Glance around the room. Everything you see, from the machine on which you read this to the chair in which you sit to the clothes you wear, is the product of modern corporations. They are ubiquitous. Their world, their way of perceiving the world, is the water in which we are born and, for the most part, rarely notice. Much less question.
Dan Foster posted this week on another system of thought that was perhaps its progenitor. But first, he offers a parable. I am posting it here, so I don’t lose it:
The story is told of an American investment banker who happened to be at a pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna.
The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The American then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American then asked, “So, what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.”
The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and buy a bigger boat with the proceeds. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats; eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.
Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA, and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “15–20 years.”
“But what then?” Asked the Mexican.
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich; you would make millions!”
“Millions — then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”
Before exploring this peculiar way of thinking, Foster names says it has a name:
In 1972, Ann Wilson Schaef, an American psychotherapist, coined the phrase ‘White Male System’ — a consciousness that she says infects everyone living in western society. Schaef describes the White Male System in this way:
“It is the system in which we live, and in it, the power and influence are held by white males. It controls almost every aspect of our culture — it makes our laws, runs our economy, sets our salaries, decides when and if we go to war, decides what is knowledge and how it is to be taught.”
The problem is that most of us don’t even know the system exists because we have been brought up in it. According to Schaef, it is a very addictive way of thinking and feeling — one that captures us and keeps us locked into a narrow way of perceiving the world. Imagine a prison cell with four walls which Schaef calls the four myths of modern manhood.
Foster likens the four myths to four walls of a cognitive prison. (I’d call them underlying assumptions, but that’s me.) For brevity, they are:
Myth #1: The goal of life is power, wealth, and esteem
Myth #2: The White Male System is innately superior to any other way of viewing the world
Myth #3: The White Male System knows and understands everything
Myth #4: The White Male System believes that truth only exists in the logical, rational, and objective
The system mistakes wealth for worth. The illusion of control is what makes these assumptions so “sticky.” Especially for men. But control is an illusion, one easily dispelled by life intervening, “usually precipitated by a crisis that you never saw coming. Cancer. Job Loss. Divorce. Failure. Tragedy.”
A war in Europe. A war precipitated by a man whose need for control kills people, displaces families, and destroys whole cities.
Foster’s four-walled mind prison brought to mind an experimental TV special I saw once as a kid. Not until this morning did I know Jim Henson directed and wrote it (with Jerry Juhl). The Cube (1969) is a Kafkaesque (and very 1960s-ish) trip into the nature of reality. Judging by the IMDB reviews, it is so hard to find online that most fans almost thought they’d hallucinated it (given the period). And low-res at that. But I’m signing off early to rewatch it immediately and for the first time in a half century.
Strawberry jam.
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