People who are hired to do a certain job often lose the ability -- or at least the willingness and the power -- to either think for themselves, and/or to voice their thoughts, if or when these thoughts run contrary to the thoughts of the person/people paying their cheque. Does this really surprise us? Economics rules ideology as much as ideology rules economics. (Probably even more the first way around.) Regardless, the two factors are in a dialectic relationship with each other -- each influencing the other. And to be sure, not always in good ways.
The obvious main problem is that this sets up the possibility of a 'conflict of interest' situation in practically every 'capitalistic endeavor' where a man or woman's decisions are influenced by money, the lack of it, and/or by plain old self-interest -- or worded otherwise, narcissism.
To a certain extent, we all become subject to the dangers of 'group think', 'organization think', 'institution think', 'party think', 'paycheque think'....It is part of what leads to 'the silence and the silencing of the lambs'... It is what Nietzsche called the 'herd' mentality, it is what prevented Spinoza from accepting a position as a professer at a Holland university...(Instead, he 'ground glass' for a living which probably sped up his death...)
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'But I mean no harm, nor put fault,
On anyone that lives (and thinks and feels) in a vault,
But It's alright, Ma, if I can't please him...' -- Bob Dylan (inside the italics mine)
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I don't really know or expect a practical answer to this problem....I just know that this problem is constantly endangering all epistemological and ethical endeavors....In effect, saying nothing here that isn't already known...'Money changes everything...' -- Cyndi Lauper
Money affects our search for -- and our willingness to share the results of our search for -- truth and justice.
Put another way,
'All ideology blinds us from that truth that contradicts our ideology.' -- dgb
Marketing and business interests are affected by what we say and don't say, and/or by how much we are willing to financially invest in what we say, and in turn, what we say and do, or don't do, including our lack of financial investment, affects the behavior of the business systems that are either willing to carry and market our thoughts -- or not -- at least withinin a 'Capitalist System'... And most 'Socialist Systems' have shown themselves to be only worse, at least historically speaking.
Which seems to lead to the inevitable conclusion: 'All thinking is affected by different narcisstic interests, especially the most powerful narcissistic interests....
Which in turn leads to 'the silence and the silencing of the lambs within a narcissistic, ideological system.'
Or worded otherwise, 'thinking, and feeling, and living in a vault -- the vault of ideological narcissism or narcissistic ideology'.
-- dgb, Aug. 7th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain
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It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) -- Bob Dylan (from the internet)...
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying
Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be one more
Person crying
So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked
An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it
Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me?
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only
Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music
