Transcript America Is A Culture of Misinformation

Disinformation Society
By Jack Carter, Principal, Wealth Generation
13889 62nd Avenue North, Maple Grove, MN 55311
Phone: 763-559-7425, fax: 763-559-0664; email: [email protected]
Why does a management consultant care
about disinformation and culture?
• Because America’s decaying values
undermine people and performance at work.
• Organizations are not going to lead a raceto-the-top unless they empower employees
at all levels to innovate and create value.
• Performance isn’t all about money. It’s
about life-affirming challenges.
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
What is culture?
Definitions
• Ad Hoc Culture – Is what we have now. Anything
we do or think about is culture.
• Classical Culture – The stories and lessons that
have enabled mankind to survive… Needed
because we are psychological beings. (Ex. Death of a Salesman)
• Enlightened Culture – Is a psychological envelop
we create for ourselves and others which we refer
to, as needed, for inspiration and guidance.
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Ad hoc culture
• Disinformation as culture - deception and confusion do
not sustain people, firms, and nations.
• Power and control are Priority 1 for any organization
or government. But few get to Priority 2 ...
• Goals, objectives, and ambitions must be supported by
culture to ensure successes in enterprise, government,
education, the armed forces…
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Classical culture
• Moral lessons
– What is morality?
• Human nature
– Do you believe that you are both good and evil?
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Enlightened culture, now twisted
• America was founded in the Enlightenment, an
18th century movement that emphasized reason
and science, and the study of human culture
and the natural world.
• Why then, do our leaders prefer Christian
references to our own cultural heritage?
Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2003.
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Democracies vs. dictatorships
An example of how subtle disinformation can be.
• Americans believe that dictatorships are evil and
democracies are virtuous. That’s cultural programming.
• Dictatorships are common in U.S. Steve Jobs/Ted Turner/CEO culture
• Benevolent dictatorships are the most effective and
efficient form of leadership and government.
– But when leaders lose their moral grounding, then all you get is
spin. They dictate, and then defend actions whenever caught.1
• Democracies without moral grounding become evil.
• Morality is more important than we think.
1. George Orwell’s 1946 classic Animal Farm on how dictators enervate individuals.
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Ours is a disinformation society…
• … because deception and confusion are the
easiest ways to control people in a democracy
• If you’re confused about what’s happening, then
you have to depend on your leaders to tell you.
• Examples: preachers, corporate officers, sales
people, politicians.
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
More deception / Use of archetypes
Our political system is deceptive by design:
• Why don’t we elect candidates like Ralph Nader?
• Because facts don’t move people. Facts must be
hooked into the psyche to be felt and motivating. So
Republicans decided to hook their campaigns to the
individual archetype – our individual pursuit of
happiness… and the Democrats to the collective.
• Yet, in fact, we are all concerned with ourselves and
others – our successes, our employer’s successes, and
our nation’s. But we prefer one to the other by nature:
Individual Archetype --you-------me-- Collective Archetype
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Archetypal complements abound
• Myers-Briggs Personality Typing uses archetypes.
• To jump-start an enlightened culture in the
workplace, you could use the following archetypal
complements:
– Leaders and Followers
– Men and Women
– Romantics and Pragmatists
– Saints and Demons
– Warriors and Magicians
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Our disinformation society
• How much do we know about our energy supplies and
needs?
• What do we really know about the causes of global
warming? Who benefits from confusion and endless debate?
• How does our economy really work? Ever notice how
it changes with administrations (see Money As Debt)?
• Or how our government works with 35,000+ lobbyists?
• Or how investment really works (secrecy & insider info)?
• Or how corporations and markets really work?
• Or how religions and mythologies can empower.
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Biased education disempowers
• Reading and writing are fine, but make sure students
don’t forget who’s in control (industrial paradigm).
• No Child Left Behind isn’t aimed at raising our 25th
position out of 41 industrialized nations in math and
science. It’s aimed at closing the gap between middleclass students and throngs of illegal immigrants.
• What are the 1st classes dropped in budget cuts?
Sports, music, art, literature… all classes that build
self-confidence for the less cerebral and teach human nature.
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Distractions disempower too
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Consumer culture: “Go shopping…”
Maintaining your property (real estate, cars, boats…)
Work and social life (church)
Parenting / family / personal time
Television, movies, video games, sports
Pornography, Gambling, Prostitution
Addictions within a culture of addictions, coffee > you name it
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Consumers don’t understand the
issues, and don’t know what’s
important. So they have to look to
authorities for answers. In this way
America is controlled through
disinformation and confusion.
Moral: Without understanding, we
have a demagoguery, not a democracy.
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
The liberal arts empower
• Conflict is the essence of human nature.
• Science can’t handle ambiguity, so it’s the
wrong tool for people problems. All problems are…
• Religions can justify anything because they
describe the 360-degree nature of our being.
• Liberal arts programs teach human nature
via art, literature, history, and biography.
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Conclusion
• Our society is a disinformation society because that’s
the easiest way to control people in a democracy. In such
a system, everyone gets blamed except those who really do the damage, e.g. teachers.
• Our ignorance of human nature and lack of morality
are the root causes of America’s decline in power and
dignity, and it is withering our spirit at work as well.
• Successful leadership paradigms have to take cultural
factors into account. A moral culture of enlightenment
must be restored if we are to maintain our global
authority.
© 2008 Wealth Generation. All rights
reserved.
Thank you for your time and
interest.