GEORGE TEMPLETON: COMMENTARY
By George Templeton
Gazette Columnist
A Civilized Clash
The Concert
The school newspaper said that A Night of American Music
was this week. I could hardly wait to hear the Camptown ladies sing
“Oh de doo-da day”. Imagine my dismay, when I encountered a long-haired
male playing a toilet seat. That was followed by dissonance sounding
like a cat running on the piano keys, with no melody or rhythm. My
friend left at the intermission because he could not take it anymore,
but I had to stay to get credit and write a review. I explained how the
experience had expanded my horizons, not realizing that others would
count it as “appreciating music”. Providence would lead me to make the
same mistake.
The Lesson
It
was in the late seventies that I received an unexpected phone call. I,
along with my boss, had to immediately show up three layers higher in
the company management hierarchy. It couldn’t be good.
I
had been ordered to create new automation for a large customer. There
was a dilemma about funding equipment to do “good, efficient”
engineering in my department. Politics allowed killing two birds with
one stone by merging the two objectives. It would cost just under a
million dollars. It was my problem to define and justify the program
with the help of experts. It would require appearing before a dozen top
managers who would receive my detailed plan a month ahead of time. They
would give me the opportunity to defend it in an hour long inquisition.
This
was not like other programs where a capacity expansion, cost reduction,
or new product was involved. It was a no-brainer to get a marketing
letter concerning the customer who wanted this. It would probably
improve reliability and quality, but I would have to attach numbers to
that. I would fail if I could not do what I claimed. So, I decided to
appeal to emotional arguments about things like leadership and the tide
in the affairs of men.
As
I walked through the big boss’s door with my heart in my stomach, I
didn’t have a clue. The first thing that was said was that I would be
fired if I ever made claims like that again. I asked what was wrong,
and the boss explained that ambiguity would not be permitted and had to
be removed from the program before it could be presented. My question
was, “How will I justify it?” The reply was “Just ask for the money”.
That is what I did. The big boss must have greased the skids because my
program passed the inquisition, for the first and only time, with no
debate.
My
lesson is repeated in many forms of human endeavor, whenever one feels
compelled to emotionally motivate while avoiding the risks of measurable
accomplishment. But business, unlike politics, understands about team
work.
Performance Review
We
evaluated progress every quarter. First, I would write an employee
review while each team member wrote one of their own. Then we would
meet and discuss our differences and agreements. Next, I would write
another review combining the two. Last, we would meet and discuss a
final review, affirming that we were all “made of the right stuff” and
that the future was open. There were places where the employee could
comment. My review required approval by management and personnel. This
took about six single-spaced typewritten pages per employee. The key
concepts were honesty, candor, mutual understanding, participation, and
concrete accomplishments measurable at a time and a place. It was a
dynamic process where plans were developed and modified. Of course,
this practice varied depending on height in the hierarchical pyramid,
but the general idea of distinguishing between opinion and fact can be
applied anywhere.
Business Plans
Business
plans are a tool for avoiding the pitfalls of emotion. Human reality
always suffers from a tension between object and process, between why
and how. It needs legs to stand upon. When we focus on objects, the
world becomes fixed and outside of us. When process is viewed as more
important, we recognize the subjectivity that is part of change and
become more receptive. Process evolves, adapts, and is internal.
Home Computers
We
met to ponder the question; will the average citizen have a home
computer? In the beginning, there were none. Big computers, in
business and industry had become commonplace and well known. Would the
layman need a computer to find the roots of a polynomial and solve
symbolic algebra or differential equations? No, but small businesses,
of which there were many, would need help with billings, bookings,
inventory, payroll, and cash flow. We thought that business needed a
micro-computer version of COBOL! We did not anticipate spread-sheet
programs or the computer as a tool for communication and entertainment.
When the best minds in science and business cannot get their five year
plan correct, why should we think that the ancients could accurately
foresee events thousands of years into the future?
Revelation
The
preacher explained that in Christianity all you have to do is believe
and accept God’s grace. Wrong religions require you to do things! This
is the ambiguity of religion. It insists that it precisely knows what
cannot be known.
Does
Revelation predict an unavoidable future? Will the Lord of Hosts come
one day to massacre the millions who do not consider him the Messiah?
At issue is whether Revelation has a symbolic or literal meaning. The
former is in agreement with a much older interpretation, that the
seven-headed beast represented Rome’s Seven Deadly Sins, and the latter sees its heads as Muhammad, Saladin, and even modern rulers with nuclear technology.
Craig Koester’s Great Course, The Apocalypse, Controversies and Meaning in Western History,
explains that apocalyptic fervor began in the late middle ages with
popes and rulers calling each other the Antichrist. Its power comes
because it legitimizes players as part of God’s plan.
Thomas
Muntzer was one of those who heard direct instructions from God and saw
himself in Revelation. He was executed in 1525 when he acted out his
beliefs by participating in a revolt. Another example was Melchior
Hoffmann who claimed he was one of the two witnesses described in
Revelation 11. Melchior preached that the kingdom of God would arrive
by 1533, but history did not cooperate. He was arrested as predicted,
but died in prison ten years later. More recently, William Miller and
his followers calculated that the time of Christ’s return would be Oct.
22, 1844. Charles Taze Russell’s followers announced that the
resurrection of the dead would occur in 1925. The Bible ends with an
affirmation that the second coming will be soon, but we are still
waiting 2000 years later.
People
take the phantasmagorical images of Revelation to reason a negative
view that things can’t get better. They have a selectively literal
interpretation of the Bible. They reject the responsibility, risk and
opportunity of an open future for the closed certainty of the
Apocalypse. Crystalized beliefs order the world.
Terrorism
Politicians
talk about closing Islamic mosques (silencing speech that could inspire
radicals), tracking and keeping data on Muslims (assumed guilty and
can’t be proven innocent), segregating refugees in camps (the enemy),
and stopping immigration (allowing Christians only). In the same
breath, they say we have always welcomed immigrants. They must know that
history does not agree and that their own speech promotes paranoia.
They have a disregard for the separation of Church and State, and a lack
of compassion for people fleeing the same terror we seek to avoid.
Augustine,
the second founder of the Christian faith, explained that the irony of
human wickedness always bears the appearance of an intelligible good.
ISIS
wants a battle between infidels and Muslims. It is a necessary
precursor to their Day of Judgment. They are teaching youth that it is
moral to hate and kill, altering minds for generations to come. Those
who die in Jihad go directly to Paradise! They believe in the second
coming of Jesus. However, next time Jesus will be a Muslim, kill
disbelievers, and convert the world to Islam.
Conservatives
see this as clash of civilizations. They talk like impartial observers
considering concrete but disagreeing claims, but they cannot separate
themselves from their own beliefs. They are caught up as participants
in that clash. The reality is the process, not its objects. The seer
seeing himself is the key to finding a middle ground compromise.
How
can reconciliation occur when the objects, idols and literalism of
religion intermingle with geopolitics? Everyone wants a process leading
to a world without injustice and suffering. The legs of Christianity
and Islam stand on the common ground of Judaism. Could the idealism of
radical religion be turned to constructive compromise? We are free to
believe, but freedom is a process, not an object. We must not allow
religion to create an alternative universe that replaces the contingency
of life with the certainty of an absolute that is always wrong. All
cultures and religions have some valid points of view. The idealized
world is not true.
Politics
The
intelligent commentator, William Buckley must be turning in his grave.
Our popular politics seems like a cross between Jerry Springer’s
shocking circus and Glen Beck’s polarizing show. Politicians have the
idea that if they can get you pregnant, you won’t give up the baby.
Their hallucinations, magic, and outlandish inventions will not preserve
us. How it is in our back yard is not necessarily how it should be
everywhere. Simple solutions are a flag for politics akin to a square
wheel. It rolls kind of bumpy, making little progress if at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment