Good. Evil. Words that mean nothing to careerists. "They are beyond morality"

[Luminous Animal]

The Careerists
by Chris Hedges

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/23-0

They are there to make corporate systems function. If insurance companies abandon tens of millions of sick to suffer and die, so be it. If banks and sheriff departments toss families out of their homes, so be it. If financial firms rob citizens of their savings, so be it. If the government shuts down schools and libraries, so be it. If the military murders children in Pakistan or Afghanistan, so be it. If commodity speculators drive up the cost of rice and corn and wheat so that they are unaffordable for hundreds of millions of poor across the planet, so be it. If Congress and the courts strip citizens of basic civil liberties, so be it. If the fossil fuel industry turns the earth into a broiler of greenhouse gases that doom us, so be it. They serve the system. The god of profit and exploitation. The most dangerous force in the industrialized world does not come from those who wield radical creeds, whether Islamic radicalism or Christian fundamentalism, but from legions of faceless bureaucrats who claw their way up layered corporate and governmental machines. They serve any system that meets their pathetic quota of needs.

[meow2u3]

1. They're completely amoral

just like the corporations they work for.

[WillyT]

9. And Yet... I Bet... They Consider Themselves "Good Christians"... Or Whatever...

Whatever gets them through the night.

[roguevalley]

13. their karma will be tremendous. They will stand for the things they do. I believe it.

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. Heard this tune before

last time it was "bureacrats," though.

[snappyturtle]

3. Very interesting read. I watched Chris Hedges on Bill Moyers last Friday.

He has seen too much evil. I thought he seemed like he's pretty much given up on change.
Maybe it was just me....but I think I will go back and re-watch that video. I wonder if his
purpose is only to warn us of the evil.

http://billmoyers.com/ Then click on "Capitalism's Sacrifice Zones".

[malaise]

4. MUST READ -

get thee to the greatest page

[nashville_brook]

5. "These armies of bureaucrats serve a corporate system that will quite literally kill us."

They are as cold and disconnected as Mengele. They carry out minute tasks. They are docile. Compliant. They obey. They find their self-worth in the prestige and power of the corporation, in the status of their positions and in their career promotions. They assure themselves of their own goodness through their private acts as husbands, wives, mothers and fathers. They sit on school boards. They go to Rotary. They attend church. It is moral schizophrenia. They erect walls to create an isolated consciousness. They make the lethal goals of ExxonMobil or Goldman Sachs or Raytheon or insurance companies possible. They destroy the ecosystem, the economy and the body politic and turn workingmen and -women into impoverished serfs. They feel nothing. Metaphysical naiveté always ends in murder. It fragments the world. Little acts of kindness and charity mask the monstrous evil they abet. And the system rolls forward. The polar ice caps melt. The droughts rage over cropland. The drones deliver death from the sky. The state moves inexorably forward to place us in chains. The sick die. The poor starve. The prisons fill. And the careerist, plodding forward, does his or her job.

[IowaRevolutionary]

8. Anyone who works for a corporation or government needs to take a long hard look in the mirror

A powerful condemnation by Chris Hedges. Many of us know a lot of people who fit Hedges' description. I suspect the truth will be more than some here can bear.

[malthaussen]

6. Obviously, Hedges has read Arendt.

For those not up to speed on it: Hannah Arendt, A Report on the Banality of Evil.

Of course, she's been refuted since 1963.

-- Mal

[Hydra]

15. That was the first thing I thought of when I read the OP

And funny how there are people who scream at the top of their lungs that evil is not that easy to get into.

The last few years in America have proven it- Lawlessness, Organized Crime, Spying, Torture and even murder are accepted practices...when done by the people in "authority."

And the worst thing is...it's so...boring. Humans have been converted into monetary value. I remember when one of my teachers cited that as one of the horrors of the Holocaust- the devaluing of people into a commodity.

It seems we now celebrate the monstrous.

[malthaussen]

16. "Devaluing of people into a commodity"

I knew we were in trouble when "Personnel" departments started evolving into "Human Resources." How blatent do you have to get, eh?

-- Mal

[Hydra]

18. If that isn't a good example of boiled frog, I don't know what is

I've noticed that much of it is covered by Capitalism being used as a religion. Never question the words of God(tm). Anything done by a person with money is always good, no matter who it hurts.

[IowaRevolutionary]

7. Powerful words from Chris Hedges

Even more despicable than the 1% are those of the 99% who have thrown their lot in with the 1%: The Little Eichmanns (careerists, bureaucrats) and Brownshirts (kkkops, mercenaries, etc). Fuck them all.

[freshwest]

10. I've run into these all my life. Their version of self-interest is just that - the self. Words mean

Nothing, neither do other living beings. It's why I don't believe there is a significant psychological difference between the 1% or 99%. This is almost 100% of humanity. Although there are reasons to push forward, for one's one survival. There are moments when I see souls break through, it's glorious. At times I feel as if I am trapped in a version of the film below in crowds, seeing what they focus upon, and it's quite horrific to feel that way. It's only those individual moments that keep me sane.

Heart of Glass

During shooting, almost all of the actors performed while under hypnosis. Every actor in every scene was hypnotized, with the exception of the character Hias and the professional glassblowers who appear in the film. The hypnotized actors give very strange performances, which Herzog intended to suggest the trance-like state of the townspeople in the story. Herzog provided the actors with most of their dialogue, memorised during hypnosis. However, many of the hypnotised actors' gestures and movements occurred spontaneously during filming. [1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Glass_%28film%29#Production

[drokhole]

11. K&R

"The ambitious man is the most frightened man because he is afraid to be what he is, because he says, 'If I am what I am, I shall be nobody. Therefore, I must be somebody, I must become the engineer, the engine driver, the magistrate, the judge, the minister.' If you examine this very closely, if you go beyond the wall of words, behind the wall of ideas, positions, and ambitions, you will find there is fear because he is afraid to be what he is. Because he thinks that what he is, is so insignificant, so poor, so ugly, so lonely, so empty, he says, 'I must go and do something outside.' Either he goes after what he calls God - which is just another form of ambition - because he is afraid, or he wants to be somebody in the world.

So, what happens is that this fear is covered up, this loneliness - this sense of inward emptiness of which he is really frightened - is covered up. He runs away from it, and the ambition becomes the emotions through which he can escape.

So, what happens in the world is that everybody is fighting somebody. One man is lesser than another man. There is no love, there is no consideration, there is no thought. Each man wants to become somebody. A member of parliament wants to become the leader of the parliament, to become the prime minister, and so on and on and on. There is perpetual fighting, and our society is one constant struggle of one man against another, and this struggle is called the ambition to be something. Old people encourage you to do that. You must be ambitious, you must be something, you must marry a rich man or a rich woman, you must have the right kind of friends.

So, the older generation, those who are frightened, those who are ugly in their hearts, try to make you like them, and you also want to be like them because you see the glamour of it all. When the governor comes, everybody bows down to the earth to receive him, gives him garlands, makes speeches; he loves it, and you love it because you feel you are honored, you know his uncle or you know his clerk, so you want to bask in the sunshine of his ambitions, of his achievements. So you are easily caught in it, in the web of the older generation, in a world which is most ugly, most monstrous. Only if you are very careful, if you are watchful and if you question all the time, if you do not accept and are not afraid, then you will not be caught in it, then you will create a different world."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

Thanks for the article, Luminous Animal!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. aka - politicians

"History has tried to teach us that we can't have good government under politicians.  Now, to go and stick one at the very head of government couldn’t be wise." Mark Twain

[Odin2005]

14. D&D's "Lawful Neutral" alignment.

They don't care if it's good or bad as long as it follows protocol. precedent, the rules, regulations, tradition, etc.

[Hydra]

17. Tending Lawful Evil

If you use the objective measure. Of course, no one thinks they're evil, they're just doing their job, keeping civilization running or whatever the excuse of the moment is.

[malthaussen]

19. Never could understand why "I'm just doing my job" was a good excuse.

Apparently, neither could Cool Hand Luke:

-- Mal