Company
Max Barry
In a large, modern company there are people (who are called resources or headcount - if the management decides to be especially stockholder friendly) who will typically not be told of the relevance of their activities, the reason why they do what they do or the effect of what they do. They are merely cogs on a wheel that has no interest in telling them where they are going.
They are also programmed to respond to certain corporate jargon. The response is usually one of fear and then the reaction is to save one's job. The jargon they typically respond to it "downsizing", "outsourcing", "consolidation", "increasing efficiencies", "increasing shareholder value". All of them mean people will be laid off. No one knows what the company gains from these actions, but they are done anyway.
The book, The Company, by Max Barry takes this premise and with a healthy dose of cynicism explores what happens when simple workers are exposed to these actions. The method he uses is something most of us often wonder about - that we really are laboratory rats in an experiment being conducted by a super-intelligent species.
The characters are delightfully exaggerated, their reactions also seem exaggerated but the underlying reason is quite real and understandable.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Review: Judgement at Nuremberg
Judgement at Nuremberg (1961)
Stanley Kramer
There are few movies that dwell for three hours on a topic where there are no black and white characters and there are certainly no right and wrong answers. However, Judgement at Nuremberg is one of them.
Spencer Tracy, as Judge Haywoood, is well aware that in the US is an ordinary judge who has been elected out of a federal court. He has been assigned a task only because several others did not want it. The task is to preside over a case of four judges from Nazi Germany. They are accused of carrying out atrocities by passing judgements in line with the extreme Nazi policies.
One of the accused is an eminent jurist, author of several books and one who was known to not be too friendly towards Hitler. The role is played with remarkable restraint by Burt Lancaster.
The question at hand is the following:
During Nazi rule ordinary people went about doing their jobs according to the law of the land. In the process they violated basic human right. Many were however obeying the law. The punishment for not following the law of the land was harsh. In the process what should people to. The movie discusses this topic, not with the common man in mind, but with people who wield power to hand down sentences, but could perhaps have changed the system if they tried and most importantly if the actions were justified within some higher, unwritten but apparent law that human beings should be intuitively aware of.
Lancaster in his role as Dr. Ernst Janning earnestly explains what Hitler meant to people like him. He restored pride, he drove away fear of today, tomorrow, neighbors and instilled a confidence that the Germans had not known since the end of the First War. He also explains that Hitlers actions were distasteful, however he rationalizes his actions by saying the positives outweighed the negatives and more importantly the personality cult of Hitler would die with him.
Maximilian Schell as the lead defense attorney is brilliant in explaining away the horrors of the distorted justice meted out by the Nazi judges.
It is Spencer Tracy who makes it clear to everyone that human decency is paramount. He sees it in the commom people on the street, he sees it in Marlene Dietrich who plays the role of the wife of a dead General, he sees a shocking absence of it in the Nazi judges. He is also sensitive to the gradual pressure being applied by the victors to not hand out harsh sentences to the Nazi judges for the fear of alienating the German people. Finally he goes by what he thinks is right knowing fully well that vested interests will eventually change the decision.
Stanley Kramer
There are few movies that dwell for three hours on a topic where there are no black and white characters and there are certainly no right and wrong answers. However, Judgement at Nuremberg is one of them.
Spencer Tracy, as Judge Haywoood, is well aware that in the US is an ordinary judge who has been elected out of a federal court. He has been assigned a task only because several others did not want it. The task is to preside over a case of four judges from Nazi Germany. They are accused of carrying out atrocities by passing judgements in line with the extreme Nazi policies.
One of the accused is an eminent jurist, author of several books and one who was known to not be too friendly towards Hitler. The role is played with remarkable restraint by Burt Lancaster.
The question at hand is the following:
During Nazi rule ordinary people went about doing their jobs according to the law of the land. In the process they violated basic human right. Many were however obeying the law. The punishment for not following the law of the land was harsh. In the process what should people to. The movie discusses this topic, not with the common man in mind, but with people who wield power to hand down sentences, but could perhaps have changed the system if they tried and most importantly if the actions were justified within some higher, unwritten but apparent law that human beings should be intuitively aware of.
Lancaster in his role as Dr. Ernst Janning earnestly explains what Hitler meant to people like him. He restored pride, he drove away fear of today, tomorrow, neighbors and instilled a confidence that the Germans had not known since the end of the First War. He also explains that Hitlers actions were distasteful, however he rationalizes his actions by saying the positives outweighed the negatives and more importantly the personality cult of Hitler would die with him.
Maximilian Schell as the lead defense attorney is brilliant in explaining away the horrors of the distorted justice meted out by the Nazi judges.
It is Spencer Tracy who makes it clear to everyone that human decency is paramount. He sees it in the commom people on the street, he sees it in Marlene Dietrich who plays the role of the wife of a dead General, he sees a shocking absence of it in the Nazi judges. He is also sensitive to the gradual pressure being applied by the victors to not hand out harsh sentences to the Nazi judges for the fear of alienating the German people. Finally he goes by what he thinks is right knowing fully well that vested interests will eventually change the decision.
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