, think their opinions count for more than Joe Blow working in a diner.

(2) Idols of the Cave. This is the idea of ethnocentrism where a country such as the United States projects its model of economics and politics on Third World countries irrespective of the in situ cultures. Bacon saw a more cynical factor surface in his times. The privileged few thought they could live the good life on the backs of the poor as their divine right. One hundred years later it led to the American and French Revolution.

(3) Idols of the Marketplace. Since the world of business speaks American, the US peddles its products and services without having a clue to the cultures it serves, and is therefore constantly compromised by them. It was the same in Bacon’s day.

(4) Idols of the Theatre. Bacon was talking about the faulty construction of ideas. We in America buy the sobriquet of "lone superpower" and then stumble about the globe on faulty premises and even more faulty perceptions. We like to throw such words as "brilliant" and "genius" and "great" about our leaders and thinkers, which reveals the inherent flaws in our culture.

III WALKING AS A BOY AMONG GIANTS

We are still surfing on economic waves that bless our shores, but we are not necessarily the model for the future of the world much less our own American destiny.

I don't write to be admired. I write to get people on the same page and off the dime doing what they do best in an effort to get the ball rolling toward self-acceptance and self-reliance.

My books and articles are not translated into other languages, but they are meant for peoples of all cultures. Many of these cultures are repressive cultures. It may be that people in these repressive cultures, if they were totally honest, want gain without pain, comfort without conflict, and authority without having to think, which they already have.

I don't have any wealth creating models in my background but I do have a slender connection to idea models.

My one uncle, whom I've written about rather extensively, took Ph.D.'s in economics and psychology after having had to quit high school as a sophomore to help support his two sisters and five brothers after his mother died.

He did four years of high school and four years of college in four years. He taught at St. Ambrose University (Davenport, Iowa), DePaul University (Chicago) and Detroit University (Detroit), all Catholic institutions, the latter a Jesuit university.

He maintained an office as a management consultant and psychologist in the Fisher Building in Detroit across the street from the General Motors Building. He was a consultant for years to the envy of his academic colleagues.

I spent my summers with him at Higgins Lake in central Michigan along with his son, Robert, who died last year, and his personal secretary who traveled with him and who was an outstanding athlete. My uncle's wife died when Robert was born.

My uncle was an intellectual, and one summer when Robert and I were arguing baseball, he decided that he would give seminars at our meals on the great religions of the world.

That happened during summers from my age of 12 to 15, after which I was too active in sports to take these summer vacations any longer.

I tell you this because, unknown to me at the time, these ideas stuck. I became interested in the philosophy of religion and in great religious leaders and philosophers.

My uncle knew many esoteric authors personally: Edgar Casey (the prophet) and Dr. Smiley Blanton (author of LOVE OR PERISH), and Arnold Hutschnecker (author of THE WILL TO LIVE). He introduced me to them at his seminars. He gave seminars in Detroit to the general public on "How to Think," and the "Decline of Our Western Culture." I was then a boy of ten or twelve, and would assist with Robert handing out programs. I always marveled at the confidence of these friends of my uncle.

My mother, his sister, was a reader but much more down to earth. She was also his favorite and the youngest of his siblings while he was the second oldest. The other five brothers all were laborers in Clinton, Iowa factories or railroad workers.

My da, who only went to the seventh grade and was intimidated by books and ideas, wanted me to quit high school after my sophomore year. "But da," I said, "I am an 'A' student." He said, "What has that got to do with the price of bread?"

My mother saw that I was kept in school. She also went to all my football, basketball, baseball games and track meets. My da never attended any of these events. One time the newspaper had me on the "3 A's and B" honor roll in high school when I had four "A's". My mother called the newspaper for a retraction on the front page for the error. My da was embarrassed.

I was an all-state (honorable mention) football player, and played four years of varsity basketball. I received letters-of-intent in football from Northwestern (Chicago), Notre Dame (South Bend), Purdue (Lafayette) and Iowa (Iowa City). My da didn't want me to play college sports, and I wasn’t too interested myself. College athletics are a most demanding job leaving little time for academic study. I was going to college to become educated, not a better athlete.

Athletic scholarships in those days covered books, tuition and boarding. I instead took an academic scholarship that covered tuition only. I kept it all five years of my time at Iowa despite carrying a full load in chemistry, physics, mathematics and other sciences.

I come out of the brutal clay of failed Irish potato farmers, grubby and grimy factory workers, and a community that looked mainly to high school sports for its entertainment of the day. My sadness is that there were many bright students that never received the kind of support athletes received, and moved naturally into predictable and safe careers.

My high school basketball coach was like a surrogate father to me from the age of ten or eleven. He would come over to the courthouse to watch us play baseball (see IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE). I loved and respected him. He once said, "You're a reluctant athlete. I wish you were as interested in basketball as books." My football coach was not as empathetic. He never spoke to me after high school when I didn't play college football.

IV THE NATURE OF MY HARDWIRING

Like you and your inclinations, and me in mine, the die was clearly cast early in our lives.

The difference is you are in the exploratory period that I was in during the 1970s after coming back from South Africa. I was looking for an anchor. It has taken me this long to realize there isn’t one nor should there be. So, we best go with the flow.

The past thirty years I've been in this discovery mode, which I have shared with my readers, hoping that they benefit. I am on a discovery mission to create an understanding of the world I have experienced that may prove helpful to others in the process of discovering and then creating theirs.

Simply put, I am an autodidact when it comes to philosophy. There is not a lot of room with chemistry, physics, mathematics, tons of labs, and languages, outside of a few required core courses, for much philosophy exposure in a scientific curriculum.

However, I did take electives in "understanding fiction" and "understanding poetry," along with a graduate seminar in "Shakespeare.” That is how I got exposure to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. The University of Iowa is a haven for writers.

That said you are the writer and thinker you are, and I am the writer and thinker I am. Both are relevant to our times. You may be less conflicting than I am because I am clearly a Catholic thinker with a renegade spirit.

Catholicism believes in religious dogma (with the pope infallible as custodian of dogma), which must be mediated by the middleman that is the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Catholicism has thirteen layers of hierarchical authority, which, incidentally, as once did the secular complex organization until recently.

Protestantism believes religion should be directly between the individual and God with no middleman. Strangely, the "Protestant Work Ethic" has created all these layers of management not unlike the Roman Church with the concomitant pittfals.

This is the reason for my writing, WORK WITHOUT MANAGERS (1990).

V KIERKEGAARD - A PARADOX IS A CONTRADICTION THAT APPEARS NOT TO BE CONTRADICTORY

If you examine my writing, I hold a critical eye up to the complex organization, which has created an army of middlemen between work and workers and has taken for itself most of the economic pie in non performance jobs.

Kierkegaard is right when he says there is "objective truth" and "subjective truth."

Objective Truth, according to him, is something that is true whether you know it or believe it, while Subjective Truth may be true for me but not for you. Krishnamurti said the same thing.

THE GROUP CREATES OBJECTIVE TRUTHS.

The Catholic Church, or the gang of clerics, is an objective truth factory. There we have all the dogmatic "Thou shalts." Opinions of the group, however, are usually wrong.

We managed our society with polls and look at the shape society is in. Polling is a major industry, which even became more major in this electronic age. We seldom read a book; go to a film, or restaurant, much less send our kids to a college that doesn’t have the seal of approval of the "Top Ten."

OBJECTIVE TRUTHS ARE WHAT WE OURSELVES THINK.

People of objective truth are suspicious of groupthink. They are mavericks. They base what they think and believe from sensory experience and what they read and observe that confirms such subjectivity.

When I was with Honeywell, "brainstorming" was big. This is groupthink taken to the absurd.

It is the reason why writers of provocative ideas become the focus rather than what they say.

The messenger is killed before the message is perceived.

The very legitimate filter of suspicion we all have and should use is directed at the credibility of the messenger rather than the credibility of the message.

The filter asks: what are his or her credentials, how does she or he fit in the scheme of things; what university did he or she attend; and what jobs has she or he held? The message is lost. The exploiters of this advantage are everywhere with uncanny success.

Only this past weekend I went to Sam's Club, Walmart, and Barnes & Noble, looking at the books on display at the three places as BB shopped.

Sam's Club had ten books and Walmart had five books prominently displayed --- all national best sellers. Barnes & Noble had all of these best sellers displayed in a tapestry of books in front as you come in the door.

I smiled to BB. "The self-fulfilling prophecy works here, too."

"What?"

"You can't help but be a best seller if the only books displayed prominently are best sellers."

"Oh."

"That's all, oh?"

She looks at her list. "You going to buy a book?"

I smiled again, thinking, BB you are so precious. You keep me tethered.

* * *

"If you show it, it will sell." This is "groupthink" worthy of readers. It is a catholic tradition spawned by the Catholic mystique. It is something the Roman Catholic Church slid into Western culture without anyone noticing.

VI TO HAVE A FRIEND YOU MUST BE A FRIEND TO YOURSELF

My Catholic education taught me discipline, completing my work, punctuality, to value reading (we had to make 18 book reports each year in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade), the power of myth and the intoxication of rites of passage and ritual.

Now, an old man, although I don't attend Mass, the Church knows it still owns me.

One of the objectives of my writing, and the reason I desire to be part of the think tank, is not to do wonderful humanitarian things for everybody, but to encourage people to think on their own.

People are perfectly capable of thinking given the inclination. But that means swaying them to think differently than their neighbors; to decide things for themselves; and then to have the integrity to stand up for what they believe despite the inevitable pressure to conform to groupthink.

Erich Fromm wrote a wonderful and perceptive book called "Escape From Freedom" (1941). We are, most of us, afraid to live an uncompromising life. It is a scary prospect. A think tank can nudge us in the right direction.

We are afraid not to belong, not to be accepted, not to be recognized, not to be noticed, when we don't belong to ourselves, don't accept ourselves as we are, don't take honest pleasure in our little victories, and fail to be self-aware, and therefore aware of others. Think of it. Each of these is a wall of our own cage. No wonder we have a sense of anxiety. No wonder we are afraid of freedom.

The Catholic Church builds on this angst. It is why I wrote THE TABOO AGAINST BEING YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND (1996).

There is only one posted review of THE TABOO on www.amazon.com, and that reader trashes the book.

She was looking for a book on how to be self-assertive. In other words, how to give as well as she got, not to have a meeting of the mind with herself.

True to objective truth, she attacked the author, not his message. She was in form and a predictable member of groupthink. Yet, I applaud her for going to the effort of expressing her anger so that everyone could see it. That was a step in the right direction. She may not have noticed but she was demonstrating the spirit of the book she trashed.

VII MAYBE I SHOULD BE A BUDDHIST

I will close this with: my first introduction to Jean Paul Sartre was reading his play, "No Exist," in the original French in college. I was never much of a French student, but he got my attention.

Wow! Did he ever! Sartre claimed we were condemned to freedom, and I think he has a point. But we don't want its responsibility, which I think is also true.

We conform to the comforts we derive from being subsumed under a structured culture because our culture is a refuge from freedom: in the home, community, at school, and in our work and play.

My focus in my books and articles has been on the professional worker. I attempt to rally him or her against this dread of authenticity in a world of inauthentic camp followers, cookie-cutter ciphers, true believers, bureaucrats, and automatons.

The score so far is "Them - 40,000 -- Fisher - 4 (but who’s counting?)." Maybe I should become a Buddhist.

Be always well, and keep thinking and believing and growing,

Jim

PS In 1440 Johannes Gutenberg, a gold smith and gem cutter, got the date of the fair wrong and found himself in the hapless position of all his wares to sell and no market. He needed to get the word out quickly, and perfected a movable type cast in metal that could be evenly spaced and set on a printing press. The rest is history. He revolutionized the world for the next nearly 600 years. What will the world be like 600 years from now with the Internet? LOOKING BACKWARD (1888) by Edward Bellamy, a medical doctor, envisioned a Utopian society in the year 2000, or 112 years after he published his book. Maybe in a few hundred more years, who knows?

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Dr. Fisher books mentioned here are available on this website or from your Internet provider.