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dgcatanisiri · 4 years

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I feel like I keep saying this, but I suppose it bears repeating. Media is a reflection of the times and society that it is made in. This is baked into everything that is media and pop culture, a vision of storytelling that is influenced by the way that the society and culture that makes it.

We are in a really bad place, societally speaking. Like, the 1960s may have been the Cold War, the fear of nuclear war between the US and Russia, but right now, we have not only that but also people with those launch codes who are itching for an excuse to use them, instead of being concerned about what will happen when they’re used.

In the 1960s Star Trek, the Original Series, was a reflection of “give peace a chance,” the concept that we could go forward in peace and be stronger for it. In the 1980s, Star Trek The Next Generation was reflecting the ideas of prosperity, that humanity was in a golden age, having resolved its major issues. Deep Space Nine came along to point out that the “major issues” that were resolved had really only been resolved for the upper class, and once you left the heart of that prosperous society, moved out to the margins, you saw the cracks in that facade. Voyager represented and continued the idea of TNG, of the 1990s as living in “the end of history,” a rather naive view in retrospect, but the concept was that humanity had reached some high point where it had reached its “ultimate form.” The 2000s sent that idea crashing down hard, and we saw Enterprise tackle the kick in the complacency that had been 9/11.

And so we’re in the 2020s now, with Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard, entering the scene with very flawed depictions of Starfleet and the Federation. I understand looking for hope in troubled times. What I’m seeing the message from these shows, however, is one of hope being found not in institutions, but individuals. That the systems fail and struggle and find themselves not measuring up to the hopes and dreams of the people within them, and so it falls upon the individuals, the individuals who question them, to embody and champion these things.

Because we live in a time of failing and struggling institutions, it’s not unreasonable to see this reflected in media. And it’s the kind of thing that Star Trek has always used its platform to call out. Yes, it’s painful that this is coming at the expense of the actual institutions of Starfleet, of the Federation. But that makes this message all the more impactful - even the utopia is susceptible to these kinds of failures. That to prevent this from happening, it requires vigilance to prevent from falling prey to this sort of thing, that to believe it can never happen to you, that you have build a society immune to this, is to already allow that kind of failure the first step it needs to walk through the door.

I get that it’s a bitter pill to swallow. But it also seems like the message that needs to be brought up in these times, a lesson we need to keep in mind - not just that our “perfect” systems can fail, but also that we need to be aware of when they have failed and what must be done about them.

The idea I’m seeing is that the right thing is hard, and even those we trust to lead us will sometimes take the easier road - and that’s not even a condemnation, as we see with Admiral Clancy, seeing her point out to Picard that it came down to preserving the Federation or rescuing the Romulans, and this is the lesson of “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” that the twenty billion of Romulus pales in the face of the forty billion plus of the Federation in the numbers game, didn’t we have a whole movie about that lesson? - That we, as individuals and as a society, must watch and be aware of when this easier road is being taken, and ask ourselves are we really willing to let ourselves be what this will make us.

Michael Burnham’s journey in the first season of Star Trek Discovery is about this idea. When she learns about Starfleet Command approving a planet-killer of a bomb on Qo’nos to end the war, she refuses. “A year ago, I stood alone. I believed that our survival was more important than our principles. I was wrong. Do we need a mutiny today to prove who we are?“ This is still a core theme of Star Trek right now, because this is the question we need to be asking ourselves. Is it enough to merely survive, or are we going to be able to look at ourselves and respect what “surviving” has made us into? What are we protecting if we give up those morals and ideals along the way?

That was a question that drove the first season of Discovery, and, potentially, will continue to play a part in Discovery in the far future of the Alpha Quadrant, at a time when Starfleet is “a ghost.” That’s the question that Picard is clearly asking by way of having him sit down and say that he feels Starfleet abandoned its duties and its honor by letting Romulans die. That’s the question that we need to ask ourselves, as we see hate and fear being spouted by our leaders, as we see those morals and ideals being torn at as the world almost literally burns.

Our world is troubled. It’s entirely in keeping with the spirit of Star Trek to see that trouble reflected in the world it portrays.

#star trek #dg rambles

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wisdomrays · 5 years

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Spirit of Altruism

QUESTION: What is the significance of altruism in solving humanity’s problems? How can this virtue be acquired?

ANSWER: The Islamic term for altruism, “ithar” means preferring others over oneself; it is one of the most important values we have lost. What lies under today’s interpersonal and inter-societal tumults, disagreements, and disunities, as well as people’s inability to accept and tolerate others, is the death of the spirit of altruism. And the reason for the death of this spirit is the deterioration of the values of the heart. When the heart degenerates, all of our human values, along with the codes and stamps that endow humans with the best pattern of creation, are obliterated, and Satan will play his game upon the person’s world of thought.

In this respect, at the end of his saying that begins, “The lawful are clear, and so are the forbidden...” the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, stated, “Beware! In the body there is a piece of flesh that, if it is sound, the whole body will be sound, and if it is corrupt, the whole body will be corrupt. Take care! It is the heart.”

Thus, a person keeping his heart clean from every kind of contamination and dirt, and checking it out at least a few times a day, is a very important factor in terms of preserving one’s spiritual life. A person must be very careful and pray deeply in this respect. A person must even keep away from negative imaginations and thoughts, both of which might leave some ugly traces in the heart. As it is also stated in a hadith, God looks at a person’s heart and evaluates that person accordingly. God Almighty does not treat a person according to his weight, color, height, or the cultural environment he was raised in, but by the purity of his heart. And at the weighing of deeds in the Hereafter, the weight of the heart is considered; and however much the heart turned to God and beat for Him, is how much worth the person will be given.

The golden age of the spirit of altruism: The era of happiness

People with pure hearts will at the same time be full of feelings of beneficence and compassion toward humanity. Instead of living for themselves, they will try to make others live in the true sense by awakening their hearts to God. Essentially, the spirit of altruism depends on this.

The Qur’an draws attention to the virtue of ithar as follows:

“...They prefer others over themselves, even though poverty be their own lot” (al-Hashr 59:9).

This spirit and thought was very developed in the Era of Happiness. For example, the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, wished to feed a hungry guest in his blessed home. However, on learning that they had nothing but water to offer the guest, he sent the man to another Companion’s home. As they only had food to suffice for one person, the couple put their children to sleep, turned off the light, and pretended to be eating from their empty dishes together with the guest so that he did not refuse to eat. Thus, they remained hungry while the guest was able to satisfy his hunger.

During that battle of Yarmuk, Companions such as Harith ibn Hisham, Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl, and Ayyash ibn Abi Rabia were gravely wounded. While their martyrdom was expected, the respected Harith asked for water and another Companion ran to him with a water flask. He was living his final moments and probably had the strength to say only one word. Right at the moment he was taking the flask to his lips, he heard that Ikrima was asking for water and insisted the water to be taken to him. The Companion took the water to Ikrima, but then Ayyash asked for water while Ikrima was just about to drink. Ikrima insisted the water to be taken to Ayyash. The Companion took the water flask to our master Ayyash, but saw that he had become a martyr. When he went back to the others to give them water, he saw that they had been martyred as well.

I had a similar experience, one I will never forget, during a retreat in Buca. While we were eating together, I found a piece of meat in front of me. Then I pushed it to the plate of a guest teacher sitting near me. Then he passed it further for the next person to eat, and after a dozen people passed this meat, it eventually returned to his plate again. As the guest was a wisecracker, he quoted a verse from the chapter Yusuf and said,

“Here is our merchandise returned to us” (Yusuf 12:65).

The spreading of this altruistic feeling and thought among people is very important in terms of peace in society and establishing a spirit of brotherhood.

Preferring one’s brother for positions and promotions

Although all of these are important examples of altruism, one should not restrict it to issues like eating and drinking. When there is the question of gaining a certain position or title, preferring one’s brother to himself is also very important in terms of altruism. Umar ibn al-Khattab’s attitude in the following situation is a striking and beautiful example:

When the Pride of Humanity died and passed to the horizon of his soul, the Companions gathered, concerned about keeping up the spirit of unity and preventing disintegration in society. They wished to choose a leader as soon as possible. Abu Bakr told the others about the virtues of Umar ibn al-Khattab. He stated his wish to pledge allegiance to him and that Umar should be chosen as caliph. However, Umar ibn al-Khattab held Abu Bakr’s hand right away and pledged allegiance to him by saying, “If there is someone to lead the Muslim community after the Messenger of God, he is Abu Bakr.” As we can see, stepping back from a leading position and giving priority to a brother is a very important form of altruism.

By the way, let me state that we are not in a position to compare the greatness of our blessed masters Abu Bakr and Umar. We do not have the scales to measure the true worth of those great figures. I guess even the scales that measure the deeds of people in the Hereafter will break under the weight of the good deeds by the caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, may God be pleased with them. Every one of them is invaluable. They made such spiritual progress that only the title of Prophethood remained ahead of them, which they could attain as there is no Prophet after the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him. Had there been any person to come as Prophet after the Pride of Humanity, it would be them.

Abu Bakr saw Umar as eligible for being caliph and Umar saw Abu Bark as that person. They absolutely did not say something like, “I do this job better, as such and such alluded to my eligibility.” Preferring others over oneself when there is the issue of coming to certain positions and gaining material benefits is a higher form of altruism. This excels altruism having to go with material benefits.

A person with this virtue will not prefer living, but wants to help others live. He wants to courageous say, “I may die if necessary, for what matters is letting the rest of the world live. If the people’s continuity depends on my being sacrificed, may God Almighty let it happen to me quickly!” Otherwise, those who see themselves like a pillar by which the entire world stands, and fantasize that the world will collapse and end when they step aside, are nothing but misfortunate ones with no share of this spirit.

Even in front of the gate of paradise

The following scene about the Hereafter is noteworthy in terms of showing how far altruism can go. It is narrated that the noble Prophet was shown a vision of how the rich who spent for the sake of God will meet with the learned ones at the gate of Paradise. Accordingly, the learned ones will say to the rich, “Please, the priority is yours, you enter first. Because, had you not spent from your fortune in the path of God, opened educational institutions and thus prepared opportunities for education, we could not have become learned ones and found right guidance. You were the means of our being on the path of learning and broadening our horizons; we owe you. Therefore, the priority belongs to you.”

And then they will take one step back out of respect. However the generous rich will say, “We are indebted to you; because, had you not opened our eyes thanks to your immense knowledge, nor guided us beautifully and taught us a holistic reading of the laws of religion and the laws prevalent in the universe together, and not showed us the beauty of making lawful gains and then spending for the sake of God, we could not have spent our wealth for the sake of such charity. You showed the way and led us to the thousand-fold profits for what we gave in the world. For this reason, you are also our pioneers here; please, you go first.”

After this sweet conversation, the scholars will go first and they will enter Paradise together with the generous rich.

This conversation between the learned ones and the generous rich should not solely be taken as an account of a future event. It is also a lesson that conveys the depths of their altruism. Imagine that before coming to the gate of Paradise, they go through a very hard questioning and leave behind the Sirat Bridge, which is difficult to pass. In addition, in front of them are the blessings of the dizzyingly beautiful Paradise, which is beyond imagination and has been seen by no eyes and heard by no ears. On seeing those things, a person virtually comes close to fainting out of delight. Imagine that their spirit of altruism continues even in such a situation. By means of this depiction, the Messenger of God shows us the extent of their spirit of ithar.

A person who hears these words thinks that this voice sounds as if it is coming from the time of the Prophet. I think society needs such an immense spirit of altruism more than air and water.

The Prophet returning to this world of troubles again after seeing, reaching, and surmounting impossible things is very important in terms understanding the ultimate point the spirit of altruism can reach. In that journey, the noble Messenger of God met Prophets Jesus, Moses, Abraham, and Adam, peace be upon them; after receiving their welcome and veneration, he entered Paradise and saw its dizzying attractions. And then he beheld the beauty and perfectness of God Almighty. Who knows what a feeling it is for the human soul to behold God! In Badu’l Amal, it is stated that believers who are honored to see God will even forget the blessings of Paradise. That is to say, all of the paradisiacal mansions, fruits, and heavenly beauties—which would light up the entire world with a single projection of their beauty—are ignored at that moment. The Messenger of God, who was blessed with all of these and reached some point between contingency and necessity, returned back to live among people, in order to let his followers hear about the blessings he saw, felt, and sensed.

After telling us that the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, returned to the world after such a journey, Abdulquddus said, “By God, had I attained those blessings, I would not return back to the world.”

Another one commented on this, saying, “Here is the difference of status between the Prophets and the greatest saint.” The Prophets purely exist for the sake of making others live. Saintly persons may in a way wish to make progress and attain spiritual delights.

In addition, as the Messenger of God reached such horizons while in the world returned back to live among his people again in order to hold their hand and guide them, it is possible that if he hears the cries of those from his community who went to Hell, who knows? Maybe he will go near it, lend a hand to them, and wish to take them out of Hell. All of these are forms of altruism. They are different wavelengths of manifestation on the horizons of Prophethood.

Antidote for clashes and fights

Today, we desperately need the spirit of altruism, which is very closely related to faith, the religious life of the heart, being close to God, compassion, and helping others live in the true sense. What we need today are chivalrous souls who will push aside the world and its contents which appeal to fancies and desires; souls who will solely live for the sake of making others live, and will pray as such:

“My God, my life may have real value if I will serve as a means for making others live. Otherwise, I feel disgusted by this meaningless life with no benefit to others and which does not revive their hearts; I seek refuge in You against it. Save me from this heavy burden please!”

Those who always say “I” and index everything to their egotism have always caused people to clash. They provoke feelings like envy, jealousy, intolerance, and rivalry, and consequently bring society to a state in which one would not like to live.

However, there are thousands of people who could do what such egoists boast to have achieved. If only there had been a little bit of trust in God. If only those who talked about the Companions and the Prophets would decide to walk their talk a little bit. If only they took a step back when necessary and gave responsibility to those eligible for a certain task. If there is an elixir that can fix a disintegrated society, it is this very spirit of altruism, which must be rekindled in hearts.

Otherwise, it will not possible to thoroughly solve the problems we face, either by diplomacy, political games, tricks, or the strategies devised by think-tank organizations. If it were possible, our society, which has experienced different changes and metamorphoses from yesterday to now, would have reached more advanced horizons long ago. But as it stands, our society is still monstrous, and people are virtually eating one another like cannibals. For God’s sake, is it any different from cannibalism if you bombard civilians, use poisonous gas, deprive others of their right to live, act with Islamophobia, and commit different forms of oppression against certain groups? All of these are nothing but different forms of monstrosity. And the way to eliminate them is concentrating on becoming human anew and trying to fulfill what being endowed with the best pattern of creation calls for.

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kiapet2 · 6 years

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Alethi Eye Color and Race

This is a post I’ve been thinking about writing for a long time. I constantly see people refer to the lighteyes/darkeyes distinction as “classism” and characters who mistreat or think ill of darkeyes as “classist”. While there is some classism in Alethi society, I would argue that the Alethi lighteyes and darkeyes are distinct racial groups, and the mistreatment of darkeyes is textbook racism. Explanation under the cut.

Disclaimer: Most of my information here comes from my classes and readings on social theory as a sociology major in college. Message me and I’d be happy to direct you to some concrete sources discussing the societal concept of race. Thanks to @hoidthevoid for giving me the motivation to write this post.

The definition of race changes depending on which theorist you’re talking about, but it’s generally accepted as the division of humans into social groups, based on “combinations of shared physical traits, ancestry, genetics, and social or cultural traits”.x Race is what we call a “social construct”, which is something created by a society. If you genetically compare a white and a Black person, they will show little real difference, yet we as a society ascribe a host of differences to them that are far more based in how they are viewed by society than in actual biology. Race is related to but distinct from social class, which is usually defined as someone’s place in society as judged by factors like their political power and socio-economic status. Race and social class are often bound together because systems of institutionalized power tend to relegate higher social classes to the “dominant” race.

The word “race” is often used interchangeably with skin color, but in actuality race is not by any means defined by or limited to this. As a social construct, race is complex and fluid, and it changes between different times and societies. For example, the Western idea of “whiteness” was politically manufactured after colonialism and the institution of slavery as a way to keep poor whites and black or native slaves from banding together. The Irish used to be considered a separate racial group from the dominant WASPs before being lumped in as “white”; on the other hand Latinx people have a wide variety of skin colors, ancestries and countries of origin but are commonly considered a single racial group. In places like the Balkans and the Middle East, social groups are largely defined by ethno-religious background rather than skin color.

Why is all this important? Well, we tend to see all of the Alethi as one race because they are alike in our society’s definition of racial characteristics. But the Alethi see race in terms of eye color. According to Brandon,

...instead of dividing by skin color or by nationality, they are much more interested in eye color.x

And again,

...skin tone isn't something Alethi pay much attention to. Hair and eye color is what draws their attention.x

In Alethi culture, eye color is the physical feature that divides people into stratified social groups. Take a lighteyes and a darkeyes living in the same city and working the same job- what we would consider to be of roughly equal social class. They will be referred to with two different forms of address. The lighteyes will receive more pay for the same work. The darkeyes will be more likely to be branded a slave. If they join the army, they will spar on separate training grounds, fight with different weapons and almost always in different squads, and the lighteyes will never be placed in a position where they receive orders from a darkeyes. The Alethi nahns and dahns are a social caste system, but they actually contain a good amount of social mobility through education, marriage and exemplary service on the battlefield. However, a darkeyes can only ascend past the first nahn, or roughly middle class, in one way: by winning a shardblade, which changes their eye color to light. They can marry a low-dahn lighteyes, but only their lighteyed children will be considered to have that dahn. Alethi have no words to denote authority figures that do not also imply having the physical feature of light eyes. This is a racialized caste system on par with Jim Crow.

Race also divides people socially by ascribing innate qualities to certain racial groups. When someone sees a person of a specific race, they feel there are certain traits they can expect from that person, whether this is actually true or not. Alethi society, religion, culture and even language associate light eye color with nobility and dark eye color with baseness, and this sentiment is echoed whenever lighteyed characters speak of “the darkeyes”, or vice versa. Shallan’s first meeting with Kaladin is a textbook case of racial profiling: she sees his dark eyes and immediately assumes that a) he should not be riding that horse, b) he is likely uneducated and/or unintelligent, and c) she can totally get away with stealing his boots. This is despite the class indicators of his officer’s uniform, expensive mount and position as the leader of the group, which should tell Shallan that he is a relatively important person- but his eye color prevents this conclusion.

And just in case you weren’t convinced, here’s Brandon giving the eye color/racism parallel straight out:

“I wanted to have some kind of racism in the books that was removed from the racism we have in our world, so I could talk about it in a more isolated way related to the books… So, this idea of eye color being related to your level of nobility, which is not true, but it entered the culture and became the form of racism and prejudice that they use.” x

This quote also shows why the racism/classism distinction is so important: if we only see the eye color distinction as classism we fail to see the many ways in which it maps onto our world. We fail to see that race is a completely arbitrary concept, rather than The Way Things Are Meant To Be. Fantasy is so important in how it lets us look at concepts such as race from an outsider’s point of view, and thus teaches us about ourselves. The Stormlight Archive and its look at race, among other things, is one of the best instances of this I have ever seen.

#stormlight archive #The Stormlight Archive #cosmere #the cosmere #alethi #race #essay post #meta #sorry for the length #I am a sociology nerd

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lavalampelfchild · 7 years

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Sex and marriage in Ferelden (and my OCs’ views on them)

Based on a conversation I had with @celeritassagittae that got me thinking about how my OCs view sex and marriage in Thedas. The lore itself is quite sparse on what each respective nation’s societal view on marriage and extramarital sex is, and there’s only one codex entry that I’ve found that talks about the different views on sexuality and sexual identity, which doesn’t really cover the whole spectrum.

The act of sex and the institution of marriage have highly specific connotations and roles in different societies in real life, and BioWare seems to be taking its cue from different western societies and their different views on sex and marriage. However, marriage, interestingly enough, is not mentioned very much at all in BioWare’s lore, though different sexual identities are, in a fairly predictable example of modern projection onto historically-based fantasy. This strikes me as interesting and somewhat weird given the very Christian-like nature (let’s face it, the religion surrounding the Maker is a carbon copy of Christianity) of the Maker’s religion, Andrastianism.

Historically, Christianity has ascribed great significance to the role of marriage in the lives of its followers (from a certain point in its history onward). After the apocalyptic writers who discouraged marriage and sex both, like Paul, had passed on, Christian authorities began to encourage marriage, describing it as a pure and admirable connection between a man and a woman.

In contrast to that, sex was symbolic of impurity, of lack of control, of unholy lust, and – the kicker – the physical manifestation of our human imperfections and desires. Christians viewed marriage as the only condition which allowed two people to engage in sexual intercourse without it being emblematic of these things (and even then, never for pleasure, but always for procreation). Christianity, as it grew from the ancient to the modern times, has only become more interested in the taboo nature of sex and what it means to be engaging in it before or without marriage to mediate.

Andrastianism has none of that. There is literally no mention of sex or marriage in any of the tenets of this religion, and the only possible significance it has to the religion is in the story of Andraste’s death, which features a traitorous husband. So even in Andraste’s time, the institution of marriage already existed, and was viewed as sanctimonious, though, in the story of Andraste, specifically in the tradition of the Avvar. Andrastianism somehow grew from this story and this tradition, so perhaps they simply adopted the traditions of the Avvar and melded it all into this new Andraste-focused religion.

But that still leaves the question of why the Chantry gives no definitive philosophy or stance regarding marriage or sex. We know that things like vows exist, and specifically vows of chastity, which we hear about from characters like Leliana, Sebastian, and Cullen, and the terminology surrounding that (affirmed, lay people, confirmed, etc.) is remarkably similar to Christian – and, specifically, Catholic – terminology. So, why take the chastity but not give a reason for that? One of the reasons for chastity in Christianity developed when Christianity was taking Ancient Rome by storm and people started to portray Jesus as being chaste. The Jesus-figure in Andrastianism was Andraste, and she had a husband and children when she became a divine figure. She is not depicted, by the time we get to the start of the DA series, as being chaste. So what’s the reason for the chastity in this religion?

And, if there is chastity, what about marriage? Why isn’t marriage being touted as a holy thing because it’s a state into which Andraste herself entered, first with a mortal, then with the Maker? She’s known as the Maker’s Bride; that’s incredibly specific terminology that links her holiness to an explicitly married state. Why would not the Chantry encourage the repetition of this in its followers?

My thoughts on this are that the Chantry does in fact encourage marriage and discourage extramarital sex, though I’m frustrated to say I don’t know why the latter is the case. But, with regards to marriage, the Chantry views it as a holy institution that follows in the footsteps of Andraste and prepares those involved, the women especially, to ascend to the Maker when they die and behave as sort of secondary brides in the afterlife. I just figure that “The Bride” should be a very important iteration of Andraste’s character, and the act of getting married would be monumentally important because of that.

However, that is just my view, and it’s entirely possible that I’m missing something or that there actually is an answer to this, and I just haven’t seen it. Feel free to add if you find that, but for the time being, I want to add what my characters each respectively think of the institution of marriage, of sex, and of whether or not you need one to have the other:

Dragon Age: Origins:

Aja Amell: Aja believes very much in the sanctity of marriage and of not having sex until after one is married. Raised in the Circle with no way to avoid exposure to Andrastianism, she grew up with sermons and services and constant lectures about the Chant of Light, about the scriptures of the religion, and about the tenets that were meant to guide one’s behavior.

That being said, she also believes that she personally will never get married, as those kinds of relationships between mages are discouraged and prevented by the Chantry and templars present at the Circle. As a result, Aja is very aware of the notion of the “forbidden fruit” (though it’s not specifically a fruit in this case, as there’s no fruit-related story in Andrastian lore that deals with giving into desire and temptation), and part of the reason her will-they/won’t-they interactions with Cullen are thrilling to her is because it is absolutely classified as something that would be forbidden. On the flip side, part of the reason she has never acted on her feelings for Cullen is because, while exciting to flutter her eyelashes at him from afar, there is no way she would have the courage to take the actual risk of engaging romantically with him when she is painfully aware of what is at stake.

This fear of hers contributes to a general feeling of shock when she finds out about what Jowan wants to do with Lily; Aja had never known Jowan to be much of a risk-taker, yet here he is sneaking around with a lover – and an initiate of the Chantry, no less! – when he could so very easily be caught by the templars or the other sisters. Her experiences with Jowan and Lily in the basement, her subsequent initiation into the Grey Wardens, and her foray out into the world beyond the Circle all succeed in throwing Aja’s own views of herself and the world completely off-kilter, including how she feels about marriage, love, and sex. For her, it all becomes one big question mark.

Velyn Mahariel: As a Dalish elf, Velyn has absolutely no concern for Andrastianism whatsoever, and honestly, his people’s religion is even more frustrating in this regard because we hear even less about how the institution of marriage works, or what the view of sex outside marriage is among the Dalish. My guess would be that the clan itself has to be remarkably stringent and careful about who engages in sex because children of unknown parentage present a problem of potentially being from another unknown clan, which could greatly affect that clan’s standing with the first one.

So my guess would be that marriages are often arranged between different allied clans so as to keep inbreeding from occurring and to keep new and varied genes coming into the clan. For that reason, casual sex is discouraged. (However, there is the issue of the Mahariel’s parents being of different clans and having to sneak out to meet one another to meet; there’s also the issue of Tamlen Mahariel and a female Mahariel potentially having feelings for one another, which are mentioned in a positive light by another member of the clan later on; and finally the mini quest in which you help a young apprentice of Zathrian’s clan woo a hunter of the same clan, sooo… Really, it’s kind of up in the air for the Dalish)

For Velyn himself, he is very much of the view of his clan: sex is not something to be had casually, and an arranged marriage is something to expect in the future. He feels no need to “prove his masculinity” by talking about sexual conquests because that’s simply not how Dalish society views masculinity; showing off strength has little to do with sex itself, and more to do with one’s role and success within the Dalish clan from a practical standpoint. And chastity is strictly an Andrastian convention; the Dalish care about reproduction so as to have more people help with any given role, not the first time sex happens for someone.

When confronted with the idea of people having sex without being married, and strictly for pleasure, Velyn has some mixed feelings. He associates it with humans, for one, and believes that to be another example of their own lack of control over themselves.

Ila Tabris: Similar to the Dalish, arranged marriages are a norm for alienage elves, and dowries reign supreme. Ila has always known that she would be set up with a husband when she was old enough, and it never really bothered her because it didn’t affect her freedom at all; being stuck in an alienage was already doing that. Honestly, Ila has no strong opinion one way or another; marriage simply is, and so is sex, and that’s how she’s going to create her family when it’s her turn.

But the knowledge of people engaging in sex solely for pleasure, and before marriage, is another example of the culture shock she experiences after leaving the alienage. Yes, she’s aware of hormones and that the body finds sex pleasurable, and she, like many others at that age, experimented a bit with her own body when she was a teenager, but other than that, she hasn’t really indulged in sex with others. (It’s also somewhat difficult when you’re limited to a community that you’ve known since you were a child, of which you knew all the residents as either child peers or adults to look up to; once you’re past the hormonal stage, you tend to avoid looking at the people of that community as potential romantic partners.)

Though open to the practices and beliefs of non-alienage cultures, Ila is not particularly interested engaging in the (to her) odd practice of casual sex with someone she does not know all that well. Her own culture aside, Ila is just not a very sexual person, and she doesn’t feel those urges as poignantly as some others might.

With regards to marriage, however, she feels the loss of her fiancé keenly, and is thrown off a bit by the abrupt absence of an imminent marriage in her life. She had been expecting to take a husband, have a child or children, and she had honestly been looking forward to that. It would have been a happy addition to her family (especially for her father, who was still suffering the loss of his wife, Ila’s mother) and community. It would have brought her father and cousins happiness, and it would have started a new chapter in her life; that it all fell apart so spectacularly adds to the sense of failure Ila felt striking out with the Grey Wardens.

Gundhram Aeducan: Dwarves have a view of sex and marriage that is much more on the practical side. Like the Dalish, they are very careful about who occupies what role in society, and the size of their own population. Because the dwarves are currently dealing with a decline in their overall population, reproduction is a huge deal. Because the traditions of the ancient days – like the caste system – are still in place, reproduction must occur within that structure and frame. So marriage exists to cement alliances and make connections between people of the same caste. Sex exists as an entirely separate act from marriage, and serves primarily for reproduction purposes. And rank and caste preside over both marriage and sex.

For the dwarves, social role, rank, and caste determine relationships, and if one acts within that framework, then sex can be had for pleasure or practicality. Nobles engage with nobles – or take a casteless woman as a lover solely for the purpose of bearing a child – smiths engage with smiths, warriors with warriors, etc. Within one’s own caste, the rules are at their most lax. When engaging with a member of another caste, the rules become stricter, and the rules apply to all manner of engagement. That’s simply how it is in Gundhram’s life.

But, once he’s banished, the rules of Orzammar and dwarven society no longer apply to him, and he’s acutely aware of this. His sense of self-discipline keeps him from engaging too much in casual sex with surfacers, though he has no qualms about engaging in extramarital sex. He had sex with two women at once without being married and had a child with one of them. Had he still been a noble when Mardy told him of her son, that would have been cause for cheer and celebration for his family, even though she was casteless and he unmarried. As it is when he’s exiled, Gundhram is expecting to have to relax many of his beliefs in order to survive, and he’s prepared to do that, including the beliefs surrounding sex. And hey, he enjoys it, he’ll find a way to go about the whole thing prudently.

For his own personal sexuality, Gundhram is a man who is attracted to strength. He doesn’t care at all for distinctions between genders or the biological sexes; if someone is strong (usually physically strong) there’s a greater chance Gundhram will be attracted to them. As a practical man with regards to reproduction, Gundhram is certainly capable of feeling an attraction toward someone he doesn’t believe to be particularly worthy of that attraction (like noble hunters), but it will always be an attraction with a purpose, and therefore will never really extend beyond something physical. With other, more genuine attractions, Gundhram often experiences at least feelings of respect or admiration for his partner. Although, he has never equated any kind of sexual attraction with feelings of love. Emotions like that have always, in his experiences, existed separately from things like marriage and sex.

Tristan Brosca: As a casteless man, it has always been highly unlikely for Tristan to find a willing sexual partner in Orzammar. Had he been a casteless woman, he could have taken up noble hunting like his sister, but as it is, no self-respecting dwarven woman of any caste would want her son to be born casteless (the child takes the father’s caste in dwarven society), so Tristan’s fate in Orzammar was sealed from the moment he was born.

Things changed for him in the carta, and sex as a form of pleasure, and even as a form of rebellion against dwarven traditions – the same dwarven traditions that put them into a system of dirty casteless thieves – became a little more normal, though still was not overly frequent. As a result of this, Tristan could not care less if he has sex while unmarried. To him, marriage is a pipe dream, something that he doesn’t even want, but that would never happen to him even if he did. Becoming a Grey Warden doesn’t change that.

And as for sex, it’s something to be done only when there’s really no better way to handle one’s own urges because it requires him to make himself vulnerable to another person, and that’s not acceptable without a fundamental level of trust that this other person isn’t going to try to kill him. Very rarely is the pleasure worth that risk. And so, very rarely, does Tristan ever engage in sex. He’s got two hands, and he can use both of them if it comes to that.

Gazza Cousland: Gazza is in an interesting position before the attack Howe makes on Highever: she is technically not of noble blood, and the people of Highever are aware of this, so there’s no real expectation for her to carry on the Cousland line because she’s not of that line. In addition to that, her older brother has already cemented the Cousland legacy, being the firstborn son and already having a healthy son of his own by the start of the events of Origins. So in terms of marriage, though Gazza lives in a society that places heavy emphasis on the Andrastian version of marriage, there is no pressure on Gazza.

Sex, on the other hand, is something that many nobles of the day engaged in recreationally, that being seen as something to which nobles were entitled. It was certainly an important means of cementing a line and ensuring that a family or dynasty could live on, but even the possibility of children born out of wedlock didn’t completely deter noble or royal families from engaging in extramarital affairs or “affairs of passion”. So technically, if she had wanted to, Gazza could have found a partner or several with whom she could engage in recreational sex.

However, Gazza’s own inability to speak, in addition to her physical condition (technically alopecia areata, but no one knows what that is in Thedas, so all anyone knows is that Gazza isn’t capable of growing hair anywhere on her body) have given her a lower view of her physical appeal than she might have otherwise had. While she does experience attraction to others, she’s hesitant to act on it. She also very strictly prevents any romantic or sexual interaction between herself and someone else that might be seen as an abuse of power on her part. Gazza is not interested in sycophants, and she’s also not interested in using her status and power in society to coerce someone into her bed. This is precisely the reason why she does not go to bed with Iona (though Iona shows definite interest) in the origin sequence of the game; though she appreciates and would like to act on their mutual attraction, she does not want to put Iona (an elf and servant) in a position which she (Iona) feels obligates her to offer herself to Gazza more.

In terms of Gazza’s personal sexuality, she prefers women to men, and very personally believes that the best kind of sex would occur with someone one loves. Since she is not expected to have children, Gazza is freed from the necessity of viewing sex as exclusively or primarily a means of reproduction, and – being surrounded by a vast array of literature that deals with the subject of sex and romance and the potential connection thereof – has come to hold a rather romantic ideal regarding sex, love, and marriage (Fergus’s own happy marriage to a woman he loves has also contributed to Gazza’s view on this). She does not broadcast this view of hers, however.

#dragon age origins #andrastianism #sex and marriage #Aja Amell #ila tabris #velyn mahariel #gundhram aeducan #tristan brosca #gazza cousland #my writing

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bigbirdgladiator · 4 years

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Dan Patrick had no problem trusting medical expertise when he was a Houston talk radio host seeking a ratings boost by undergoing a vasectomy live on his show. “The ratings skyrocketed,” Patrick reported after the 1991 stunt.But now that Patrick has parlayed his radio fame into becoming Texas lieutenant governor, he says he will not even listen to the nation’s leading infectious disease expert in the face of a raging pandemic.“Wrong on every issue,” Patrick says of Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose simple social-distancing measures, if followed, would almost certainly have prevented many of the COVID-19 infections that are now spiking to record levels in Texas and other states.In Dr. Fauci We TrustFauci has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. While he was rising to global prominence combating HIV/AIDS and other contagions, Patrick was making a name for himself in broadcasting—starting with changing his name from Dannie Scott Goeb of Baltimore to Dan Goeb Patrick of Houston. He was also known by another name—the Silver-Tongued Devil—for his ability to expound persuasively on seemingly any subject. He left broadcasting for a time to start a string of Houston sports bars. They went bust, but he managed to hold onto one from which he ran a radio show. His silvery tongue initially had its limits and his audience started out so small that he had to urge the bar’s patrons to call in from the pay phone.Then came the vasectomy and other stunts. He painted himself Houston Oiler blue and broadcast while wearing a gigantic cowboy hat. He also garnered considerable attention when he described Connie Chung’s TV show Eye to Eye as “Slanted Eye to Eye.” Patrick did not fail to note the example set by Rush Limbaugh, who demonstrates that day-to-day pandering and gaslighting and rabble rousing can generate a bigger audience than even a live snip of your vas deferens tubes. And he made himself all the more appealing to a particular audience after he became an evangelical. He later wrote that he was attending a TV and radio convention in Las Vegas when he was “saved” at the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer across from the Tropicana casino. He was subsequently baptized in the Jordan River.His silver tongue and experience in audience-building and adherence to the Tea Party line served him well when he entered Texas politics. He was elected to the state Senate 2006 and won a second term in 2010. He then made a successful run for lieutenant governor in 2014. In 2016, Patrick served as Texas chairman of the Trump campaign and demonstrated his own ability to spark a furor-by-tweet that year with a bit of scripture he posted in the immediate aftermath of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Galatians 6:7.” Texas GOP Convention Says No to Masks, Yes to ParamedicsSome people felt the Patrick was suggesting the club had been inviting the attack by being gay-friendly. Patrick insisted the tweet and a similar Facebook post were “pre-planned” and unrelated to the massacre. He proved anew how he earned his nickname when he issued a statement explaining why he took the messages down."I didn’t pull down the FB post & tweet because God’s word is wrong. His word is never wrong... I took it down to stop the hateful comments and the misinformation being spread of God’s message to all of us—straight or gay."Patrick was re-elected in 2018 and caused another ruckus in April 2019, when he called Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke of Texas “light in the loafers.”That October, Patrick addressed a Trump rally. He declared to the 20,000 attendees that liberals are not just “opponents.”“They are our enemy,” he said.One might have hoped that Patrick would set aside such divisive demagoguery when the whole nation was suddenly faced with a true and deadly enemy. But the problem for Patrick has been that there is no way to garner attention for yourself by going along with the reasoned scientific advice of the experts. There is no individual glory in joining your fellow citizens in what we all need to do to get through the pandemic.And how in the Lord’s name are you going to be high-profile if you cover your face with a mask? On March 23, Patrick found a way to stand out during an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. He is now 70 and therefore in a high-risk category for COVID, but he declared himself prepared to face death rather than see the economy shut down. “No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” he said. “And if that's the exchange, I’m all in.”He repeated his position during a Carlson reprise in April.“There are more important things than living,” Patrick said. “And that’s saving this country for my children, and my grandchildren and saving this country for all of us. And I don’t want to die, nobody wants to die, but man, we got to take some risks and get back in the game, and get this country back up and running.”The Texas Grim Reaper’s Fight Against Masks and Health CarePatrick had moved to form a task force to reopen Texas just days into a shutdown that even Trump grudgingly allowed was necessary.Meanwhile, Patrick denounced a Harris County mask mandate.“The ultimate government overreach,” he said. In May, Patrick paid a $7,000 fine that had been levied against a Dallas woman, along with a seven-day jail term, for opening her salon in defiance of the shutdown ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott.Abbott soon after proceeded to reopen the state, faster than was recommended by Fauci and other scientific experts, but still not soon enough for Patrick. The accompanying rise in COVID-19 infections did not keep Patrick from declaring that he had been right all along.The reopening of Texas was finally put on pause last week. Fauci testified at a congressional hearing that states such as Texas had been “skipping over” the guidelines. Fauci repeated simple advice that could still change everything: Wash your hands, observe social distancing, and wear a mask.“I think we need to emphasize the responsibility that we have both as individuals and as part of a societal effort to end the epidemic that we all have to play a part in that,” Fauci said. "We've got to get that message out that we're all in this together, and if we're going to contain this, we've got to contain it together.”‘If People Die, People Die’: Texas COVID Hot Spots Keep Getting WorseNobody gets attention by answering a call for unity, no matter how vital. And so Patrick responded by declaring on Wednesday that Fauci had been “wrong on every issue.” “Fauci said today he’s concerned about states like Texas that ‘skipped over’ certain things,” Patrick said on Fox News. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We haven’t skipped over anything. The only thing I’m skipping over is listening to him.”Patrick was declaring that he would be paying no heed to the world-renowned expert who had been working tirelessly to gain knowledge for more years than the former Dannie Scott Goeb had been self-promoting.Meanwhile, the virus continues to rage. Dr. David Mobley, who performed that long ago vasectomy, did not respond to a request for comment on Patrick’s denigration of a fellow doctor. He may have been too busy, since he works at Houston West Methodist Hospital, which like all the city’s medical facilities is swamped with COVID-19 cases.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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newslegendry · 4 years

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Dan Patrick had no problem trusting medical expertise when he was a Houston talk radio host seeking a ratings boost by undergoing a vasectomy live on his show. “The ratings skyrocketed,” Patrick reported after the 1991 stunt.But now that Patrick has parlayed his radio fame into becoming Texas lieutenant governor, he says he will not even listen to the nation’s leading infectious disease expert in the face of a raging pandemic.“Wrong on every issue,” Patrick says of Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose simple social-distancing measures, if followed, would almost certainly have prevented many of the COVID-19 infections that are now spiking to record levels in Texas and other states.In Dr. Fauci We TrustFauci has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. While he was rising to global prominence combating HIV/AIDS and other contagions, Patrick was making a name for himself in broadcasting—starting with changing his name from Dannie Scott Goeb of Baltimore to Dan Goeb Patrick of Houston. He was also known by another name—the Silver-Tongued Devil—for his ability to expound persuasively on seemingly any subject. He left broadcasting for a time to start a string of Houston sports bars. They went bust, but he managed to hold onto one from which he ran a radio show. His silvery tongue initially had its limits and his audience started out so small that he had to urge the bar’s patrons to call in from the pay phone.Then came the vasectomy and other stunts. He painted himself Houston Oiler blue and broadcast while wearing a gigantic cowboy hat. He also garnered considerable attention when he described Connie Chung’s TV show Eye to Eye as “Slanted Eye to Eye.” Patrick did not fail to note the example set by Rush Limbaugh, who demonstrates that day-to-day pandering and gaslighting and rabble rousing can generate a bigger audience than even a live snip of your vas deferens tubes. And he made himself all the more appealing to a particular audience after he became an evangelical. He later wrote that he was attending a TV and radio convention in Las Vegas when he was “saved” at the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer across from the Tropicana casino. He was subsequently baptized in the Jordan River.His silver tongue and experience in audience-building and adherence to the Tea Party line served him well when he entered Texas politics. He was elected to the state Senate 2006 and won a second term in 2010. He then made a successful run for lieutenant governor in 2014. In 2016, Patrick served as Texas chairman of the Trump campaign and demonstrated his own ability to spark a furor-by-tweet that year with a bit of scripture he posted in the immediate aftermath of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Galatians 6:7.” Texas GOP Convention Says No to Masks, Yes to ParamedicsSome people felt the Patrick was suggesting the club had been inviting the attack by being gay-friendly. Patrick insisted the tweet and a similar Facebook post were “pre-planned” and unrelated to the massacre. He proved anew how he earned his nickname when he issued a statement explaining why he took the messages down."I didn’t pull down the FB post & tweet because God’s word is wrong. His word is never wrong... I took it down to stop the hateful comments and the misinformation being spread of God’s message to all of us—straight or gay."Patrick was re-elected in 2018 and caused another ruckus in April 2019, when he called Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke of Texas “light in the loafers.”That October, Patrick addressed a Trump rally. He declared to the 20,000 attendees that liberals are not just “opponents.”“They are our enemy,” he said.One might have hoped that Patrick would set aside such divisive demagoguery when the whole nation was suddenly faced with a true and deadly enemy. But the problem for Patrick has been that there is no way to garner attention for yourself by going along with the reasoned scientific advice of the experts. There is no individual glory in joining your fellow citizens in what we all need to do to get through the pandemic.And how in the Lord’s name are you going to be high-profile if you cover your face with a mask?��On March 23, Patrick found a way to stand out during an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. He is now 70 and therefore in a high-risk category for COVID, but he declared himself prepared to face death rather than see the economy shut down. “No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” he said. “And if that's the exchange, I’m all in.”He repeated his position during a Carlson reprise in April.“There are more important things than living,” Patrick said. “And that’s saving this country for my children, and my grandchildren and saving this country for all of us. And I don’t want to die, nobody wants to die, but man, we got to take some risks and get back in the game, and get this country back up and running.”The Texas Grim Reaper’s Fight Against Masks and Health CarePatrick had moved to form a task force to reopen Texas just days into a shutdown that even Trump grudgingly allowed was necessary.Meanwhile, Patrick denounced a Harris County mask mandate.“The ultimate government overreach,” he said. In May, Patrick paid a $7,000 fine that had been levied against a Dallas woman, along with a seven-day jail term, for opening her salon in defiance of the shutdown ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott.Abbott soon after proceeded to reopen the state, faster than was recommended by Fauci and other scientific experts, but still not soon enough for Patrick. The accompanying rise in COVID-19 infections did not keep Patrick from declaring that he had been right all along.The reopening of Texas was finally put on pause last week. Fauci testified at a congressional hearing that states such as Texas had been “skipping over” the guidelines. Fauci repeated simple advice that could still change everything: Wash your hands, observe social distancing, and wear a mask.“I think we need to emphasize the responsibility that we have both as individuals and as part of a societal effort to end the epidemic that we all have to play a part in that,” Fauci said. "We've got to get that message out that we're all in this together, and if we're going to contain this, we've got to contain it together.”‘If People Die, People Die’: Texas COVID Hot Spots Keep Getting WorseNobody gets attention by answering a call for unity, no matter how vital. And so Patrick responded by declaring on Wednesday that Fauci had been “wrong on every issue.” “Fauci said today he’s concerned about states like Texas that ‘skipped over’ certain things,” Patrick said on Fox News. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We haven’t skipped over anything. The only thing I’m skipping over is listening to him.”Patrick was declaring that he would be paying no heed to the world-renowned expert who had been working tirelessly to gain knowledge for more years than the former Dannie Scott Goeb had been self-promoting.Meanwhile, the virus continues to rage. Dr. David Mobley, who performed that long ago vasectomy, did not respond to a request for comment on Patrick’s denigration of a fellow doctor. He may have been too busy, since he works at Houston West Methodist Hospital, which like all the city’s medical facilities is swamped with COVID-19 cases.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2D5RbSD

http://newslegendry.blogspot.com/2020/07/who-are-you-going-to-trustdr-fauci-or.html

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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Mention Elon Musk’s name on the internet, and prepare to face the wrath of the Musketeers. That’s just the way it works now that they — or the Musk Bros, or whatever you want to call the Tesla and SpaceX founder’s horde of devoted fans — are on constant high alert in defense of their chosen leader. For CEOs, it seems that being the object of affection for an increasing number of strangers is now part of the job description.

You don’t exactly have to possess Musk’s gifted, frenetic brain to figure out how we got here: Society has always had heroes, be those of war or art or politics. But entrepreneurs are particularly suited for our current moment, in which success in business is our primary marker of achievement. Business acumen doesn’t just get you money anymore; it can make you the most powerful man in the world.

The signs of CEO worship are everywhere: unprecedented venture capital funding for founders, media overemphasis on company leaders, and to use the most extreme and obvious example, the election of Donald Trump.

Carl Rhodes, co-author of the book CEO Society, notes that CEO worship has even spread to us as individuals. “If you hop onto Amazon and type in ‘CEO’, there’s many self-help books where you can ‘become CEO of your own love life’ or ‘date like a CEO,’ he says. “I can’t imagine what kind of awful date that would be, but nevertheless.”

It’s not a good thing: not for businesses, not for society, and not even for CEOs themselves. To explain why, I asked five scholars, whose reasoning ranges from leadership psychology to moral philosophy. Below, their lightly edited responses.

Jeffrey Moriarty, philosophy department chair at Bentley University

People don’t like complexity or ambiguity. They want to simplify. Pointing to a person as the cause of this or that good or bad event is simple: “Ronald Reagan won the Cold War;” “FDR ended the great depression.” Telling a story about resources, systems, institutions, policies, and practices is a lot messier and more complicated, though likely to be more accurate.

The same goes for business. People want to be able to account for some business success or failure and it is easy to say, “Oh, it was because Jones was at the helm, or because Jones made this decision.”

This is not to say that leadership never matters, or that good decision-making is unimportant. Surely it is. But it’s probably a lot less important in general than people think. Leaders have an interest in perpetuating the belief that leadership is vital to organizational (of whatever kind) performance — it is a source of power for leaders.

Slavish devotion to a leader is incompatible with the kind of critical engagement that is necessary to prevent organizations from going down the wrong path, financially or morally.

Ben Zeller, associate professor of religion at Lake Forest College

CEOs symbolize what we value as a culture. They fit the American self-image of the lone individual who succeeds based on their wits and raw determination. The CEO is the cowboy writ large.

Most people want something to believe in, and in an increasingly secularized age, CEOs offer a new target for devotion. We live in an era of unbridled capitalism, where consuming is what we do as a people.

We create and foster our identities by the clothing we wear, the phones we own, the music we download. Some people invest so much of themselves into the people and companies behind the technology that we consume, that they become effectively secular fundamentalists. If people invest so much of themselves in the ideals of a company or CEO, they will be let down when and if they discover that the company and CEO are driven ultimately by different goals than the consumer.

Carl Rhodes, co-author of CEO Society: The Corporate Takeover of Everyday Life

CEO worship, I think, is a feature of the latter stages of neoliberalism. A lot of it can be traced back to the changes in the global, political, economic situation from the 1980s where you had a shift toward a revival of traditional laissez-faire market-based economics. Business people in general have never been really heroic — in the 1960s, the so-called “organization man” was a fairly bland person wearing a gray suit who was thought of as a conformist, so it’s really a contemporary phenomenon to some extent.

If you look at at the phenomenon of Uber, rather than being seen as an employee, [an Uber driver is] positioned as an individual entrepreneur, a kind of mini-CEO of their own life.

The idea is that we see this kind of CEO mentality bleeding out into many other dimensions of life. We see this as quite a dangerous phenomenon because it’s all driven by values around success and individualism and competition and rivalry rather than about more traditional values around democracy, participation, collegiality, community and so forth. So increasingly our whole lives operate as if there’s some kind of competitive market where all we’re supposed to do is beat other people. If you look at Trump’s rhetoric, it’s always about winning. And it’s not just about winning — to prove that you’re winning, you have to have someone else losing.

Dennis Tourish, author of The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership

When people acquire extraordinary power, the effects tend to be rather negative. One business writer has said that being the CEO of the company today is the closest thing to being king of your own country. Well, history suggests that absolute monarchs become absolute tyrants, and that their sense of themselves becomes grotesquely inflated.

And for all sorts of psychological reasons, the more power an individual has, the less sensitive they become to the needs of other people and the less inclined they are to seek out advice in making crucial decisions, and the less likely to take any advice when they actually get it. My own research also suggests that people in that position are reluctant to facilitate critical communication from other people who have less power in making those decisions, so eventually people give up trying to offer it.

If they believe their own hype, they can become like a rock star surrounded by a sycophantic entourage, and the quality of their decisions will inevitably begin to decline. So the more a leader is lionized in the press or more popular they appear to be at one moment, the more wary we should be and the more we should expect a fall from grace to happen at any moment.

[By] encouraging the fallacious view that we need geniuses to run our companies, we’re doing all of ourselves a disservice. There are very few geniuses out there, and there aren’t enough to keep the economy or our organizations healthy. We have to find ways to engage the intelligence, the activism, the enthusiasm, the passion of people at more levels in the organizations that we rely upon.

Arun Sundararajan, professor at NYU Stern School of Business

Part of the American dream is that anyone can succeed like the most successful among us, so there’s an aspirational dimension to looking up to founders and CEOs. I think in particular in the tech space, there’s been a number of founder-CEOs who have not just been fabulously successful, but have also been successful rapidly, and in a context that is familiar to people. If I become a billionaire founder in meatpacking, that’s less a part of everyday life than if I build an app.

I think the key risk for employees and investors — and it’s tied up with the ownership structures that these CEO-founders are creating for their companies where a significant amount of control is retained by the founder — is that [when] the interests of the company or employees start to diverge from the founder, it becomes all the more difficult to make good decisions about what’s the best path forward for the company.

We saw this struggle at Uber recently that led to the founder leaving and a new CEO coming in. That was fraught with tension and difficulty because you had a wildly visible founder-CEO who was revered in certain circles.

From a societal point of view, this has led to certain expectations of entrepreneurship that can be harmful in the long run. We’re entering a phase of modern work where more people are going to have to be individual entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship is at the foundation of what the future of work will be like. The visibility and adulation for the founder-CEO can often allocate the resources of society towards that kind of entrepreneurship, rather than the more common kind, which is opening a nail salon or a law practice.

What I see with students: When I say “entrepreneurship,” they think of Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs. In some ways, I want every undergrad these days to learn about entrepreneurship not so they can go off and create the next billion-dollar company but because I feel like they have to think like entrepreneurs to succeed in tomorrow’s world of business.

Original Source -> CEOs have never been more idolized. 5 experts explain why that’s a problem.

via The Conservative Brief

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