The Peripatetic Philosopher says:

BE THANKFUL FOR CRITICS

They Introduce You to Yourself

James Raymond Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© November 25, 2016

A Celebrated Author Writes:

(By Ken Shelton © November 23, 2016)

Recently I have again engaged in the enlightening experience of responding to harsh critics who attack not only what I have said, written or done, but also who I am.

I’ve learned over a lifetime of speaking and writing to millions of people (I calculate that at least 5 million people have heard my voice in writing and another 500,000 in speaking) that   something I say or write can trigger hostile reactions that seem totally unwarranted, at least in my eyes; but in the eyes of the other person, it is simply the truth as he or she sees it.

I can attest—from 50 years of experience in sharing at least 500 talks and testimonies in several different wards and branches of my Church (located in many American states and in several other countries) and in speaking to other diverse groups—that speaking (writing, singing, acting, or dancing) your truth from your head, heart and soul will invite some hostile reactions.

It seems that this is particularly true at home, where no man is a prophet. In and around my home (Provo, Utah, USA), I may be written off and dismissed by half the congregation before I say a word. Sometimes the spirit of what I say wins them over, but usually not if their mind is made up (pre-judgment or prejudice).  I am jailed, and they become my wardens.

You may have had the experience of speaking or singing before a rather hostile crowd (or at least a few critics whose minds are made up before they hear a word or note).  As you showcase your talent, sing your song, play your game, share your convictions, or present your conclusions, you invite critics. Now you face the dilemma: how can I best respond?

I have learned to be thankful for critics and to pray for enemies.

Four Short Cases in Point

These four cases (among many others) illustrate the challenge of responding to critics.

         

Case 1. National Convention of Black Leaders


About 12 years ago, I was invited to speak at a national convention of about 600 Black leaders in Atlanta, Georgia. When I arrived, I learned that I would follow the keynote speaker, Kweisi Mfume (born Frizzell Gerald Gray), former CEO of the NAACP, as well as a five-term Democratic Congressman from Maryland. Mfume spoke eloquently about injustices heaped upon Blacks and how more Black leaders were needed to right wrongs, seek reparations, and continue with reverse discrimination against whites in education, law and professions.

I was the next speaker, assigned to speak for 30 minutes on how best to develop effective Black leaders (I was one of only three whites present in the assembly).

Bothered by his comments and short on time (I had about 18 minutes), I decided at the last minute to abandon my prepared remarks and speak extemporaneously on the topic using the case study of illegally persecuted Mormon converts and pioneers, circa 1830-1850.

Since my remarks countered, rebutted and refuted the approach for developing leaders advocated by Mfume, I was basically shouted down, threatened and kicked out (and never paid).

Afterwards, I apologized for my “in your face” rebuttal and kept in touch with certain Black business leaders who agreed with me. I also learned to have empathy for MFume, after learning that he was born in Baltimore, Maryland, 1948, the eldest of four. His father, a truck driver, abandoned the family and his mother died when he was 15. Mfume dropped out of high school at 16 and worked three jobs at a time to support his three sisters. He also ran with the wrong friends, was locked up a couple of times, and became a father to five children with several different women (he also adopted one child). At age 23, he determined to change his life for the better. He returned to his studies, obtained his GED, studied at The Community College of Baltimore, where he served as the head of its Black Student Union and editor of the school newspaper. He next attended Morgan State University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1976, and earned a Master of Liberal Arts degree in 1984 at Johns Hopkins University. In recognition of his heritage and his success over his beginnings, he changed his name to Kweisi Mfume (from Ghana, meaning Conquering Son of Kings).

While our views differed widely, I learned as a commentator to display first some empathy (or as SR Covey said, “seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Case 2. Victoria’s Secret

Once I was invited to speak on leadership with the entire executive team at Victoria’s Secret (Columbus, Ohio) from 10:30 am till noon, and then do a two-hour afternoon training session.  However, after presenting some observations on Counterfeit Leadership, I was summarily dismissed before noon and evicted from the premises. 

           

Before leaving, I thanked them for inviting and hosting me (although no one had treated me civilly) and for having the courage to face some hard truths about their culture.

Two days later, in the evening, I received a phone call from the person who so rudely evicted me. He apologized profusely and confessed that I had said exactly what they needed to hear but did not want to acknowledge, and that I would receive my full fee and reimbursement for expenses. I learned that every top team has their “secret garden” of “undiscussables.”

Case 3. A Church Member

Recently I testified in a Church meeting of some truths that are extant in the Old Testament story of Jonah and the Whale, implying that Jonah was not actually swallowed by a whale but rather that the belly of the whale might symbolize a state of separation, depression, addiction, desperation, incarceration, hospitalization, detention or any condition or circumstance that limits liberty and freedom. I noted that I’m not a literalist when interpreting scripture, especially the Old Testament. I’m more literary, believing in symbolism.  I said, “at some point you and I will all be swallowed by a whale—if it hasn’t happened yet, it will.”

And the whale may represent any overwhelming condition or massive challenge that seems insurmountable, inescapable, and interminable. On our own, we lack the power to extricate ourselves—no matter how intelligent, rich, wise or popular we may be. What puts us in this condition may seem random or the result of sin, crime or rebellion, and the only way out is via our repentance and return to obedience and Christ’s atonement. 

Following my testimony, one man (who lives near me) condemned me for preaching “false, vain and foolish” doctrine, along with “personal opinion” contrary to official Church interpretation of scripture. I could feel the eyes of several members of the congregation staring at me. Later I was asked why I did not react to his condemnation. I responded, “I know this man and feel love and compassion for him.  From our personal interactions, all initiated by me in an attempt to be his friend, I know of the burdens he bears. So, for the past three years, I have made a concerted effort to be cordial to him, greet him and stop to chat with him.

“During the meeting, even as he spoke in condemnation of me, I was admiring him for his passion, conviction and knowledge of scripture. I was grateful that he was in church with his wife and three returned missionary sons. I was not offended by his words.” 

After the meeting and for the next few days, I tried to greet him again to thank him for this rebuke.  Finally I went to his home and, not finding him there, left a note, expressing my appreciation for him and vowing to heed his counsel.

Case 4. Neighbor

After sharing something that I had written, a close neighbor emailed me to accuse me of “regurgitating my self-serving content” without adding any redeeming value. She felt that “it is apparent that you are unhappy with your life” and that “publishing your observations discounts whatever good you are trying to accomplish.”

My response to this critic was to write her and thank her for the joy and inspiration she has added to my life. I confessed to being a closet fan of hers as she sings in a choir whose music videos are posted on YouTube. “When I listen to these videos, I often scroll down the comments, as you may have done on occasion. Many are complimentary; others are critical; and some are downright over-the-top nasty. As a singer (writer, dancer, actor, athlete, or any field performer), you learn to take it all in stride. Not everyone loves you or your music or message.

“I have no clue what it is like to be you,” I wrote. “Likewise, you have little or no clue that it is like to be me. I will always give you the benefit of any doubt . . . sorry, you are my friend for life, and beyond . . . and there is no obligation to agree with me on anything I may write or say. Please know: I will always be cheering for you (and yours).”

Close encounters with critics can be enervating and/or invigorating.

Dr. Fisher (a friend) responds:

Ken,

This comes to me when I was trying to respond to this from you:

Sir James,

You have become a bonafide "fisher of men", hooking and netting a wide variety of folks 

who are seeking truth, not knowing where else to find it.  Your voice, like one rising 

from the dust, has a ring of ancient wisdom: the timely application of timeless principles. 

I was humbled and surprised as I do not see myself in this light.  However, given your resume, I believe it better describes you.  In addition to what you list:

You have been a prolific writer/publisher with the successful Executive Excellence series of publications with which I have been a contributor.  You have published books and ghost wrote one of the most successful nonfiction books in my lifetime (Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, 1989).  I can imagine you have had a hand in many of Covey’s other bestsellers.

·       The acting, singing and dancing, well, those talents are a surprise to me.

I no longer give speeches or contribute to periodicals or trade journals such as Executive Excellence as you know.  Various journals still ask permission to republish some of my articles, but since I seldom here back, once permission granted, I shut down that avenue of discourse.

With the exception of Confident Selling (1971), the thrust of my publishing/speaking career is only the last 26 years, or after I retired from Honeywell.  My efforts that have caused some stir were those that looked at common situations a bit differently. 

Confident Selling was about selling as a partnership and not as an adversary relationship.  I bristled when three years later Robert Ringer published his runaway bestseller Winning Through Intimidation (1974).  Unfortunately, many in sales today still subscribed to that insanity.

Creating an equally modest stir were Work Without Managers (1991), The Worker, Alone! (1995), Be Your Own Best Friend (1995) and Six Silent Killers (1996) as they all represent a clear departure from the established norm. 

Never having had a ghostwriter, publicist or editor, my other efforts have been more or less politely ignored with the exception of Confident Selling for the 90s (1992), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, I think, because it was mainly about finding one’s moral center whatever the endeavor. 

I have a modest e-mail and blog exchange compared to your activities, write every day in my equally modest library of some 4,000 books while being serenaded by my Bose radio/recorder of equally unobtrusive music of European composers of the past.

Responding to this Business of Critics

This is my take on your four case studies:

National Conference of Black Leaders, Atlanta, Georgia

The central idea I derive from this excellent commentary on your encounter with various groups within and outside your own domain is the social psychological need of engagement and belonging.  It is fundamental -- as I understand it -- to your genuine spiritual and moral commitment to your church.  You walk in the shadow of St. Paul, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, and like them, know of rejection as much as acceptance.  

To belong is not a passive doctrine but the unity and theory of practice in faith.  It is not a passive condition but an act of cooperation involving the labor of social truth in deeds as you exemplify.  

The problem, as I see it, is that the general patterns with and between individuals differ widely from one culture to the next.  We Americans pride ourselves in being a multicultural nation, or indeed a hybrid, which on the surface is celebrated, but below that surface is the reason for much of our troubles.  Multiculturalism sullies and defames all cultures as this is a simulated platform that cannot be adequately integrated other than in its own valid culture. 

Each culture acquires its identity, history, language, values and pride.  Yet, in our short American history, we have deluded ourselves into the belief that we thrive in multiculturalism.  Alas, multiculturalism is one of the reasons I am so adamant in expressing my Irish roots, as now in my old age, I realize that I am very much like the people of that tiny island.

In each of your examples, you encountered aspects of this conflict while there was no evidence anyone wished to be malicious.  Still, the void between cultures is inevitable. 

For each culture has its own picture of the world, its values-picture.  U.S. Coast Guard author, Alex Haley, captured a sense of this when he wrote the novel, "Roots" (1976).  It was a national bestseller and was made into a multiple part television series.  Haley's novel told the saga of an American family through the roots of Kunta Kinte, an 18th century African boy, sold into slavery and brought to the United States.  It was a celebration and was timely as it gave people of color an appreciation of their heritage and an identity connection as a people.  

Millions of Americans, who didn't read the book, were glued to their televisions, especially black and brown descendants from African slavery.  These descendants were entertained by the story on how their people moved, talked, and thought, as well as what they ate and drank, even their dialects and handwriting, their laws, their music, their social outlook, their dance and their beliefs.  They felt in their bones a connection, an engagement beyond themselves. 

They discovered that they were not alone, but had a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves.  On display was the qualities and patterns they held in common with their ancestors. Some scholars call this “genetic history,” and we all have it.

This does not just happen to people of color but to Eastern Europeans and Latin Americans and people from the Middle and Far East who have never been completely comfortable away from the living center of their cultural heritage.     

What you experienced at the National Conference of Black Leaders, I have experienced in possibly a more blatant sense when I chose to go metaphorically describe the issues at hand. 

I had made an extensive organizational development (OD) intervention into a community, and had a one day “rap up” session with the community’s executives from the county administrator, mayor, police chief, and so forth.  I attempted to show in my “hypothetical case study” what happens when a community handles its perturbations only at the “skin deep” level, allowing core issues and chronic problems left unattended to fester beyond the possibility of damage control.  They got the message.  Participants didn't come back for the afternoon session.  

My experience is that people in power act like spoiled children and want only to hear what they are doing well (their strengths) and not where they need help (their weaknesses). 

Victoria Secret

In the second instance ("Victoria Secret" confab), you were a person with inner experience and inner direction to a group who wouldn't recognize themselves if they met on the street.  You went into the Teflon den of pretend.  Any attempt to satisfy this customer's taste has more to do with titillation than instruction for this group thrives on surface issues.  

That said people who live externally directed lives in a cosmetic world of appearance can be reached I suspect, but it is perhaps close to attempting to put a camel through the eye of a needle.  They are into style, form, gossip, who’s in and who’s out, what is the current “gocha fab” and lingo and vibes of that sort. 

This is the world of Southern California and New York City, the two hugely populated centers of our country; centers that have no idea or interest in what everyone else in the hinterland is about.  That is why they are still behaving as if they have had a death in the family with the recent presidential election.  They are now into grief, disbelief, anger and depression.

When you presented some ideas on Counterfeit Leadership, which I have designated Leaderless Leadership, well, you disturbed their makeshift personality and the patina of their surface consciousness.  I wouldn’t take the apology two days later seriously, after being evicted from the premises, as this is typical of those of a gratuitous nature – they believe all sins are forgiven with a glib apology when it exacts no cost.  

There is a crippling uniformity in how those imprisoned in the subjective lifestyle react when introduced to objective reality that they either ignore or deny.  They crush everything into the uniformity of the moment hoping that the new styles of glitz will last a season.  German philosopher 

Henry Herder of the 17^th century once said:

“All that can be, is; all that comes into being, will come into being; if not today, then tomorrow; since everything fits somewhere.  Only artificiality is destructive, in life as in art.”

Imagine how “Victoria Secret” would have reacted if you laid that on them.  You were an outsider, a prop to this group with skills that they could find useful if fluff was not only their sanctuary but their values-picture.  Why else would there be a “Victoria Secret”?

Church Member

There are all kinds of people we encounter in this life and each has its own constituency:

There are doctrinaire people of faith who want no thought or disturbance to their core beliefs even if it should throw more light and credence on what they believe to be true. 

There are people who have no convictions whatsoever and think everyone is a phony, on the make or take, and life is a total drag. 

There are people who believe everyone is good and they always see the bright side of the setting sun, while choosing to see everyone in that side of light. 

There are people who embrace life with all its verisimilitudes calmly and quietly.  They mind their own business and take life’s ups and downs philosophically without bitterness while not seeing themselves as anything special.  They go along to get along with everyone, enjoying their time on earth.

Then there are those who have never spent a happy day in their own skin, and don’t want you to forget it.

Behind the masks of everyone are the possibilities of those dynamic twins – envy and jealousy.  Envy is wanting something that someone has that you want and don’t have; jealousy is fear of losing what you do have and you are afraid of losing. 

When your church member is attacking you for what you have said, because that is clearly what he is doing.  Generating this reaction maybe a combination of envy or jealousy camouflaged in the attack.  It could also be that his faith is waning and he cannot have any disturbance to it even if it is well-meaning and informative.

Nothing in interpersonal relations is ever what it appears on the surface to be, and I say this without exception.

Your Neighbor

You would imagine, given my personality that I would encounter such rebuke as you did with your neighbor but throughout my life people have preferred to talk behind my back, including my children.  I was once told that I am quite intimidating, but I do not see myself that way, but my experience is testimony to that possibility. 

As I indicated for your church member, the same may be in play against you.  Envy and jealousy are closely related to those two other demons, compare and compete as you have obviously accomplished much in your life, and have had the economic and prestigious benefit of that success. 

Everyone is creative, but only a small handful of people ever demonstrate the courage to exploit that possibility.  You have.  Perhaps she hasn’t and wishes that she had. 

As my BB tells me, I live in my head, and I guess I have all of my life, and find thinking and writing as natural as breathing.   This doesn’t mean that I do thinking and writing any favor, but simply that I have not been afraid to venture into that august company. 

At my 50^th high school class reunion, there was a form that everyone was asked to go around and get the autograph of fellow classmates.  Many, and I was one of them, had never been to a class reunion before, and it was something of an ice breaker.  My BB asked a classmate if she had my autograph yet, a person whom I thought was a good friend those many years ago, only to have her say, “Why would I want Jim Fisher’s autograph?”  It stunned my wife, who was a perfect stranger to everyone.  Later, this same person asked me, somewhat aggressively, “How come you turned out the way you did?”

She remembered me as an athlete and working class poor, which was true, so by implication she was saying: What right did you have to turn out the way that you did?

Final Take

Your religious beliefs and life experience energize you to look at the glass half full, and to see most people, like yourself, having other people’s best interests at heart.  I see the rotten side of life running the show while the engaging side, people below the radar take all the punishment.  I prefer the ignorant man who loves himself and his family, and works for the good of his people to the cultivated ghosts that dominate the headlines and win the accolades of society.  They think only that their fellow ghosts exist because they are somebodies, while being little more than chimeras.  Aren’t you lucky you are not me?

Be always well,

JIm

  

        

The Peripatetic Philosophers exchanges views:

The Challenge of Maturity in the Age of Anxiety

JAMES RAYMOND FISHER, JR., Ph.D.

© November 23, 2016

A READER RESPONDS:

Dr. Fisher, 

As a maintenance officer for 4 years in the USAF and a teacher for 35 years, one thing I have learned whether at Emory to study Comparative literature, at USF for a Masters in art education and eventually for an MFA, was that very few people want to hear what you have to say unless you agree with them. 

One of the ironies about all this thinking is that when I went to Newberry, a Lutheran College in South Carolina, where I wound up majoring in English Lit, I ran across two English professors who might not have agreed with everything their students said, but they allowed them to express their ideas.  When they did not agree, they would tell you so, but it never affected your grade. 

As a naturalized citizen born in Berlin, Germany in 1939, I find that no matter what faults people find with this country, every morning when I wake up, I am glad I landed here. That is one of the issues I have about Obama and his wife both of whom went to good schools and were making good money, and she had the nerve to say this is the first time I am proud to be an American. This country is not perfect, but it sure beats most of the rest of the world.  

As for education not teaching high order thinking that issue is being promoted by the spoiled brats Jim described so eloquently, and the university administrations that are all into codling.  I experienced the beginning of that when I went to Emory to work on a PhD.  A certain kind of thinking was required which had little to do with high order thinking.  I spent most of the rest of my years teaching: first English to seventh graders and after 3 years art mostly in high school. 

I witnessed the behavior and ambitions of many, many students, and much of what they brought to the school environment came from home. All the teachers I knew worked hard to provide a learning environment, but they continued to be blamed for things over which they had no control.  The education thing is just like the Black lives matter movement. 

Yes, Black lives matter, but all the black on black killings also matter, but they are ignored by the black leadership and community because it is all somebody else’s fault.  The last point is about this election.  I liked neither candidate.  But when Trump won, I certainly did not think breaking things would help anything.  That too comes from home.  I watched my two daughter grow up, and am now watching my grandchildren grow up, and it is all about genes and environment which are elements about life that no government can fix.

Klaus

DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

I've just got to this, something you wrote a week or so ago. How beautiful, measured, perceptive, fair minded, and yes, eloquent. It is a keeper.

You were born in my favorite European city, Berlin, BB and I spent a vacation with a rail pass traveling throughout Europe several years ago, spending much time in both West Berlin and East Berlin. My best friend in the US Navy was Wolfgang Erdmann, whom I've written about many times, having been put on the Eastern Front Lines against Russia as only a boy, losing his parents in the war, raised in East Berlin and acquiring a doctorate as an optician. We were put in the Medical Division of the USS Salem (CA-139) because of our academic training and together on that Flag Ship for two years. He found his way to America with his wife staying in East Berlin. She was a dedicated Communist. I've often wondered if his wife joined him in the United States after he left the navy.

New York columnist David Brooks is still ranting as if someone stole his fourth grade lunch money. I still read him with pain having wondered if he had abandoned serious reading. Oh, he quotes authors that are on the cutting edge of mediocrity, but I mean serious writers who have been dead for 200 or 300 years such as Vico, Hamann and Herder.

I have suggested that we are a meatloaf culture for such attention. So, why should we be surprised that Hillary Clinton and the Donald became the last two standing? We go for the lowest common denominator and then fudge what we call the numerator. It is called "media."

We are lucky you became an educator, and it is obvious that you have had more good than bad experiences soaring to your acclaimed academic status as a teacher and molder of young people.

Moreover, I appreciate your high regard for the United States of America as your adopted country. You have the perspective of being born at the end of the Great Depression, a few years after Adolf Hitler had come to power, as I was born when he did. As you came into the world, he was about to invade Poland and launch WWII. We are all collateral survivors of that tragedy.

History is not episodic but a vast drama reflecting the destinies of humanity in some teleological fashion in which each great cultural epoch takes center stage with all of us actors in that play. The problem is we don't know the denouement. But there are indicators and that is why I write about such things as the SPOILED BRAT SOCIETY.

The president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, Dr. Edward Piper, writes that for the past several generations since WWII, the indictment of his industry, education, is that it has sponsored elitism and has developed narcissistic and self-absorption students who think life is without consequences and that they are superior because they are Americans.

They have ridden to the top of Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" and see themselves totally self-actualized pyramid dwellers laughing in the face of self-responsibility and self-discipline. Small wonder our workers in every industry at every level reflect this preoccupation and malady.

Dr. Piper says we have selfish students and selfish student bodies at our universities continuing the practice programmed into them in grammar school and high school. They think good grades can be extrapolated into competence. They consider themselves smart and informed when they know nothing about anything much less about life.

Richard Weaver wrote "Ideas Have Consequences" three years after WWII, at the height of the post-WWII optimism and collective confidence/security of the American people as the chosen people.

Weaver's analysis was an unsparing diagnosis of the ills facing people of the modern age. What author Weaver saw was the consequences of that utopian revolution. The consequences were at first gradual (then accelerated) erosion of distinctions and hierarchies with the subsequent enfeebling of Western minds.

We saw it in education, commerce, government and religion as those in charge lost the capacity to reason. We saw it in students who equated good grades with the ability to think, forgetting that intelligence is not an I.Q. test score but what intelligence does.

These effects -- as I say in hard ball prose -- has produced a SPOILED BRAT SOCIETY which touches everyone in manners and morals as the pervasive societal ill of our times.

Bad ideas lead to bad culture, and bad government leads to bad communities. We have sick communities across the land and the best we can do is point fingers at police or some other agency including the church as the target of our anger; never at ourselves. Good ideas, Weaver tells us, lead to the opposite as history shows in generating good kids.

German gestalt psychiatrist Frederick Perls (1883 - 1970) identified the problem as "garbage in, garbage out" in his book "In and Out of the Garbage Pail" (1969). The idea here is that poor quality input will always produce poor faulty output. Perls, Piper and Weaver are talking about behavior. Garbage in, garbage out now is dominated by the field of electronic information and communications.

"Garbage in, garbage out" now refers to computers, since they operate only with logical processes, but can produce nonsensical or erroneous data with the hubris of infallibility, as we have seen with polls in the most recent presidential election.

We have become a waist-high culture where the bestseller industry of fantasy/science fiction, play stations of pointless brutality dominate. Meanwhile, candy coated popular histories of little ideas to fill the void left by our distaste for challenging big ideas have become national bestsellers. We have as a culture lost our heart and cannot find our soul, and wonder about maturity in this age of anxiety.

Stay well, keep reading, keep thinking and keep writing, as you have done here. Let your experience be your guide to what you believe, value and respect. We need a fair minded nation like you, indeed, we need a world like you.

*   *   *

The Peripatetic Philosopher shares:

DEVLIN LEARNS ABOUT LIFE/WORK

VANITIES OF VANITIES

JAMES RAYMOND FISHER, JR., Ph.D.

© November 22, 2016

REFERENCE:

This is another excerpt from DEVLIN, THE NOVEL,  which is to be a Kindle selection in early 2017.

JAMES JOYCE’S INFLUENCE

Seamus Aloysius Devlin chose St. Aloysius as his confirmation name at his mother’s request.  “Like the saint,” she said, “you are my golden boy,” adding, “and besides James Joyce chose the same confirmation name, and he’s the greatest writer in English.”  Devlin always wondered if he was a disappointment to his mother.

It wasn’t until he was twelve that he learned St. Aloysius was a Jesuit of unsullied virtue who died at the age 23 during an epidemic in Rome in 1591.  At the Crescent City Library, he confirmed that Joyce was a celebrated writer but of a far different temperament than the saint.  St. Aloysius wouldn’t allow his mother to embrace him because he feared contact with women, while Joyce embraced female verities.   

The saint was a loner terrified of women, while Joyce defied the limits of English propriety and decency.  Devlin wondered what his mother was trying to tell him, but he never asked.

Devlin was comfortable as a loner, as it was his plight to be an outsider.  He was born and grew up in the working class section of Crescent City.  Although living in a small community of 33,000, there was a section of the city where many rich families had lived for generations, an area that made him feel especially uneasy. 

He could remember the Great Depression of the 1930s, just before the war, and the times  he rode the bus with his da through blocks of mansions.  He would see fancy cars, uniformed chauffeurs, and maids in black dresses with aprons and starched white caps, and children in school uniforms playing in the yards without regard to soiling their clothes.  He had felt outside all of that, and it had never left him.  The entire scene branded in his memory, now reappeared

His life now was incomprehensible to him.  It was as if he had imagined it, or read it in a book.  After all, his family never owned an automobile, always rented.  He never got to know the part of the city where the rich kids lived, but he did have an opportunity to compete with them in the classroom and athletics, and was shocked to find they were not as smart as he was or nearly as good an athlete. 

Like St. Aloysius, he was blessed with brains, and like Joyce, he had Irish luck and pluck.  Devlin was most comfortable on the move, suffered fools poorly, fearless of adversaries, a rootless moralist, a traveling man moving fatedly if uncertainly forward.

He had been lucky to work on his own as a lab chemist since nobody wanted to work with him.  Although a junior chemist with no seniority, he was demanding to the point of impudent.  In the R&D laboratories of Tandy Brands, Inc., he was quick to complain if he found anyone’s work slipshod. 

It didn’t help him not being a real chemist as he held a BSCE in chemical engineering, which to bona fide bench chemists was neither fish nor fowl, but at best a hybrid.  It was how psychologists feel about psychiatrists.  Psychologists believe they do all the research and psychiatrists get all the credit.  To them psychiatrists are basically medical “pill” pushers with a short survey course in psychology, whereas psychologists have eight years of clinical training.

Chemical engineers are focused on processes associated with systemic and chronic problems in mechanistic systems.  Chemical engineers can observe, evaluate and correct what they see.  Chemists deal with molecular structures in a subatomic world, which is often beyond the lens of the electronic microscope.

His colleagues failed to see, and Devlin was not yet aware, that he was an engineer with the mind of a chemist and heart of a psychologist.  Book learning aside, the hybrid was to prove both his doing and undoing as he was also a sensor of the rarest of sensitivity.

Devlin jumped at the opportunity to ditch the laboratory for another hybrid, chemical sales.  It was not a career move but a way to generate income for his young family of a wife and two small children, 1 and 3, to pursue his quest for a Ph.D. in microbiology. 

He had won a fellowship to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut in molecular biology for his master’s, and once completed, with a placement in the Ph.D. program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in theoretical chemistry.  Chemical sales was a stopgap measure to complement the fellowship.  With two small children at home and demanding course work at school, jobs outside for either parent were not possible.  It was nine months before the fall term. 

Devlin, a dreamer, lived in his fantasy world of ideas.  A fan of James Watson the co-discoverer of the double helix of DNA, he saw himself building molecular models where he could enjoy science without confinement to the chemical bench.  Watson was alleged to be extroverted with a detached morality, while Devlin was introverted with an intrusive morality. 

HORNS OF DEVLIN’S DILEMMA

 No one seemed less destined for success in sales, yet he moved his family from Crescent City, Iowa to Indianapolis, Indiana where the first month with Polychem, Inc. he traveled with the area manager. 

At the end of the month, the area manager asked him what he had learned.  Devlin answered straightforwardly.  “All our calls were social calls with you telling customers about Polychem’s greatness, never once did you ask what was needed, or for an order.”

“So you think the time was wasted?” the area manager challenged with his eyes boring into Devlin.

Devlin chose silence to be his answer.

The following Monday he came to the office to find his colleagues gone except for the area and regional manager.  Both smoked cigarettes furtively while drinking coffee.  The hair on the back of Devlin’s head bristled to attention.  This was not good. 

The regional manager broke the silence. 

“We believe you’re not cut out for this kind of work.  We know you have your family here,” the senior manager said taking a long drag on his cigarette, then beaming magnanimously.  “We’ve taken that into consideration.  We’re going to give you some marginal accounts to service over the next six weeks while you look for another job.” 

The regional manager tapped his cigarette on the table with the ash falling to the cement floor of the makeshift office in a Quonset hut.  He looked down at the ash dreamily, and then continued.  “You can upgrade these accounts if you like to earn commission.”  He smiles knowingly.  Marginal accounts were marginal because they were devoid of prospects or otherwise ignored.  “And he can call on our competitors’ accounts in the area, too, can’t he boss?” the area manager chimed in. 

The two managers looked at each other holding back raucous laughs simultaneously covering their snickering mouths.  “Why of course,” the derision look never leaving either of their eyes, as the regional manager continued.  “By all means, call on them.”  What had they to lose?  It would eventually prove more than they ever suspected.

Their eyes twinkled with devilish relief, reveling in how easily they had put this matter to rest.  Fuck this upstart their nonverbal posture declared.  He brought it on himself.  At that moment, Devlin felt surprise, dismay and cloying fear.  He was being reminded once again that he was born on the wrong side of the tracks.  A visceral kind of hatred moved through his body that surprised him, but rather than deflating him it energized him with a feeling of surreal superiority.

“Well?” the area manager said.

“Well what?” Devlin said levelly.  “Obviously, I can’t get started without the accounts now can I?”  He waited, and their smiles dropped.  “They’re not ready, are they?”  You could cut their collective shock with a knife and break the blade.  They weren’t expecting him to be composed.  What did they expect?  For him to beg for his job, to apologize for the incompetence of the area manager, what? 

“I’ll be back in two hours to pick up these marginal accounts,” he said stressing the word, ‘marginal.’  He couldn’t believe his composure.  Where did it come from?  Then he added, “I’ll call first to make sure they’re ready.”  They smoked, their eyes masked in disbelief, as he turned and left the office, tall and straight, ignoring the secretary who had her ear to the door. 

When he was near his car, he almost collapsed.  What was he to do?  He was in a situation he’d never been in before.  Sure, they didn’t like him much in the lab but they liked his work.  He had always succeeded near the top whatever the competition: in sport, school work, even as a laborer in summer jobs at Tandy Brands while going to college.  Life was not a game to him; life was serious business.  He harbored as much contempt for the hardy fellow well meant but with counterfeit sincerity as for the scoundrel, but he had never suffered for it, until now. 

He had played competitive football, basketball, track and baseball in high school, not as a teammate, but as an individual.  He never hung out with jocks at lunchtime in high school but instead helped others with math word problems in the bleachers of the school gym.  He was in athletics but not of athletics.  He was in and of academics, which were rational and impersonal in the world of ideas.   It was only there he felt at home with a sense of belonging.

What should he tell his wife Sarah?  He decided to tell her nothing.  His one fortification was his Irish Roman Catholicism with its myths and rituals, its legends and histories, its mythical Jesus at the expense of the historical Jesus. 

THE SPECIAL ONE

Devlin now paid a visit to Indianapolis’s Sacred Heart Cathedral.  Inside the womb of the church he took in the scent of incense as he knelt in a pew thinking, strangely, of Dostoyevsky.  He wondered if the great author went to church, once spared death by the firing squad.  It certainly changed his life.  Was this a deathlike experience for him?

Dostoyevsky had a fever for the Special One, not as the Anointed Christ but as the vine to which he felt tethered.  The “God” thing was a problem for both he and Dostoyevsky.  Why did the Special One have to be God, when clearly Jesus was quite a man?

He doubted if he would see faith and science on a collision course but rather believed they were parallel universes.  Devlin’s faith was the heart of his imagination, science the mind of his reason.  Why should these two worlds collide?  Yet they did for the Special One whose faith was His science.  Jesus told it as He saw it and saw it as He told it, and for that He was crucified? 

The Special One had contempt for hierarchies, for pomp and circumstance, for grand costumes and exalted pretense.  He wore his badge of lower class like knighthood.  Devlin wondered why this had not survived in his church. 

The Special One was a rebel, an outsider, who despised the herd mentality.  He formed a community of dregs and sinners.  What would the Special One think of the church in his name? 

When Devlin was a small boy, he went to St. Boniface Church and School, there Father Sunbrueller could not raise his rhetoric above sin and the fire and brimstone of hell.  There was no place in his sermons for the Special One.  Jesus rarely talked about sin or, indeed, hell.  Devlin wondered if the Special One would accept the seven deadly sins, sins he never defined, or would he see sin as he did in terms of waste and deceit. 

“Dear Jesus,” he whispered as he thought of his life going forward with a potpourri of marginal accounts, “I am nine years younger than you were when you died.  My cross is my refusal to be predictable.  My wonder is whether my life is about over or ready to begin.”  He waited in silence for an answer.  When none came, he got up from the pew and walked into the late morning sunlight to take on the world.

 DEVLIN STUMBLES INTO SUCCESS

The marginal accounts he acquired were spread out throughout Indiana as far north as Lafayette in the northwest and Fort Wayne in the northeast, as far west as Terre Haute in west central and far east as Richmond in east central, as far southwest as Evansville and as far south east as New Albany, and of course including Indianapolis, and all other small and larger towns within those parameters. 

The accounts all used steam for heat and processing, water for air conditioning with cooling towers, often using well water heavy in dissolved solids such as iron and calcium.  There were drycleaners, bottling plants, canneries, small hospitals, small parts manufacturers, industrial bakeries, office buildings and shopping centers with medium to large air conditioning systems, small paper mills, and some thirty state facilities in which Polychem had a consulting contract to service their power plants.  These facilities included hospitals, sanitariums, men and women penal institutions, and state schools for children of special needs. 

Devlin had had a month’s training at Polychem’s corporate headquarters in Chicago about the generic technology involved in preventing scaling in boilers, corrosion in condensate lines, scaling in condensers of air conditioners, microbial growth in cooling towers and papermaking applications, and water clarification in waste treatment plants.  Devlin had no training in Polychem’s proprietary chemicals.  He was sent out with these marginal accounts to fail, and he knew it.

The first call on his own was the most nervous moment of his life.  He was talking so fast the words made no sense to him or his contact.  The gentlemen, in white bib overalls with a lined face that matched the blue lines of his jeans, listened with amusement.  “We’re a customer,” the maintenance engineer of the small chemical plant said when Devlin ran out of breath.  “We use you.  You don’t have to sell us.”

Devlin dropped his test kit to the floor, and hung his head. 

“Son, are you all right?” the man said.  “You look wiped out.  Better sit down.”  Devlin did.  “Now tell me about it.”

What’s to tell?  He wanted to cry.  “You’re my first call,” he hesitated, “ever.”

“Well, well, well, so that’s it?”  The engineer took out a pack of cigarettes offered one to Devlin, who shook his head vigorously, the customer pumped the pack against his arm until one fell out, lit it, and then sat down. 

“You’re a good looking boy with an honest face, do you know that?”  Devlin nodded.  “There’s a sincerity about you if you catch my meaning.”  Devlin nodded again.  “What I’m trying to say, son, is it’s all right to be nervous.  We’re all nervous in our first job.  This is your first job?”

“No, I was a bench chemist, and before that I was on active duty in the Navy for two years after college.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“You look as if you could still be in high school.”

Devlin laughed.  “I’m married with a son and a daughter.”

“My, my, college graduate, too?”

“Yes sir, chemical engineering.”

“Now that’s impressive, not to say having two children isn’t.  I have two myself, never been to college, but anyway,” he said stomping out his spent cigarette on the floor, “what do you have for me?”

Devlin would find over the next six weeks a collection of phrases that would pour out of the mouths of his contacts that could be reduced to about a dozen, and one of them was “what do you have for me?”  It was not a commitment, not an exploration, not a conversation stimulus, but a way to dispatch politely but persuasively. 

Devlin found himself repeating the phrase to the astonishment of the engineer.  “Well, I imagine that is why you are here, isn’t it?”

For some reason, Devlin didn’t answer but let the “isn’t it” hang out there.  He didn’t know why he did, but his hesitation drew a broad smile.  “I see you have your test kits and want to see if we’re keeping our controls on the boilers up to snuff.”

“Yes sir,” Devlin said, “I’d like to check your systems, but first tell me how this plant operates, where you apply the chemicals at what dosages, and then I’d like to know how things are working or aren’t as the case may be.  I’d like you to guide me through all your systems.”

If the purpose of a system is what it does, the role of the worker is pride and ownership of what he does.  Devlin had touched this nerve without knowing it.  He had paid the engineer a complement by honoring him by respecting his work, and then transferred the power of the exchange or the meeting from him to the engineer, becoming the engineer’s student.  Any wall that might have existed was dissolved.  They were partners as teller and listener.

After touring the plant and then tracing the lines of the boiler system, Devlin showed the engineer the schematic he had constructed.  As the engineer told him the chemicals he was using, and the dosages, he took out his manual and calculated the dosages against the cryptic algorithms.  “You are over feeding your scale prevention chemicals,” he said, “that is why you have such high readings.  I see you are slug feeding these chemicals.”  The engineer nodded.  “It would be best to use a positive displacement pump that regulates the feed at a constant rate.”

“That makes sense.  How much does such a pump cost?”

Devlin shrugged.  “I don’t know but I can find out.”

“Would you?”

“Yes,” he added, “when you inspect your boilers at shutdown, have you noticed any problems?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, we have.  We’re controlling scaling in the boiler but experiencing some severe pitting.  We’ve had to replace a number of tubes.”

Devlin took out a brochure.  “Pitting in boilers is caused by oxidation.  We have a treatment for that with the active ingredient sodium sulfite.  It combines with the oxygen to form sodium sulfate and goes out with your boiler blowdown.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes, and there is a test for the SO3 dosage.”  

  

It was that beginning that found Devlin rising from a Polychem liability to a senior manager to an international corporate executive in five years.  Customers were his teachers, his confidantes, and his friends.  They trusted him and he preserved that trust with passion.  It was a marriage of partners.  He knew the technology but was all thumbs when it came to mechanical skills while they were rich in such skills and made his programs work by following his instructions.  He became the golden boy in Polychem’s Industrial Division, and now was expected to continue his magic, magic no one quite understood, in South Africa.

*     *     *

The Peripatetic Philosopher introduces:

$15.99 TATE Publishing Company

E-Book: $4.99

Time Out for Sanity!

Blueprint for Dealing with an Anxious Age!

CERTAINTY AND TRUTH DISPELLED

Little did I know when I first wrote “A Look Backward to See Ahead” (2007) that the United States of Anxiety would become a societal pandemic beyond comprehension.  Since anxiety is worrying about what never happens, I thought in due course Americans would have to grow up and face the reality of a changing world in which they were not the center of interest.  But alas, that did not happen.

So when TATE Publishing Company asked me to edit, revise and expand my treatise, along with nine other of my books, in 2012, I went back to the original manuscript that I had written mainly for my own edification with no plans of publishing.  As is my inclination, I can be quite brusque and to the point with no cushioning for the reader’s comfort.  That manuscript was composed in 1980.

At the time, I could see Americans were concerned about certainty and truth.  The only problem is that there is no such thing as certainty and truth is relative, as your truth may not be my truth, and German truth may not be French truth, and so on.  The whole “Age of the Enlightenment” with such notables as Kant, Descartes, Spinoza and the like, along with the “new science” seemed confident that they had found the key to this dichotomy of certainty and truth.    

For those that are faithful readers to my missives and books, they are aware that I have a problem with this predilection.  Meanwhile, I have watched as American society became comfortable in complacency reacting to events rather than anticipating them; how it treated rhetoric as reality, rearing its children without a moral compass and therefore ill prepared to suffer the consequences of their actions; treating its workers as management dependent or counter dependent on the company for their total well-being, displaying learned helplessness while fixated in arrested development failing to reach the maturity of adults.

This has been the focus of a series of books: Work Without Management: A View from the Trenches; The Worker, Alone! Going Against the Grain; Corporate Sin: Leaderless Leadership and Dissonant Workers; Six Silent Killers: Management’s Greatest Challenge, among others. 

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP – WHAT DOES IT TELL US?

When I was an athlete in my youth, we lost some games we were expected to win and suffered the humiliation of defeat.  Only a teenage boy, I understood the rules, never saw the game as being rigged, and with tears in my eyes, shook the hands of my opponents, while sulking for a spell wondering what I could have done better. 

I didn’t blame the referees if it were a basketball game, or the umpire if it were a football game, or indeed, if it were a teacher that gave me a bad grade on a test that I thought I had clearly done better.  If I failed, for some reason, call it my training, I looked to myself for the failure, never thinking that it was the referee’s fault, the umpire’s calling balls and strikes, the teacher’s subjective grading system, or even the coach’s fault for not preparing me better for the contest.  I was not alone as my teammates were of the same mind and inclination as I was.  What happened to this?

Well, of course, I don’t for sure.  I only know what I experienced and observed in the microcosm.  Many parents of my generation, children of the Great Depression of 1929, and born in the 1930s, especially those who came from the working class poor, but somehow benefitted from the post-World War Two economic bonanza where good paying jobs were plentiful, decided they didn’t want their children to go through that same trauma, which is understandable.  Many couldn’t do enough for their children as they didn’t want them to feel the trauma, the uncertainty, while selling them on the truth that they were special because they were Americans.

As a consequence, they never had to grow up.  These were the baby boomers, children born in the 1950s and 1960s. 

I know this first hand as I constantly reminded my children that their grandfather, whom they had never met, was a brakeman on the railroad, and although their father had an executive position, and they traveled the world with him, he had had no safety net, no inheritance, and that he had no choice but to suffer the consequences of his actions, and that this was the most powerful legacy of his life. 

Obviously, they didn’t want to hear this.  Then to their consternation, their father “retired” in his thirties, and charted out a much more modest existence, one in which they had to adapt, and one in which they were not too happy to endure.  But they found their way, on their own, with little help from their father.  That is his legacy to them, which he hopes they will instill in their children, but which the jury is still out on that ledger. 

So, what does this have to do with President-elect Donald Trump?  Everything!

The United States of Anxiety has become a spoiled brat society, and the more readers protest the fact the more they reify its existence.  If this were not enough, the media stoke this angst and fuel this fire with syndicated columnists previously known for their balance, but who have gone off the rails since certainty and truth have proven to be false indicators.   

David Brooks writes, “After all, the guy (President-elect Trump) will probably resign or be impeached within a year.  The future is closer than you think.”

Leonard Pitts writes, “A black woman I know (Pitts is an African American journalist) got a text from a friend who asked what she’d be wearing to the slave auction in January . . . Maybe we are too alarmist. Or maybe we’re not alarmist enough.”

In the author’s note to “Time Out for Sanity”:

While science is looking for a universal theory, social and economic thinkers seem to be looking for an ecumenical system that answers all the questions . . .  The result is that there is seemingly a constant clash between progressive and reactionary agendas.  The obstructionists ignore the complexity of the problems being faced while progressive deny the existence of these problems and turn their attention to irrelevancies. 

The American Democratic Party got caught up in this maze with its certainty and truth rejected and now the dignity of the Presidency of the United States calls for a “Time Out for Sanity!”