From Sense to Nonsense to Madness: A Natural Progression

Looking back over almost forty years of employment, most of it with large corporations, there were times when it all made sense; times when I felt like I was a real person with real skills making a real contribution. Inevitably, these periods of equilibrium were disrupted by destabilizing forces and followed by periods where sense gave way to nonsense and madness loomed on the horizon.

It seems to me that this progression from sense to nonsense to madness is a natural and perhaps unavoidable progression in the lives, businesses, organizations, and institutions of human civilization. It may stem from the prevalent belief that perfection lies at the extreme, not in the middle. It may be a result of seeing life as a competition to maximize certain things. Individuals strive for maximum wealth and freedom; corporations strive for maximum profit and return on invested capital (in fact, they have a fiduciary responsibility to do so). Life and business are portrayed as a zero sum game where there is potentially only one winner, and the winner takes all. "He who dies with the most toys wins", we say. All the leading players in this game are driven, frantic, and desperate to find some kind of advantage over the competition. Greed, fear, and ambition drive people and companies to (and sometimes beyond) the limits of legal activity. Corruption and cronyism compromise the efforts of regulators and governments.

There is a sort of logic driving this progression from sense to nonsense to madness. As the game progresses and builds towards its apogee, the madness becomes pervasive. The world becomes a place where the leaders, power brokers, and news makers all seem to be mad and madly ambitious. Everything becomes polarized. The middle ground is no longer occupied - everyone is moving toward the extremes in an effort to gain some perceived advantage. Voices of moderation are drowned out. Anyone who is not infected with the madness is considered dangerous or insignificant by the growing mad majority. People who were once considered unsavory are elected, hired, and promoted. Corporate job requirements read like a psychological profile of a dysfunctional "Type A" personality.

The message to job applicants and those who seek career advancement is: "We want high energy overachievers. Please apply only if you are are time-conscious, highly competitive, ambitious, business-like, and aggressive. We are looking for high-achieving workaholics who multi-task, drive themselves with deadlines, and are unhappy about delays." If you happen to be patient, relaxed, and easy-going, please don't bother to apply - even if you are twice as smart and three times as capable as any of these stress junkies.

In this super-competitive environment, humans are stripped of their humanity; corporations become soul-less entities without moral or social conscience. It's not that any of the players are evil - they're neither evil or good. Morality does not exist in this world. There is no morality, only logic. Raw business logic. Every decision is strictly a business decision and is driven primarily by the potential short-term impact to the bottom line.

This is the world of Alice in Wonderland, described by author Lewis Carroll in his classic book which was published in 1865. This kind of behavior is nothing new. It has come in regular cycles over the course of human history. In Alice in Wonderland, as the Cheshire cat acknowledges, "everyone is mad here" (except Alice, of course). All the mad characters are self-important, authoritative, and pretentious. None of the characters is evil. There is no morality - only "logic". They try to use logic to justify and explain their absurd behavior. However, if Alice challenges them or presses them for a more rational explanation, they change the subject or otherwise sidestep the inquiry. Alice has little success in using her powers of discernment to make sense of this mad, upside-down, inside-out world where she is unable to get complete answers to her questions from arrogant, self-absorbed characters.

Think about it - Alice's world is an apt metaphor for the corporate cubicle worker's environment. Everywhere there are things that don't make sense, yet the inhabitants use logic to justify their actions and ignore or otherwise deflect rational thinking from non-conforming members... and the madness continues.

I now leave you with one final thought regarding madness in the form of a short poem by Emily Dickinson:

Much Madness is divinest Sense

To a discerning Eye;

Much sense the starkest madness.

'T is the majority

In this, as all, prevails.

Assent, and you are sane;

Demur, -- you're straightway dangerous,

And handled with a chain.

POSTSCRIPT - Added 3/13/10

Thank you for your comments. I apologize for failing to include a drawing to illustrate corporate logic and madness, so I am adding it below. I have included textual notations for clarity.