James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© March 12, 2014
Everyone is familiar with the name Nostradamus if not the actual man. He did exist and lived nearly to the age of 63 years, which was a long life for his time (1503-1566). He was trained as an apothecary, a pharmacist in our parlance, but is best remembered for his book Les Prophesies (1555). This book is known worldwide, a book that has hardly ever been out of print in nearly 500 years.
We are fascinated by prophecies or predictions, but curiously, mainly about those that don’t directly impact on our lives, say events in history, or calamitous happenings in the near or distant past.
Academics are not inclined to find Nostradamus Quatrains credible. Instead, they suspect Nostradamus has been misinterpreted, mistranslated or fraudulently exploited. Whatever the case may be, this has failed to dim the Frenchman's prognosticating appeal or the hypnotic enchantment of his predictions.
Academics are not inclined to find Nostradamus Quatrains credible. Instead, they suspect Nostradamus has been misinterpreted, mistranslated or fraudulently exploited. Whatever the case may be, this has failed to dim the Frenchman's prognosticating appeal or the hypnotic enchantment of his predictions.
Most of his prophecies deal with natural events such as plagues, earthquakes and floods, but also human events such as wars, invasions and battles. Napoleon and Hitler, among many others, are selectively extrapolated from these lines as if they appear definitively, which they don't.
Nostradamus must have been an interesting man, even a complex one, as he drifted from science into the occult, dabbling in astrology and parapsychology, then back again into science updating the works of the Greek physician Galen (AD 129 – 200) to match his own work as a healer.
The fact that he is still read in the 21st century by people of all persuasions, as he has been read in the past, suggest a constant if not compelling interest in the divine as well as the occult in contrast to the scientific dominance of our current times. Don't expect many to come out of the closet and admit this to being so. Nostradamus is an acquired taste best kept to oneself.
But I wander. What caused me to reflect on Nostradamus was how fascinated we are with predictions against how unreliable predictions generally are. People are always predicting disasters. But like "Chicken Little" of the nursery rhyme most of us don't pay attention to them until after the sky has fallen, and we are embarrassed with the consequences of our inaction.
Many in the financial community, among them Meredith Whitney, predicted the domino effect of Citigroup and others falling, leading to the 2008 financial crash that became a cataclysmic financial event. How the movers and shakers scampered about as if chickens with their heads off in that October of 2008. The second Great Depression was in the air, and they were as they say "late to the party." If gives one pause how tenuous the connection between those that know and those that don't, and the rest of us.
The economic boom of the new century was on, and to think it couldn't continue was nonsense, all indicators were up, that is, if not examined closely. Meredith Whitney did, a person who was better known for her marriage to the famous wrestler, John Layfield. It just goes to show you.
Perhaps there was a little Nostradamus in her. We choose to ignore such people as we are robotically and hypnotically encased in the nether land of the Great Tomorrows and Never Ending Yesterdays.
Many in the financial community, among them Meredith Whitney, predicted the domino effect of Citigroup and others falling, leading to the 2008 financial crash that became a cataclysmic financial event. How the movers and shakers scampered about as if chickens with their heads off in that October of 2008. The second Great Depression was in the air, and they were as they say "late to the party." If gives one pause how tenuous the connection between those that know and those that don't, and the rest of us.
The economic boom of the new century was on, and to think it couldn't continue was nonsense, all indicators were up, that is, if not examined closely. Meredith Whitney did, a person who was better known for her marriage to the famous wrestler, John Layfield. It just goes to show you.
Perhaps there was a little Nostradamus in her. We choose to ignore such people as we are robotically and hypnotically encased in the nether land of the Great Tomorrows and Never Ending Yesterdays.
I've had something of a Nostradamus experience. Perhaps you have had one as well.
Mine was based upon my work with repeated themes cascading my conscious mind with such frequency that I couldn't ignore them. Perhaps that was the case with the lady of finance who predicted the Wall Street crash.
The Nostradamus theme returned to mind as I am currently in the process of editing my 1991 book, Work Without Managers: A View From The Trenches, to be rereleased as a 2nd Edition by TATE Publishing Company.
Serendipitously, I have been reading column after column in newspapers and on the Internet, study after study from think tanks and research foundations, report after report from consultants that proclaim, as if freshly discovered, concepts and themes that graced the pages of this original work a quarter century ago, concepts and themes, I might add, which were largely ignored.
Mine was based upon my work with repeated themes cascading my conscious mind with such frequency that I couldn't ignore them. Perhaps that was the case with the lady of finance who predicted the Wall Street crash.
The Nostradamus theme returned to mind as I am currently in the process of editing my 1991 book, Work Without Managers: A View From The Trenches, to be rereleased as a 2nd Edition by TATE Publishing Company.
Serendipitously, I have been reading column after column in newspapers and on the Internet, study after study from think tanks and research foundations, report after report from consultants that proclaim, as if freshly discovered, concepts and themes that graced the pages of this original work a quarter century ago, concepts and themes, I might add, which were largely ignored.
For example, consultant Judith Herbage in “The Changing Nature of Organization, Work and Workplace” (2014) seems an echo of repeated themes in WWMs (1991). The same is true of the Pew Research Survey (February 14-23, 2014), and today a column by David Brooks in the New York Times (March 12, 2014).
The difference with these sources and WWMs is that the foundation of that book was empirical and subjective, data derived from the author’s national and international work on four continents over a period of forty year. Trained to discern patterns and processes, chronic problems and perturbations, the book, which was published by the author's own firm, was an attempt to present the obvious. Self-interests, of course, always blinds one from perceiving the obvious. Have no doubt, this was a frontal attack on the irrelevancy of management in the changing dynamic of work, workers and the workplace. I, as author, was metaphorically biting the hand that fed me.
Some of the themes in WWMs a quarter century ago now getting consideration today are:
The difference with these sources and WWMs is that the foundation of that book was empirical and subjective, data derived from the author’s national and international work on four continents over a period of forty year. Trained to discern patterns and processes, chronic problems and perturbations, the book, which was published by the author's own firm, was an attempt to present the obvious. Self-interests, of course, always blinds one from perceiving the obvious. Have no doubt, this was a frontal attack on the irrelevancy of management in the changing dynamic of work, workers and the workplace. I, as author, was metaphorically biting the hand that fed me.
Some of the themes in WWMs a quarter century ago now getting consideration today are:
( Hierarchical management is anachronistic and managers are atavistic.
( The management tree could be cut by 50 percent and it would double productivity.
Workers are now professionals and no longer respond to the demands and dictates of oligarchical management dependence, although they still remain counter dependent on the corporation for their total well being.
( Not programmed to be self-reliant workers retreat into passive behaviors that cripple organizations.
(
5 Professional don’t trust the system.
5 Professional don’t trust the system.
(
6 Professionals are not loyal to the system.
6 Professionals are not loyal to the system.
( Professionals don’t believe in the system.
(
Professional are not motivated by management or the system.
Professional are not motivated by management or the system.
(
Professionals are not patriotic and find nothing in common with the common good.
Professionals are not patriotic and find nothing in common with the common good.
(
1 Professionals have adopted what I call personhood.
1 Professionals have adopted what I call personhood.
The corporate structure has unwittingly promoted learned helplessness resulting in most workers isolated in terminal adolescence reactive and passive waiting to be rescued.
Professionals are critical of the system failing to recognized they are the system.
WWMs was not the first to believe there is more with less, but personhood is an expression coined which has not yet become part of our language.
Millennials, which is a word not envisioned coming into our vocabulary -- we love to identify generations as "X" and "Y" and "ME" -- does not diminish the fact that WWMs was prescient in that it captured the essence of this newest generation whatever its monocle.
Millennials are part of the Fisher Paradigm©™ and for that reason I think perhaps we all have a little Nostradamus in us.
Professionals are critical of the system failing to recognized they are the system.
WWMs was not the first to believe there is more with less, but personhood is an expression coined which has not yet become part of our language.
Millennials, which is a word not envisioned coming into our vocabulary -- we love to identify generations as "X" and "Y" and "ME" -- does not diminish the fact that WWMs was prescient in that it captured the essence of this newest generation whatever its monocle.
Millennials are part of the Fisher Paradigm©™ and for that reason I think perhaps we all have a little Nostradamus in us.
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