The glorification of thuggery
Beyond excellent, this article should be profiled in the New York Times or Forbes instead of languishing here on Medium. I read it with a combination of fist-pumping shouts of “amen” and breath-stopping, blood-freezing, soul-draining anxiety.
Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, is but the latest (formerly) glorified poster child of lying to the tune of a $9 billion valuation. Reverently called “the next Steve Jobs,” Silicon Valley adored her doe-eyed innocence, transparently copied black turtlenecks, and secretive, inscrutable corporate hierarchy. Rich and famous alike fed her exalted status: deception in the pursuit of unstoppable greed. Her royal treatment became indicative of our own addictive behaviors, as though she was a magic pill for the privileged class, Ativan for Daily Life.
What is happening today is horrifying, yet it’s all too often dismissed with a casual wave of the hand, bereft of consequence. How does this happen? How can we be so naive?
Because we are naive. We are too well mannered and polite to effectively battle the snarky, presumptive behaviors that are destroying us. Instead, we collapse into road rage, working two or three jobs and watching our real incomes erode. We’ve stopped taking earned vacations, and have become further numbed and satiated through the endless watching of Netflix and showing each other pictures of food on Facebook. As if success has come down to showing that we still have food on our tables. Seriously?
I agree that our collective ambivalence about all this is not so much due to ambivalence as it is to intimidation from the bully mentality that is fueling the mindset that the wealthy or so-called successful among us feel themselves to possess: that of being entitled.
Socialism is an interesting word to examine in this context. Because, oddly, so much of today’s wealth is being produced by products and software that emphasizes their social nature or their benefits to humanity. The truth is, the bully’s narcissistic approach to life and business is far from being socially friendly. The cited example of Uber is proof: founders who are dictatorial. Uber riders have long since figured out how dreadfully drivers are treated, all under the guise of a shiny new toy, a brave new world of technological beauty. But there is no beauty or fairness in Uber.
The last thing these despots want is to to be more social. Money becomes power. I’ve been employed by a number of these (generally well-polished) megalomaniacs over the years. I’ve taken endless humiliations and browbeatings, been accused of things I never faintly imagined, and frequently cheated out of sizable bonuses. The cheaters and opportunists have virtually no interest in being ‘cured’. They only want more. For them.
The solution lies in standing up to them, in being willing to pay whatever price that needs to be paid to put a stop to the unstoppable. But alas, very few us are willing to take that stand.
