Human Resources

It is an odd world in which humans are considered resources rather than resource consumers. The terms 'human resources' and 'human resource management' are new terms, coined at the beginning of the 20th century. They suffered a brief dip after each of the World Wars, but generally soared unchecked in popularity until the turn of the millennium, at which they began to trend downwards again. [NGram]

Clearly, then, this evil idea is a product of the rational thought process of homo economicus run wild. There is a point at which humans become numbers and factors of production in a calculable way. It is very close to the point at which the trains run on time as bodies are delivered to death camps.

After 20 years of analysing corporate bodies, organisations and institutions of various kinds, it has dawned on me that the most evil character in the cast of corporate management must be the HR manager. This is often a loser who interacts badly with other humans and thus can only survive by treating them as non-human entities while sucking up to the humans not within its purview.

I'm fairly certain not all HR managers are bad. But the nature of the job is exploitative and soul-destroying unless done with incredible attention to ethical behaviours and moral consequences. It is far easier for a rich man to... sorry, that's been said by a far wiser person before me.

Repeat after me: "Humans are not resources to be consumed, used, exploited, allocated or manipulated." This will make you a more ethical person. But HR managers can't do this. Rather, they have little choice but to embrace the dark side if they want to keep doing what they do. Hence the HR icon of this era, Scott Adams's 'Catbert the Evil HR Director'.

The Tenth Year of the War

And it came to pass that on the eleventh day of the ninth month of the first year of the new millennium, which the Gregorians call September 2001, violent men stretched forth their wings and toppled the great towers of Mammon which soared from shoreline to sky. In all that came to pass that day, fewer than a myriad souls met their deaths in the flesh. But a cry went up into the heavens, and the lord of the Western hosts made ready to war against the sons of Ishmael.

And of the sons of Ishmael were slain a million, of warriors and women, of priests and children, for the lord of the West waxed wroth, and spittle flew out of his mouth, and he would that for each one dead among his people, a hundred should die from the metal locusts of the wind. So it was done, and to this day it continues.

Thus ends the Lesson.

But not yet the War. For the heart of man is desperately wicked: like a bad candle it fouls the air, but does not die; it gutters but is not put out.

Doctor Evil

The archvillain in the story is always over-the-top. His nature encourages the audience of a melodrama to boo and hiss his every action. Slowly as he begins his fall, his acolytes and henchmen desert him or are eliminated because they fail him. He becomes sensitive to every implicit slight, no matter how slight or how imaginary.

And then comes the revisionism. Slowly, the story of how a plodding scientist wades in blood becomes the narrative of a brilliant scientist steeped in white robes and the holy sanctity of the laboratory. Slowly, the story of how a defiant chap mauls his mentors and badmouths them at every turn becomes the story of how his mentors were never good anyway, and besides, he too has his detractors who were once mentored by him.

And the stories come out all over the place, each one more fantastic than the one before. Where a distant figure attempts to manipulate a young person, now we have the father-figure who teaches the child every week, only to be betrayed. The lies accumulate. The evil doctor eliminates anyone who objects to the stories, and then tells more stories. He doctors reality, and indoctrinates the unwitting.

He hears tales he wants to believe, about imaginary crimes committed by otherwise hardworking and decent folk. These legitimise his own deeds, help him believe that he is not so evil, just misunderstood. And he weaves those tales into his narrative. He creates a hero myth for himself, for all villains deep down want to be heroes in this kind of drama.

Will he be believed? There's no doubt that some will believe out of the innocence of their hearts. There's no doubt that others will believe because it suits them to believe. We wait with bated breath, but sooner or later the denunciation comes — the truth will be spoken, and the evil which has clouded the minds of his tools begins to disperse.

But what's this? These tools love to have their minds clouded. It spares them the bright touch of reality, a reality in which they lose significance and power. They would rather the darkness, within which their poison has an impact that they perceive more fully, that they feel is more real.

It amuses us, we who are the audience. But for some of us, before the lights come up and the actors take a bow, we wonder: "What if it were true? And what if there really were people like that?"

And the reason we feel uneasy thereafter is that, yes, there are.

A Chamberpot Story (II)

In my previous post on the famous chamberpot, I mentioned Jeroboam son of Nebat who was hardworking, talented, successful and thoroughly corrupt. The rest of the story extends into the Second Book of the Kings; whenever a particular king was said to be evil, he is described as 'walking in the way of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin' and is threatened with 'make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat'.

Curious about all this, I decided to look up all the references... 1 Kings 15:25-26, Nadab son of Jeroboam; 1 Kings 15:33-34, Baasha son of Ahijah (who killed Nadab and took the throne); 1 Kings 16:19-20, Zimri the chariot-captain (who assassinated Baasha); 1 Kings 16:25-27, Omri the captain of the host (who succeeded Zimri); 1 Kings 16:30-33 Ahab son of Omri (who apparently made God angrier than any other person and gets another six chapters, together with Elijah his nemesis, until Ahab dies by cowardly accident); 1 Kings 22:51-53, Ahaziah son of Ahab; 2 Kings 3:1-3, Jehoram son of Ahab; 2 Kings 10:29-31, Jehu the captain of the host (who killed all of Ahab's sons); 2 Kings 13:1-2, Jehoahaz son of Jehu; 2 Kings 13:10-11, Jehoash son of Jehoahaz; 2 Kings 14:23-24, Jeroboam son of Jehoash (yes, a second Jeroboam!). Yes, there are a lot of them.

It's amazing, actually. This Jeroboam was a greater villain than any other, a kind of benchmark of evil. In the list above, we finally get another Jeroboam, and the son of Jeroboam II is described as one Zachariah who "did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his fathers had done: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." Poor Zach isn't even compared to his own father of the same name. There are three more kings after Zach who are also compared to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

And then you read the last chapters of the Second Book of the Kings, and you realise that the whole thing has become about Jeroboam son of Nebat. It's like reading books on modern history and realising that everybody is compared to Hitler, Stalin, or Mao (and even the Patriarch of Atlantis!) — which is actually true in some schools out there.

Wolf Watching

Wolff (no longer Sir) has been masterless for more than a year. Yet in the streets he used to guard with his life and his calling, he is still 'Sir Wolff'. But there is unrest in the villages. Some of them feel that the knights of the Imperium no longer protect their interests. It is into this mess that Wolff (no longer Sir) finds himself drawn — it is a drawing-in, where there should be a drawing-out.

Sir Wolff! Milord! We need you to protect us! We are being assailed by the dark arts and no guidance comes from the Magistratum in the Citadel!

What dark arts are these? asks Wolff, his curiosity curiously stirred.

They say it is epistemology and ontology and even biology! It is a dire thing, milord. We cannot stand against their ways of knowing and areas of knowledge and subjective objectivism and utilitarian pragmatism and...

Wolff's eyes narrow. He does not like being played for a fool, and he has not known the peasant who would so fluently bandy such words around with such alarming facility. For these are dark matters, and for physicists, not just physicians.

You seem too well educated to be a peasant. Who are you really? Wolff asks, his gauntlet of black iridium steel flexing gently as he prepares for action. There is increasing alarm on the man's face as he realises that perhaps the legends are true.

Milord? I am...

Out with it, boy.

Milord. I am a junior member of the College, milord. We lack guidance. The Grand Inquisitor talks of the Sea, and how blue it is, but we are besieged by darkness and even etymology. There is something squamous about the whole thing, and we know not what it is, and you used to be a senior member of the College, milord, and we will pay good coin for your help!

Something rings true here, even through the forbidden words. Wolff, once a knight and senior member of the college (and perhaps even a junior member of the Magistratum) feels a twinge of sympathy.

Once a member, always a member, boy. Remember that. For you can take the man from the College, but not the College from the man. I will help you.

Over the next few weeks, Wolff will come to regret it. For the forces of darkness, armed with theories of knowledge that man was not meant to know, are hunting. They take no prisoners, and the Magistratum appears to do as much harm as good, for they are unfamiliar with these evils. Epistemology, forsooth. Wolff sets his jaw grimly and perseveres.

He teaches the 'peasants', who are actually young knights and squires, both men and women, of the College. He teaches them to present themselves, to essay boldly into the realms of the enemy, to acquit themselves with full justification, with validity, reliability, utility — and even compassion, justice and humility. It is hard work, but he knows that it is well worth it.

True, they pay him in coin. He feels at first like each pouch of hard-won copper is a bag of thirty silver pieces. But in time, as he gives back to the hidden communities and the centres of trade, he realises that this is what the true economy has come to be. Give it back, give it back; for God makes a man rich only so that he can use it for good.

And one day, Wolff will no longer need to watch over the young, for they shall inherit the earth.

Lost Lands

Beyond the idea of north, beyond the cold and the deep ice and the Arctic glare, is Hyperborea. This is what the ancient Greeks believed; for every natural phenomen to them concealed a secret of grave import or of happy provenance.

Beyond the idea of west, beyond the lions and the magic and the broken lands, is Eden. This is what the ancient Hebrews believed; for we read that an angel with a flaming swords stands between Eden and the lands east of it.

Beyond the idea of south, beyond the heat and the danger and the desert wastes, is Paradise. This is what the Romans who conquered their known world believed. It is their descendants who sought Prester John.

Beyond the idea of east, beyond the phoemix and the nomads and the hidden ways, is Xanadu. This is what the benighted heathens of the West believed, who heard of Kublai and did not believe.

There are two things here. The first is that there are barriers between us and what we think we seek; the second is that we are inclined to breach those barriers. But what if those barriers are there to protect us? What if those barriers are there to test our ability to rein in our transcendent tendencies? And what if those barriers are there to save others from us?

C S Lewis once described the ethical dilemma of space: we might encounter beings without souls, who therefore cannot fall; we might encounter the fallen and unredeemed, or the fallen and redeemed – these we are unlikely to harm by the fact of our existence. We might even be the agents of redemption to the fallen. But the other side is that we might be the agents of temptation to those fallible but unfallen, the test of their spiritual destiny.

It would be hard indeed to know that all these hidden lands, these lost lands, are not for us, but for those who survive us. How bitter, how terrible, that day of knowledge.

The Asymmetry Of Evil

This afternoon one of my favourite colleagues got me thinking about one of my least favourite topics. She was telling me about literary analysis that wasn't quite literary enough, and about something to do with the nature of evil.

And then it hit me: good and evil, just like yes and no, are asymmetric. They are not symmetrical opposites at all.

Evil can be defined in terms of the commission of evil deeds and the omission of good deeds that one might have done.

Good can be defined only in terms of the commission of good deeds. The omission of evil deeds that one might have done but failed to do is seldom thought of as good, but as default behaviour.

It is therefore easier to be evil than to be good. Perhaps it is the effort that one puts into being good which defines good, humanly speaking. It is too easy to put effort into doing evil; perhaps it is too easy to do evil by not doing anything at all.

And then it becomes obvious: evil is only defined in terms of deviation from good, and not vice versa. This is the true asymmetry of it all.