PostscriptPostscript
Postscript
…as both a devoted student and aggressive critic of Immanuel Kant, Schiller holds a special place in the history of aesthetics. By distilling some of Kant’s theories of aesthetics and spicing them up with some of his own he wrote 27 letters on the need for aesthetics, later publishing these as Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen (Schiller, 1995). This work stands as one of the most important popularization’s of aesthetics ever. Here Schiller tries to show the importance of aesthetics in the life of a balanced individual, and the ways in which an aesthetic sensibility is a necessity for freedom and the possibility to create (see e.g. Savile, 1987).
Schiller is prone to discuss things by invoking opposites, positioning spirit against matter, chaos against form et cetera. His argument is then that in between these pairs of opposites there exists a field that functions as a crossroads, a meeting point, an exchange. Of particular interest to Schiller are the two opposites of form and matter and the two forces that steer man, namely the propensity towards either form (‘Formtrieb’) or matter (‘Stofftrieb’). Stofftrieb draws us towards the material in the world, towards our basest instincts and the immersion in the world of things. This is the world of the barbarian, the one who is disassociated from all that would make his surroundings meaningful. Formtrieb draws us towards the pure abstractions of the mind, towards ‘dogmas and empty formalism’ (Guillet de Monthoux, 1993). This is the world of the bureaucrat, the one who has no connection to the world he lives in but only to the meaningless logic of his thinking. These two forces are the frame of human being, the sterile endpoints of letting either one of the forces take over. They are not necessarily moral categories, but extremes that have to be lived with in some way. And the way Schiller says that we can live with these two extremes is through Art (capital A). For in between the two there exists a space where something fecund can happen, a place created by the ‘Spieltrieb’, the drive to play. By utilizing this drive, the artist can overcome the hindrances present in staying fixed at either of the poles, form or matter. In the space of
Spieltrieb the two are in harmony with neither taking a dominant position. Here we can find the pure aesthetics and it is here that beauty can come into being. What is further, here one cannot talk of progress in the systemic sense, but only of development (Erziehung), or even the state of becoming learned (Bildung). The Hegelian space that is formed in battling both barbaric matter and soulless form is not a given method, it is a lived process, the task of thinking…
Alvesson, M. and K. Sköldberg (2000) Reflexive Methodology. London: Sage.
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Becker, H. (1986) Writing for Social Scientist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bohman, J. (1991) New Philosophy of Social Science. Cambridge: Polity Press. Brandom, R. (ed.) (2000) Rorty and His Critics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bryman, A. (1992) Quantity and Quality in Social Research. London: Routledge.
Czarniawska, B. (1999) Writing Management: Organization Theory as Literary Genre. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Czarniawska-Joerges, B. and P. Guillet de Monthoux (eds.) (1994) Good Novels, Better Management. Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers.
Derrida, J. (1987) The Truth in Painting. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Derrida, J. (1997) Of Grammatology (corrected edition). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. Elias, N. (1978) The Civilizing Process, Vol I: The History of Manners. Oxford: Blackwell.
Guillet de Monthoux, P. (1993) Det sublimas konstnärliga ledning (The Artistic Management of the Sublime). Stockholm: Nerenius & Santérus.
Hall, D. (1994) Richard Rorty: Prophet and Poet of the New Pragmatism. Albany: SUNY Press. Hardt, M. and A. Negri (2000) Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1959) Unterwegs zur Sprache. Pfullingen: G. Neske.
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Heidegger, M. (1993) ‘The Origin of the Work of Art (1936)’, in Krell (ed.) Basic Writings. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Heidegger, M. (1993) ‘Letter on Humanism (1947)’, in Krell (ed.) Basic Writings. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Heidegger, M. (1993) ‘The Question Concerning Technology (1954)’, in Krell (ed.) Basic Writings. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Linstead, S. and H. Höpfl (eds.) (1999) The Aesthetics of Organization. London: Sage.
Mauss, M. (1924/1990) The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. New York: W.W. Norton.
Morgan, G. (ed.) (1983) Beyond Method. London: Sage.
Rorty, R. (1989) Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, R. (1998) Truth and Progress. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Savile, A. (1987) Aesthetic Reconstruction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Schiller, F. (1995) Estetiska Brev (On the Aesthetic Education of Man). Södertälje: Kosmos. Silverman, D. (1985) Qualitative Methodology and Sociology. Aldershot: Gower.
Silverman, D. (1993) Interpreting Qualitative Data. London: Sage. Strati, A. (1998) Organization and Aesthetics. London: Sage.
Toulmin, S. (1992) Cosmopolis: the hidden agenda of modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Toulmin, S. (2001) Return to Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wiesmann, D. (1989) Management und Ästhetik. München: Verlag Barbara Kirsch.
Alf Rehn is the research manager of the Pink Machine-project at the Royal Institute of Technology, a project that studies aesthetics and frivolity in technology, management and economy. He has recently defended his dissertation on hypermodern gift economies, and is presently thinking about moralizations, frivolity and the mundane in the development of modern economic thinking.
Address: Alf Rehn, Department of Industrial Management and Organization, Royal Institute of Technology, 10044 Stockholm, SWEDEN.
E-mail: [email protected]
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Leadership in the Shadow of ‘9/11’
Leadership in the Shadow of ‘9/11’Leadership in the Shadow of ‘9/11’
Leadership in the Shadow of ‘9/11’
Gary Gemmill Gary GemmillGary Gemmill Gary Gemmill
This note examines how the social myth of the leader relates to the September 11th terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York City and the pentagon in Washington, DC. The attacks are commonly referred to as 9/11 in the American news media. In exploring the relationship of the leader myth to the attacks, a conceptual distinction is made between the palliative war and the etiological war. The distinction is, then, applied to an analysis of leadership issues embedded in the events of 9/11 and its aftermath. Using a psychodynamic perspective, the thesis is advanced that intergroup shadow dynamics underlie the etiological war while the palliative war addresses only symptoms created by the shadow dynamics. Suggestions regarding the etiological war are offered for managing the leadership issues hidden in the shadow dynamics of 9/ll.
If only a world-wide consciousness could arise that all division and all fission are due to the splitting of opposites in the psyche, then we would know where to begin. (Carl Jung)
My enemy said to me, ‘Love your enemy’ and I obeyed him and loved myself. (Kahlil Gibran)
In early January I received the following email from Christopher Land: “I was recently re-reading the paper on “Leadership: An Alienating Social Myth?” that you wrote with Judith Oakley and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the volume of press coverage that has been devoted to leadership in recent months (Gemmill and Oakley, 1992). A recent news feature: from a narrow, contested election victory in the US, George Bush has apparently risen admirably to the challenge of ‘world leader’. In the UK, Tony Blair has taken on the mission of becoming the free-West’s emissary to the rest of the world, thereby demonstrating his leadership abilities. Both of these events have tended to be reported, in the UK at least, in an unconditionally positive light. Of course not a day goes by when we are not reminded of the insidious, and strangely elusive, charismatic leadership of Osama Bin Laden. The point of this email is to see whether you would be interested in reflecting upon these post 9/11 developments in light of your thesis on leadership put forward in the 1992 paper?” This is the context from which I reflect here on the relevance of the early thesis to the leadership issues surrounding 9/11 (the September 11th terrorist attack on America) and its aftermath. As I hope to show the thesis seems alive and well in the wake of the 9/11 disaster.
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