Re: Imagination, intuition, instinct
Here's an interesting article I just stumbled upon that I couldn't stop reading. It compares the utility of philosophers to the utility of business managers:
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The Management MythMost of management theory is inane, writes our correspondent, the founder of a consulting firm. If you want to succeed in business, don’t get an M.B.A. Study philosophy instead.
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Quote:
M.B.A.s have taken obfuscatory jargon—otherwise known as bullshit—to a level that would have made even the Scholastics blanch. As students of philosophy know, Descartes dismantled the edifice of medieval thought by writing clearly and showing that knowledge, by its nature, is intelligible, not obscure. As I plowed through my shelfload of bad management books, I beheld a discipline that consists mainly of unverifiable propositions and cryptic anecdotes, is rarely if ever held accountable, and produces an inordinate number of catastrophically bad writers. It was all too familiar. There are, however, at least two crucial differences between philosophers and their wayward cousins. The first and most important is that philosophers are much better at knowing what they don’t know. The second is money. In a sense, management theory is what happens to philosophers when you pay them too much. -- source
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I can relate to writing clearly and showing that knowledge is intelligible, not obscure. Sociopaths, as I have experienced them, do just the opposite. They are all about obfuscation and deception.
I studied the "great" philosophers in college, and I was disappointed by their ineptness. "In a sense, management theory is what happens to philosophers when you pay them too much." There I had to laugh, as I am now well aware that money ruins everything. While the philosophers disappointed me, the business managers sink to con-artistry in the pursuit of money.
The story of Frederick Winslow Taylor, the founding father of business management, was quite compelling in the quoted article. Human behavior has always intrigued me, and Taylor's story, and the author's analysis of Taylor's story, makes for fascinating study. Both remind me that we as humans think we are so smart, yet we are so dumb. Philosophers display their ineptness, while business managers make a "science" out of ineptness.
What a mess. It's best to laugh at ourselves rather than lament our intellectual state. Sociopaths are among the brightest among us, yet they cannot use their talents for good. Instead, they use them for evil. And the oblivious majority can't even see it happening. Amazing.