ERIN GO BRAGH! ANCIENT BATTLECRY OF THE IRISH -- AN IRISH TEMPERAMENT EXPLAINED!

ERIN GO BRAGH! ANCIENT BATTLECRY OF THE IRISH -- AN IRISH TEMPERAMENT EXPLAINED!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© March 17, 2009

DR. FISHER WRITES:

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated today more than 1500 years after his death on this day. He brought Christianity to pagan Ireland, and drove the snakes out, but Gaelic mythology deeper into the Irish character. That is why Irish Roman Catholicism differs so distinctly from the Church of Rome. Do you know only Pope John Paul II is the only pope ever to visit the Emerald Isle? I was there in September 1979 when he did.

Today I will follow these comments with a writer’s assessment of my DCAS Forum speech, given twenty-five years ago (March 30, 1984), which I have published here in four parts. Publishing it now may seem arrogant in one sense, but in another it was meant to show continuity over the years of one Irish temperament.

It was the Irish Roman Catholic nuns and my mother who programmed my value system and fed my intellect so that it could unravel my thoughts into ideas. The nuns were more interested in teaching me how to think than how to memorize text. That does not explain my Irish temperament.

BB says if it is black I’ll see it white; if it is white I’ll see it black. If everyone is viewing what is on the surface, I will tell them what is going on underneath. If we’re talking about the past, I’ll tell them about the future. If we’re talking about the future, I’ll remind them of the past.

I have an odd temperament, she tells me, and perhaps I do, but it is part of the history of my people. I’ve never collected friends or sought their support. In a strange way, I am a product of my early years when I was called “a mick,” and had to ask my mother what it meant.

The good nuns persuaded me that no one could hurt me except myself. Conversely, that no one could help me but that selfsame self. One nun in particular, who expected great things of me, pointed out a danger. Depend on yourself, she said, but don’t allow others to use you as a crutch. You’ll own them the rest of your life. What’s more, she added, you would be doing them no favor.

BB watches how hard I work and becomes somewhat exasperated realizing that the product of my work has so little interest to me. It is the doing that is consuming.

I confess to being a lifelong packrat, so is BB as it turns out. I have practically every piece of paper I’ve ever written since I was a small boy with a few exceptions. One time a prisoner wrote who had read an article of mine, and asked if I could send him some of my books. I sent a box; not knowing that the box also contained my bound college papers (three volumes), my bound master’s thesis, and my bound dissertation. At the time, I was getting many requests for books (1991), and an administrator I am not. Somewhere out there are these volumes, which hopefully will turn up some day.

A repeated message in these missives is this:

(1) If we don’t define ourselves, others will define us;

(2) If we don’t appreciate the “person we are,” then, we are living a second hand life;

(3) If we have need to please others, need to gain their favor, their support, their approval, their appreciation, admiration and acclaim, then we are also their prisoner.

In terms of human dignity, integrity, and identity, it is not important what others may think of us, it is important what we think of ourselves. A corporation has a quid pro quo interest in us in terms of our value to it. That is on the surface okay, as long as it is a mutually rewarding experience, and not the advantage of one at the expense of the other.

Whatever the case may be, it is important to solidify our self-appreciation. That is our anchor against an ever-changing ambivalent, ambiguous and duplicitous world.

If you do have the solidarity of knowing who you are, what you are, where you are, why you are, and what you are about, you have something that has no price tag. It cannot be bought in a store, purchased with a degree, realized with a fortune, or found swimming in the lap of luxury. This I have learned and this I will take to my grave.

I think I was quite young, I don’t remember exactly the age, but I was standing on a street corner one night after dark with my best friend, Eric Chalgren, in Clinton, Iowa saying such things. He will remember I’m sure.

I might have been 13 or 14, but certainly not yet fifteen. What I said was this.

Standing on that corner, ants were crawling out from under a rock. I said to Eric, “You see that?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “That’s their home, under that rock.”

“So?”

“Their existence is wrapped around the total unconscious realization that they exist without knowing they exist, and they act without knowing they are acting.”

“So?”

“I’m just saying we consider ourselves superior to them because we are conscious of being here talking like this, yet everything about us is invented.”

“Invented?”

“Yes, from our religion, to our values and beliefs, to the things that join or separate us from each other, they’re all invented. We are only real to ourselves as an invention. Did you ever think of that?”

He looked at me and said, “You’re a deep SOB, Fisher.”

“I don’t see where that’s deep.”

“You really don’t do you?”

“No, I just think it is obvious.”

“How would you like to be crawling out from under a rock?” he said finally.

“Eric,” I said, “I crawl out from under a rock every day, the difference is I know it.”

So, if this calibrates with the reader, and if this speech given twenty-five years ago retains some resonance, it is because looking back those many years to my youth, long before this speech was given, it is clear I’ve never taken awareness for granted.

My correspondent here correctly sees my naiveté twenty-five years ago. I agree that what I said then seems innocuous today, but then it was quite bold, I assure you. I had climbed out from under the rock and told those some 200 military and industrial executives what I saw beneath it.

BB says I purposely keep people at a distance with rare exception. She wonders why. I tell her the exception is when people are not afraid to face their pain, as is the case of my correspondent here. We are brothers in pain. He has rallied his resources to move beyond it, which is the domain of the serious thinker and writer, which he is.

It is clear from his comments that he has read and studied this massive document that I delivered a quarter century ago, but which bridges today. He mentions AIG, too, which accepted a $170 billion bailout, but recently delivered $165 million in bonuses to 55 AIG executives, claiming, weakly as it turned out, that it feared the threat of expensive law suits. The irony is many of these executives were already gone.

I find my friends comments here quite sage. He has been in the trenches as have I, and he sees the complex organization deteriorating. It has run out of gas, weary of thinking men who fail to buy company pride. We think it is bad now, but it is going to get a lot worse. The corporation is self-imploding, and my books and missives have been tracking it for forty years.

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A WRITER WRITES:

Hello Jim,

It is fitting to finish reading the last installment on St. Patrick's Day. This prologue to the lifelong mission of an Irishman to drive the snakes from corporate culture is an apt parallel to the day's namesake.

I can see why this paper almost got you fired. It may be for a reason different than what you believe.

My last manager, a Division President, has developed a belief that one can be too smart for business. We were never able to explore what he meant by that.
After reading your paper, I am determined to take the deep dive. Broad knowledge within an organization helps one connect the dots, understand how process A affects process B and so on and so on. It also enables one to understand the organizational dependencies of seemingly unrelated components within the organization. This is good “smartness.” It is enough “smartness.”

Looking outside the organization and recognizing the broader social interactions and business decision impacts is bad for business.

The ivory tower analogy is not only an apt representation it is a desired representation. Companies rationalize away the ivory tower, isolationist image by saying they are getting close to the customer. They employ tools as QFD (quality function deployment) and FMEA (failure mode and effects analysis) to ensure customer needs and expectations of safety and quality are met.

This is a quantum leap from the days of make it, market it and they will buy it at any price. Yet, this does nothing with regard to social responsiveness. Organizations that see themselves as an influential component of the broad social structure and respond in a manner that is beneficial to that structure have integrated the values to which most other companies pay lip service.

The ivory towers caring little for the balance of society beyond that which overtly impacts the bottom line also carry that dysfunctional behavior inside. They market a variety of engagement programs as mahogany row’s intent to open its doors to contributions from the whole.

They disguise the duplicity of their motives well by handing out disproportionate (on the low side) recognition for the initiative of those who eagerly adopt the premise of participation. They take advantage of the unquenched thirst for identity by presenting a pin to wear on one’s smock or a certificate to post on one’s cubicle. All while making larger decisions to outsource or relocate that will ultimately end the productive participation of their “valued” employees. Thus, they complete the cycle of societal abuse while preserving their bonuses. (Thank you AIG PIG)

As tame as the tone of your paper is in today’s world of hyper-charged rhetoric, I can see how it could have been threatening 25 years ago. We were so innocently naïve back then. But, executives clearly were fearful of being exposed. That they attempted to “cage” you after this is indicative of their calculated attempt to usurp the rising countercultural discovery of voice.

Proactive Boomers discovered their political voice in the 60s and 70s. As this awareness began to permeate, executive management recognized the need to placate workers and provide a forum in the workplace. The communist saw of religion as opiate was replaced by participation as the opiate.

Okay, maybe that was a little overboard.

I am so grateful to have this insight to a nascent manifestation of who you are today. The strong desire for just treatment and respect being accorded to all, the recognition that leaders prefer to manipulate rather than lead are precursors to the robust thoughts that have followed.

Great work! Great life! Long may it live!

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