SUBTEXT VS. CONTENT & CONTEXT
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© June 17, 2020
We experienced a global economic meltdown (2008) that terrified advanced societies from one end of the globe to the other, a meltdown that to this moment is viewed in terms of content and context with hardly a glance at the subtext of the calamity.
The Dow Jones Industrials on Wall Street have past 21,000 and wealth catchers in 2017 have already forgotten the calamity nine years ago. There appears no escape from living high now and paying for it later. There is no sense of folly when there is no discernible subtext. Economics has proven as faulty a profession as has management. Some years ago, I wrote:
“We desperately need minds with a natural affinity for culture in the boardrooms across America, as well as in every other walk of professional life. We need poetry in commerce, government and industry.
“Engineers, economists, and political scientists have done about all the damage we can stand, perhaps more than we can absorb.
“Economists, for one, readily admit they are operating in a fog.
"From former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Arthur Burns (“The rules of economics are not working quite the way they used to.”) to Milton Friedman (“I believe that we economists in recent years have done vast harm by claiming more than we can deliver.”); from former Secretary of Treasury Michael Blumenthal (“I really think the economic profession is close to bankruptcy in understanding the situation, before or after the fact.”) to Juanita Kreps, former Secretary of Commerce, when asked if she would go back to Duke University upon leaving government (“I wouldn’t know what to teach.”).”1
Economists have always been enamored of algorithms and mathematical models, analysis at the content and context level, which is clean and neat, while management has treated people as things to be managed rather than persons to be led. Now they all have egg on their faces.
Geopolitics has also proven a faulty profession. Little time has been devoted to the subtext of why the Twin Towers of New York City were destroyed. Instead, there was a visceral and spontaneous response (2003 preemptive invasion of Iraq) at the content and context level with the United States launching military action on the false pretense of Iraq having “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMDs).
With little if any appreciation of the subtext of such a precipitous act, this action has led to a domino effect as the Middle East is now ravaged in war with the festering emergence of al-Qaeda and ISSI as a consequence. Islamic terrorism has been addressed in terms of content and context – current United States President Donald Trump believes he can eradicate this movement without one iota of understanding of the subtext of this movement’s motivation – as there is little evidence that learning has taken place.
If you are wondering why this is included here, remember the macro sense of things is only a reflection of our micro sense of things. Self-Confidence is not possible if a country as well as an individual is not self-aware and self-accepting in that awareness of itself as a limited entity in a common culture. Not until that level of awareness is acknowledged and dealt with can the subtext of life touch and be used to deal with surface issues. Otherwise, chaos only generates more disorder, pain and displacement.
A predisposition to react rather than reflect is characteristic of the content and context limitations that appear endemic to the puerile American character. Consequently, the United States and its future are in economic and political peril without an appreciation of the subtext of life.
What preoccupies American economic and political life at the moment? It is the outrage, visceral hatred and pervasive polarity of the American people on the left and on the right after the surprising election of the first businessman as the President of the United States. There is no room for subtext when contemptuous spoiled brats rule the discourse.
The great recession of 2008 behind us, but what is ahead? Inflation? Stagflation? Economic depression? The world sits on the precipice of its faulty axis with little appreciation of what matters most, which is buried in the subtext.
“Economists, for one, readily admit they are operating in a fog.
"From former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Arthur Burns (“The rules of economics are not working quite the way they used to.”) to Milton Friedman (“I believe that we economists in recent years have done vast harm by claiming more than we can deliver.”); from former Secretary of Treasury Michael Blumenthal (“I really think the economic profession is close to bankruptcy in understanding the situation, before or after the fact.”) to Juanita Kreps, former Secretary of Commerce, when asked if she would go back to Duke University upon leaving government (“I wouldn’t know what to teach.”).”1
Economists have always been enamored of algorithms and mathematical models, analysis at the content and context level, which is clean and neat, while management has treated people as things to be managed rather than persons to be led. Now they all have egg on their faces.
Geopolitics has also proven a faulty profession. Little time has been devoted to the subtext of why the Twin Towers of New York City were destroyed. Instead, there was a visceral and spontaneous response (2003 preemptive invasion of Iraq) at the content and context level with the United States launching military action on the false pretense of Iraq having “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMDs).
With little if any appreciation of the subtext of such a precipitous act, this action has led to a domino effect as the Middle East is now ravaged in war with the festering emergence of al-Qaeda and ISSI as a consequence. Islamic terrorism has been addressed in terms of content and context – current United States President Donald Trump believes he can eradicate this movement without one iota of understanding of the subtext of this movement’s motivation – as there is little evidence that learning has taken place.
If you are wondering why this is included here, remember the macro sense of things is only a reflection of our micro sense of things. Self-Confidence is not possible if a country as well as an individual is not self-aware and self-accepting in that awareness of itself as a limited entity in a common culture. Not until that level of awareness is acknowledged and dealt with can the subtext of life touch and be used to deal with surface issues. Otherwise, chaos only generates more disorder, pain and displacement.
A predisposition to react rather than reflect is characteristic of the content and context limitations that appear endemic to the puerile American character. Consequently, the United States and its future are in economic and political peril without an appreciation of the subtext of life.
What preoccupies American economic and political life at the moment? It is the outrage, visceral hatred and pervasive polarity of the American people on the left and on the right after the surprising election of the first businessman as the President of the United States. There is no room for subtext when contemptuous spoiled brats rule the discourse.
The great recession of 2008 behind us, but what is ahead? Inflation? Stagflation? Economic depression? The world sits on the precipice of its faulty axis with little appreciation of what matters most, which is buried in the subtext.
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