Author: Ed That Goes Ping

The B-Scan

NYT:

Ever wonder what leads a lavishly compensated C.E.O. to cheat, steal and lie? Perhaps he’s a psychopath, and now there is a test, the B-Scan 360, that can help make that determination. The B-Scan was conceived by Paul Babiak, an industrial psychologist, and Robert Hare, the creator of the standard tool for diagnosing psychopathic features in prison inmates. The B-Scan is the first formalized attempt to uncover similar tendencies in captains of industry, and it speaks to a growing suspicion that psychopaths may be especially adept at scaling the corporate ladder.

Indeed, Babiak and Hare could not have chosen a more propitious moment to roll out the B-Scan, which is now in the trial stage. The recent rash of damaging corporate scandals — combined with legislation making boards far more liable for executive malfeasance — has given companies good reason to screen current employees more rigorously.

According to Babiak and Hare, white-collar psychopaths are not apt to become serial rapists or murderers. Rather, they are prone to being ”subcriminal” psychopaths: smooth-talking, energetic individuals who easily charm their way into jobs and promotions but who are also exceedingly manipulative, narcissistic and ruthless. The purpose of the B-Scan is to smoke out these ”snakes in suits.”

The individual being evaluated does not actually take the test. Instead, it is given to his or her superiors, subordinates and peers. They rate the subject in four broad categories — organizational maturity, personal style, emotional style and social style — and 16 subcategories, like reliability, honesty and sincerity.

Babiak and Hare say that decisions to promote or dismiss ought not to be made on the basis of the B-Scan alone and that it is possible, with good coaching and training, to turn a talented executive with mild psychopathic tendencies into an effective manager. They acknowledge too that strong corporate leadership may require a certain degree of guile, egoism and callousness.

But they point out that the frenzied nature of modern business — the constant downsizing, the relentless merging and acquiring — provides a very fertile environment for havoc-wreaking psychopaths, who thrive on chaos and risk-taking. As Hare put it in one interview, ”If I couldn’t study psychopaths in prison, I would go down to the Stock Exchange.”

The thing is, the people commissioning these tests are going to be largely psychopaths themselves, if they’re typical CEOs…

Anti-Consumerism is Consumerist?

I’m not particularly invested in the whole “anti-consumerism, culture-jamming” movement, so I’m not particularly scandalized by that, but I’m not sure I get it.

Rebel Sell linked from MetaFilter (which has several other links.)

UPDATE: reading it. Getting it. Makes total sense.

The basic idea is this: the whole “anti-consumerism” meme is predicated on the notion that”capitalism/consumerism” is all about conformity. And that you can be different by not conforming and buying special differen things which those ordinary consumerists don’t buy.

But that’s not true; capitalism and consumerism don’t want everyone to try to be like everyone else — that would actually be fairly achieveable, on the materialistic side of things anyway, and capitalism doesn’t want you to have achieveable goals; you might reach them and stop buying things. Capitalism wants you to always try and be better, more special, than everbody else. And being anti-consumerist makes you the most special of all. So it’s the same vibe. “I’m one of the few cool ones because I buy Nike” is exactly the same thought, phrased in different words, as “I’m one of the few cool ones because I buy things that are more enlightened than Nike.”

Brilliant little article. I like. But of course, I would like. I’ve never been cool enough to choose a “rebel” product except for Linux, my current Mac I guess, and one lone pair of actual Birks bought back in grad school. So it’s easy for me to say “yeah, that is totally true,” cause I’m not the one he takes aim at.

Creepier Still

Apparently the Christian Reconstructionist movement, which is the theological basis for the neo-Confederate thinking behind the previously mentioned pro-slavery history booklet, is based on the theology of a Christian Reformed minister named Cornelius Van Til, who, like me, went to Calvin College. Reconstructionism itself was articulated by a fellow named Rushdoony, a student of his. Hip reconstructionists don’t call themselves that anymore, for the same reasons that Amway doesn’t call itself Amway anymore. The name took on a justifiable stink.

I am not sure what relationship the Christian Reformed Church has had with Christian Reconstructionism, historically. I vaguely remember reading an attack on Reconstructionism in some journal of theology when I was a Calvin student.

It’s disappointing to see that my alma mater has borne such evil fruit.

School Defends Slavery Booklet

Raleigh News & Observer notes:

Students at one of the area’s largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived “a life of plenty, of simple pleasures.”

Leaders at Cary Christian School say they are not condoning slavery by using “Southern Slavery, As It Was,” a booklet that attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren’t treated as badly as people think.

Years ago I lived in the Triangle area. I was getting my Master’s in Latin from the University of North Carolina. For a semester I made a little extra money teaching on Fridays for a “Friday School” for home schoolers. I taught Latin. This was a huge selling point for the school, which billed itself as a “Classical Christian” school and was part of some movement in that direction.

Apparently one of the booklet’s authors wrote the book which inspired that movement.

CREEPY.

According to BoingBoing, where I got the story, the school has pulled the booklet because of the controversy.

UPDATE:

I had no idea how creeptastic this “Classical Christian Education” stuff was. This is from a PDF made available by Wilson on his web site. The booklet is full of gushing about how important it is to learn Latin and the importance of language and imagination for the Christian mind, all stuff that sounds good, then it comes out with this:

Fundamental to Christian worldview thinking is the biblical notion of antithesis. An antithesis is a sharp juxtaposition of two claims or views. Part of thinking like a Christian means that we aim to rid our outlook of all non-Christian assumptions about the world, history, human nature, knowledge, science, the arts, and every other subject. In its place we seek understanding from God’s revelation on each and every concern, for in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge� (Col. 2:3).

To be a Christian is to be in constant, total war. We have no say in the matter, and no one is exempt from serving. This war is not just some sideline feature of the Christian life. It is the Christian life. Every step toward seeing “every knee bow� before the Lord of glory is an act of war, whether in faithfulness or hatred. Until that point, the war is ruthless and relentless. The horrific enemy onslaught never ceases.

This war is not only constant but total, unconfined, and overwhelming. It is not limited to the daily fight against our own sin but encompasses everything within and without. It is not limited to our own or any one time but rages in every corner of history. It is not limited to our own flesh-and-blood world and history but is driven by dark clashes in heavenly places.

And as this battle moves us all along, killing and maiming, crushing and roaring, much of contemporary Christianity fights with bumper stickers and self-esteem seminars. As the enemy smiles and schemes to ravage our children and decapitate our churches, we try to play down our differences with our attackers and use their institutions as models for our own. As they mock Christ to His face, we learn to relax, take a joke, and create a more entertaining worship atmosphere. The only thing worse than being cut to death in the middle of a war is having it happen without realizing it.

The ironic thing is that, well, if Christians had historically held to this belief, there would be no Classical Christian education because Christians would have rejected wholesale the Classical culture on which the medieval intellectual tradition he so loves is based.

Few actual medieval intellectuals would recognize this kind of bile as having anything to do with themselves.

Of course, he’s not into the medievals that much — he is a very angry, angry Calvinist, and Calvin lived at the dark and chaotic end of medieval civilization, when Christianity was slicing itself to ribbons with the tools of Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric that Wilson idolizes (and I choose that word carefully).

SO DAMN CREEPY GET ME AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE.

I met a guy at the coffee shop a while ago who works for a Christian school on the north side of town, about eight or nine months ago, and he dropped the Classical Christian Education buzzword. They had been looking for a teacher of Greek I just missed applying for that job, but in retrospect I’m sure glad I did miss it. I do not want to be a part of that kind of thing.

No wonder our country is in such rotten shape, if it’s full of people who respect this kind of thinking. It’s not even thinking, it’s freaking pathology. And apparently it’s everywhere.

And in his happy little slavery booklet Wilson shows some glimmer of the kind of agenda that follows from it.