Power and control

Some of the lyrics from the song Människobarn (Human Child) by Dina Ögon keep running through my head, especially in these weird politically-charged times:

What, what, what is it that you care about?

What is it that you care about?

What is it that you care about

When love and freedom turn into power and control?

Why is it that so many people, mostly men, care only about power and control? When you look at world leaders generally, most of them are men. In fact, about 85% of the world's countries are run by men according to online sources. I've got to wonder why. In any case, these lyrics don't specifically mention men, but in my experience it's mostly men who want power and control. It could be in the personal sphere, where they wish to dominate the women and children with whom they live. It could be in the political arena, where power and control give them the freedom to do what they want when they want and how they want. If you take a look at our political leaders, so many of them do just that. They answer to no one, and when they answer to no one, that's when the trouble starts. Many politicians may start out with noble motives and intentions, but so many of them end up corrupted by power. It's not for nothing that the old adage 'Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely' came about to explain how power impacts people. I am not against all aspects of power and control; after all, one needs some amount of power in order to effect change in society. But we are at an extreme at present, where leaders of presumed democracies are allying themselves with dictators and wanna-be dictators. They want to have the unlimited power and control that these dictators have. 

Back in 2016, when Jean and I visited FDR's library/museum in Hyde Park, NY, we ran into an elderly couple who were visiting at the same time as we were. We got to talking about how interesting the library was, and then our conversation turned to politics. At that point (summertime), it was clear that Donald Trump would be the Republican candidate for president. I remember very well what they said to us. 'We have lost our way' (the country has lost its way). They could not envision a country run by Trump, and they were quite nervous about it. That was ten years ago. No one in their right mind could have envisioned what has come to pass in the USA. No one. The president, his staff, his advisers and his followers are invested in the idea that they should have complete power and control. They may not say it outright, but it's what they stand for. Is the USA still a democracy? I hope so, but it doesn't behave like one anymore. This is the new (normalized) order in the political sphere. Europe be damned, other countries who don't like this new development, be damned. The USA will determine the world order, no one else is really invited to the table to discuss the future possibilities. The USA will determine how they think that peace should be achieved, and as far as I can see, it is via war, never a good basis for peace. 

In the personal sphere, women's rights are under attack. It's an insidious attack, backed by conservative religious people (again, mostly men who behave abhorrently) who call themselves Christians (I call them Pharisees) who would like nothing better than that women should 'know' their place and leave the important stuff to men. Women should stay home and have babies. Women should not compete with men in the workplace. Women should subjugate themselves to their husbands/partners, even though there is no good reason for them to do so. This is not the 1950s, where women returned to the home front after serving their nation by working in factories or as nurses and doctors during WWII. Any normal-functioning human being understands that women are not inferior in any way to men. They are their peers, intellectually and otherwise. They may not be as physically strong as men, but they are psychologically stronger in so many ways. But as usual, women's strengths are downplayed in the media and on social media. 

Men are/will be responsible for ruining the world, and if there is another atomic bomb occurrence, it will be the result of male decisions. Power and control. As I have said before, if Jesus Christ came back to this world in the flesh, such men would crucify him all over again. God forbid they should let a man who stands for peace, love and free will to dictate how the rest of us should live. And yet most normal people I know do not behave like the men who only want power and control. Most normal ordinary people want peace and love and free will in their lives. 

You know you are in the presence of men who want to dominate when the talk is only of money, status, prestige, competition, having control, women as 'trophies', and how others should live. Preferably how the women in their lives and women generally should live. How nervous they become when they don't have that control, when women don't abide by 'their' rules. When you look at the number of spouses who are abused or killed, it's mostly women who are abused/killed and the men who are the abusers/killers. Crime shows overwhelmingly depict men as serial killers, as killers generally, and abusers. This is sadly backed up by real statistics. According to the FBI and online sources, the vast majority of killers are male, globally and in the USA, accounting for circa 88% to 90% of all homicides. 

Many of the rights that women enjoy have been fought for during the past century. Let us not return to a time when women were men's property, when they had to 'ask permission' to do what men take for granted that they can do, when they have to turn over their paychecks to their husbands, or when they are not able to work at all. No society is served by denying one gender their basic rights as human beings. We can see the effects of that way of thinking on a global basis. I will never travel to countries where women are legally denied the rights that men enjoy. I will never spend my hard-earned money in such countries. They won't miss me, and I won't miss them. I avoid men who want to dominate others like the plague, and will continue to do so. The word that comes to mind to describe them is 'yuck'. I don't want yuck in my life. 

Of course, there are women who support dominating men, e.g some women in the media. They do so in the hope that some of the money and prestige will rub off on them. They are the trophy women in these men's lives. Or the trophy dollies who work the news shows circuit, who make good money as long as they follow the premises laid down by men. Such news shows have to rake in the male viewers and keep them happy with the women's coiffed perfect hair and perfectly made-up faces, tight skirts and heels. These women survive in a men's world as long as they say and do what the men who own the news stations want them to say and do. When there is no longer any use for them, they get fired. These types of women who work for the current administration also end up in the same place--fired. Because the ultimate goal is to rid politics of women, I'm convinced of that. Again, women should know their place, and never ever challenge the male powers that be. Women who buy into this bullshit already know the outcome. They know that they have no real power or control. Supporting a toxic patriarchy is not the way to go in 2026. Such is the stuff that stupidity is made of. 

One long scream

Some people will assume that this is a Covid-19 post because of the title, but it’s not. The pandemic is a part of what I write about, but it’s not the sole focus. One long scream has been building for years in many workplaces, not just mine. But during the past decade, life in my workplace changed irrevocably for many. As in, there was no going back to what was, only moving forward to what could be. The focus became the future. The past was never talked about; the history of my department, how it came to be the way it was, was unimportant. Those of us old enough to remember the past, or who had worked there long enough to know about it, were told that it wasn’t important; no one wanted to hear about it. The present was just ignored in favor of the future. But the present was what needed to be dealt with, except that no one knew how to deal with it or wanted to deal with it because the problems were too many. So it was ignored in favor of all the fancy buzzwords, slogans and catch phrases that would create the future that ‘everyone wanted’ or said was important to have for the sake of productivity and effectiveness. When we were children that was called ‘let’s pretend’.

I don’t mind playing let’s pretend. It’s just that let’s pretend has gone on for many years, and has worn down those employees who tried as hard as they could to implement the many changes and trends that were laid on the table and prioritized. The problem was that there were too many changes and trends, and one could never be certain which change or trend was the one to be prioritized, since priorities shifted on a monthly basis. Courses in how to lead were important, but they didn’t produce better leaders. They produced leaders who were only interested in forcing their employees to adapt to change for change’s sake. There were never good explanations for why this or that change or trend was important. Employees who were resistant or critical were pushed aside, and are still pushed aside, in favor of those who are receptive to every change or trend that gets suggested. It doesn’t matter if the changes or trends cause a lot of upheaval, waste time, are ineffective, or lead to demotivated employees. The leaders and their loyal employees continue on, while those who are critical find it harder and harder with each change to start over and plod on, dreading the next major change, the next trend to attack the workplace that its leaders will embrace warmly and force down the throats of their employees. The pandemic has brought to light how stupid some of these trends that workplaces adopted without question actually are. One of them is packing as many employees as possible into tiny offices, with little room to move or to spread out. Another stupid trend is open office landscapes—placing an entire workforce into one large room, no individual offices, no dividers, no cubicles, no privacy, no quiet time, constant distractions, and a lot of noise. The party line was that open office landscapes were conducive to interaction, communication and collaboration. Employees should embrace them without question. The reality was something else entirely. Most employees want and need some private time, some quiet time, at work. That’s the purpose of offices—one can close a door and shut out the noise if one needs time to think. But that was no longer ‘allowed’. The reason for open office landscapes, as we all know if we cut through the piles of bullshit that have built up, is to save money. Workplaces save money by forcing their employees to sit in one large room together. The pandemic however, has shown just how stupid this trend is. Suddenly the hunt is on to find new solutions for dealing with this problem—the spread of Covid-19 (or any virus for that matter)—in an open office landscape setting. So the solution has been to tell employees to work from home if they can. That must really rub some leaders the wrong way; after all, they lose the ability to totally control their employees. I’ve seen other solutions that have to do with erecting Plexiglas dividers between adjacent desks, or enclosing individual desks in Plexiglas cubicles. It seems to be a return to some kind of individual office thinking. Dare one hope? Can one dream?

I’ve come to the conclusion that leaders and employees who can shift from one change to the next, from one trend to the next, without problems, are surface skaters. They are not interested in depth; it’s unclear what they are really interested in except control. They should be interested in depth; they should be listening to their employees. Because not to do so is simply to invite trouble. Some few do at present. But most do not. They have their visions and preferred ways of doing things, and they simply expect employees to fall in line. After a decade of multiple leaders, multiple leadership styles, fragmentary visions, shifting priorities, stupid changes, stupid trends, wasted time, wasted breath, useless meetings, endless budget cuts (to no avail), poor strategies, poor planning, yet more meetings to undo what was decided upon two or three years ago that took up valuable employee time—some employees experience only one feeling—the desire to scream into the wind, into the boundless future that was promised them, the golden land of promise and opportunity, the utopian landscape, where all workplaces are effective and productive, where all work output can be measured and controlled, where all employees can be controlled. It’s one long scream, a primal scream, a plea really for a return to sanity and to peace, a plea for a return to a time when freedom from control was still to be found in a workplace.