now I consider that I myself I’m a
successful man in business
I hate business I hate everything to do
with it accounting figuring adding up
numbers because they are all arid they
don’t smell of anything sometimes
there’s an interesting smell to the ink
on a checkbook but by and large all this
figuring is a completely colorless
occupation I don’t like it so I have to
hand it over to accountants and lawyers
and people who seem to like it but I
don’t know whether they really do the
essential principle of business of
occupation in the world is this figure
out some way in which you get paid for
playing
[Applause]
when I was quite young I forget the
exact age I made a solemn vow which was
that I would never accept a job I would
always be my own employer and curiously
there are very few roles in life which
provide this possibility the successful
artist writer and sometimes musician
can occupy this role I mean it may be a
but by and large almost everybody seems
to be compelled to take a job with a
corporation it’s very difficult indeed
these days to run a small business where
you’re your own boss
because
you have to employ an enormous staff of
I know a person for example who has a
where he raises avocados and the
Department of Commerce visited him with
a stack of forms this thick
which he had to fool to fill it
you got tough said I haven’t the
faintest idea
what to fill into these forms he said to
the agent of the Department of Commerce
new filter
and he made that man sit down
[Music]
filling in these forms because you said
I don’t have the time I’m raising
avocados that’s my business and our soul
is paperwork or to hell with it and the
same situation prevails not only in
business but also in the university and
in the hospital one of my favorite
doctors told me the other day that he
spends only 1/3 of his working hours
practicing medicine the rest is in
recording accounting filling in reports
and it’s the same in every hospital
paperwork endlessly because the record
of what you do is more important than
what you do write it down and then it’s
real
and so for the same reason a lot of
people don’t believe they exist until
they see their activities reported in
a lot of juvenile delinquents commit
crimes just to get attention they’ll get
recorded it’s like you go to a party you
know it’s a picnic on the beach and it’s
great fun and somebody says what a shame
it is that nobody has a camera well now
I should talk because of this moment we
are recording what’s going on both on
tape recorded on TV and remember that it
takes as long to view it or to listen to
now who’s gonna listen to all this
so there’s something fundamentally wrong
yeah
and which the businessman of all people
needs to understand what the businessman
needs to know
equally
what the army officer needs to know is
the same what do you really want I have
proposed that there be an entirely new
kind of college entrance examination in
which instead of answering a lot of
silly questions you write for about 20
pages on your idea of paradise it can be
any kind of paradise you want it can be
very spiritual it can be very sensuous
but spell it out what do you want to
happen in life
[Music]
then you will hand this thesis in to an
assigned tutor on the faculty and he’ll
read it over and examine you closely as
to whether this is what you really want
do you realize for example what goes
with the things you say you desire I
mean for example you want to marry a
certain kind of beautiful woman and you
specify in your paper the
characteristics
she should have but says the tutor you
said absolutely nothing about her mother
and her mother because every girl goes
with a mother I mean unless she’s an
orphan and you must also specify what
kind of mother-in-law you want well then
you have to stop and think about that
and that’s just an illustration of going
into detail and being very careful about
what you desire because it’s a good
saying be careful of what you desire you
so this is the problem of thinking out
carefully
where it is that you want to go now
let’s take the war in Vietnam which was
supposed to be concluded what on earth
was it all about if we had gone with
military pomp and might into Vietnam for
the express purpose of conquering the
country and possessing it and carrying
off the women into captivity
it would have been understandable but as
it was it was waged for some absolutely
abstract in namely the stoppage of an
ideology called communism nobody knows
what communism is nor do we know what
capitalism is
but we can fight endlessly on the
supposition that there are good guys and
bad guys and when we fight on that
supposition there is no possibility of
compromise or of gentlemen’s agreement
as there is honor among thieves we’re
there is a doctrine in the Jewish
religion
that when God created out of them he put
into him a spirit which is called the
yet Sahara
and that means the wayward spirit or
what I call the element of irreducible
a little bit it’s not the whole of us
it’s like just a pinch of salt and the
student and you don’t want the whole
stew to be sold
but you have to have just a touch of
rascality to be you and I find it
difficult to get along with people who
don’t know that they have it
people who come on that they are all
sincere all good all pure bore me to
death and scare me as they they’re
unconscious of themselves and therefore
they suddenly do terrible things without
warning either to themselves or to
others they make promises that they’re
never going to fulfill because they want
to talk right and so if I do business
with someone who is not really aware
that he is a rascal I know he is
impossible to do business with he will
suddenly cheat me completely but if I’m
aware that he’s a bit of a shyster I
feel comfortable and I let him know that
I am too
then we’re human they’re making let our
hair down then we can say look let’s
work this out and assert this is what I
want
and I know what you want and if we can
get that clear we can work out a
we can compromise we have a little play
of give-and-take
but if you don’t have that you’re
absolutely snarled now look at it this
way you can’t operate business nowadays
without a whole team of lawyers and what
is the function of lawyers there to
write down the rules of the game so that
we have what is called the rule of law a
lot of people talk today about law and
it means that all organizations are
business corporations bureaucratic
government corporations even churches
they are operating according to a manual
and in many corporations individuals
have constituted to consult some sort of
manual to know what they should do
this doesn’t work it means that an
organization is entirely different from
an organism
you each one of you are an organism a
very very complicated organ which your
and you don’t know how you do it you
couldn’t begin to describe how your
nervous system works and even
neurologists don’t know how it works
and yet it works reasonably well because
your brain can handle an unknown number
of variables a variable is any
identifiable process such as breathing
such as the circulation of the blood
such as the secretions of the glands
such as the digestive system and so on
and so on
now you operate those all day without
there are no there’s no book of rules
according to which you do this so in the
same way if a corporation is to be a
true organism that’s distinct from an
organization it must be based on the
principle
trust and not a mall because if you
can’t trust other people you cannot have
but on the hair if you do trust them the
on 6240
[Music]
the system simply because they’re
trusted and as soon as you’ve got a
system where for example in a
supermarket all over the place TV
cameras watching everything all kinds of
checks on the cashiers they won’t sneak
off with something you’ve got a system
that increasingly won’t work because
nobody won’t want to work there one of
the major reasons for hippies and
dropouts is that human beings don’t want
to work under conditions like that
because there are mechanical conditions
and the mechanism is quite distinct from
the organism because the mechanism is
arranged on linear plans the book
whereas the organism transcends that
we don’t know how that means we can’t
write down how because it’s more
complicated than any form of writing and
now the computer
speeds up linear calculation to a
terrific extent but it still comes
nowhere near the capacity of the human
and so this is something that
has to be recognized as a principle now
let me give another illustration on
every corporation employs a number of
people in research
let’s take I Bea em they have a huge
center down near San Jose where they
and one of the first things they had to
recognize is that you can’t put creative
[Music]
you’ve got to trust creative research
people to fool around to sit about drink
coffee or maybe whiskey and scratch
their heads and look at blackboards and
play and then suddenly Zynga some
interesting result will occur but if you
make them punch clocks and if you say
these are the things that you’ve got to
so the corporation has to make an act of
faith in its research personnel it has
to say we recognize you having made an
amazing gift called brains we don’t know
what these are but it seems that in the
past you’ve been fruitful so we’re going
to employ you to do your thing whatever
that happens to be and we’ll make an act
of faith in and invariably if they make
that act of faith it will work some
fantastic idea will come out not perhaps
the idea you expected in fact it may not
even apply to your particular business
but you could always sell it to somebody
else now then let me go that this is an
a fundamental principle if there cannot
be community there cannot be corporation
and therefore there cannot be Commerce
which really broken down means being
merciful to each other there cannot
become us without mutual trust I mean
there even insurance companies called
mutual trust but it just can’t happen
the society at the moment is mutual
mistrust and therefore it becomes
increasingly difficult to do anything
business is inhibited by the lack of
free enterprise
[Music]
that sounds very right-wing
but actually fascist States corporate
states totalitarian states are after Lee
against free enterprise
[Music]
some Paul said that the labourer is
worthy of his ire and I as a philosopher
dealing in higher things
people say well you have to stop for
money
because I get most of it away
[Music]
it’s a very simple knife but I’ve got
enough and enough is as good as a feast
you see a lot of people don’t feel happy
unless they have another thing beyond
money which is called status and status
to a very large extent in our economy
consists in conspicuous consumption in
having this thing and that thing and the
other thing and having a swimming-pool a
Ferrari certain kind of clothes and
certain kind of house with an enormous
round style picture window and so on and
so on and so on and we think we need all
that because we’ve been persuaded by a
certain kind of propaganda that that’s
how we ought to live because we haven’t
asked ourselves whether that was what we
really wanted in other words we’ve been
propagandized into thinking what we
wanted I remember my daughter when she
was in high school number one daughter
who’s now become very sensible insisted
that she had to have a certain number of
in those days I couldn’t afford them I
said my dear do you really want these or
is it just that you’ve been reading ads
in the magazine or listening to the
other children because you see schools
and places where you send your child to
be brought up by other children and
therefore they get a kind of lowest
common denominator of culture they all
think they got to have this they gotta
have that and they don’t really want it
if they sat back and considered do I
need all that is this trip really
necessary they would come to the
conclusion that it possible and that
would be very important because they
would save energy you all know of course
that we are nearing an energy crisis
that there is not enough physical energy
going to be available for all the things
we think we’re supposed to do go rushing
around so on so we need to take towards commerce a more relaxed attitude
successful man in business
I hate business I hate everything to do
with it accounting figuring adding up
numbers because they are all arid they
don’t smell of anything sometimes
there’s an interesting smell to the ink
on a checkbook but by and large all this
figuring is a completely colorless
occupation I don’t like it so I have to
hand it over to accountants and lawyers
and people who seem to like it but I
don’t know whether they really do the
essential principle of business of
occupation in the world is this figure
out some way in which you get paid for
playing
[Applause]
when I was quite young I forget the
exact age I made a solemn vow which was
that I would never accept a job I would
always be my own employer and curiously
there are very few roles in life which
provide this possibility the successful
artist writer and sometimes musician
can occupy this role I mean it may be a
but by and large almost everybody seems
to be compelled to take a job with a
corporation it’s very difficult indeed
these days to run a small business where
you’re your own boss
because
you have to employ an enormous staff of
I know a person for example who has a
where he raises avocados and the
Department of Commerce visited him with
a stack of forms this thick
which he had to fool to fill it
you got tough said I haven’t the
faintest idea
what to fill into these forms he said to
the agent of the Department of Commerce
new filter
and he made that man sit down
[Music]
filling in these forms because you said
I don’t have the time I’m raising
avocados that’s my business and our soul
is paperwork or to hell with it and the
same situation prevails not only in
business but also in the university and
in the hospital one of my favorite
doctors told me the other day that he
spends only 1/3 of his working hours
practicing medicine the rest is in
recording accounting filling in reports
and it’s the same in every hospital
paperwork endlessly because the record
of what you do is more important than
what you do write it down and then it’s
real
and so for the same reason a lot of
people don’t believe they exist until
they see their activities reported in
a lot of juvenile delinquents commit
crimes just to get attention they’ll get
recorded it’s like you go to a party you
know it’s a picnic on the beach and it’s
great fun and somebody says what a shame
it is that nobody has a camera well now
I should talk because of this moment we
are recording what’s going on both on
tape recorded on TV and remember that it
takes as long to view it or to listen to
now who’s gonna listen to all this
so there’s something fundamentally wrong
yeah
and which the businessman of all people
needs to understand what the businessman
needs to know
equally
what the army officer needs to know is
the same what do you really want I have
proposed that there be an entirely new
kind of college entrance examination in
which instead of answering a lot of
silly questions you write for about 20
pages on your idea of paradise it can be
any kind of paradise you want it can be
very spiritual it can be very sensuous
but spell it out what do you want to
happen in life
[Music]
then you will hand this thesis in to an
assigned tutor on the faculty and he’ll
read it over and examine you closely as
to whether this is what you really want
do you realize for example what goes
with the things you say you desire I
mean for example you want to marry a
certain kind of beautiful woman and you
specify in your paper the
characteristics
she should have but says the tutor you
said absolutely nothing about her mother
and her mother because every girl goes
with a mother I mean unless she’s an
orphan and you must also specify what
kind of mother-in-law you want well then
you have to stop and think about that
and that’s just an illustration of going
into detail and being very careful about
what you desire because it’s a good
saying be careful of what you desire you
so this is the problem of thinking out
carefully
where it is that you want to go now
let’s take the war in Vietnam which was
supposed to be concluded what on earth
was it all about if we had gone with
military pomp and might into Vietnam for
the express purpose of conquering the
country and possessing it and carrying
off the women into captivity
it would have been understandable but as
it was it was waged for some absolutely
abstract in namely the stoppage of an
ideology called communism nobody knows
what communism is nor do we know what
capitalism is
but we can fight endlessly on the
supposition that there are good guys and
bad guys and when we fight on that
supposition there is no possibility of
compromise or of gentlemen’s agreement
as there is honor among thieves we’re
there is a doctrine in the Jewish
religion
that when God created out of them he put
into him a spirit which is called the
yet Sahara
and that means the wayward spirit or
what I call the element of irreducible
a little bit it’s not the whole of us
it’s like just a pinch of salt and the
student and you don’t want the whole
stew to be sold
but you have to have just a touch of
rascality to be you and I find it
difficult to get along with people who
don’t know that they have it
people who come on that they are all
sincere all good all pure bore me to
death and scare me as they they’re
unconscious of themselves and therefore
they suddenly do terrible things without
warning either to themselves or to
others they make promises that they’re
never going to fulfill because they want
to talk right and so if I do business
with someone who is not really aware
that he is a rascal I know he is
impossible to do business with he will
suddenly cheat me completely but if I’m
aware that he’s a bit of a shyster I
feel comfortable and I let him know that
I am too
then we’re human they’re making let our
hair down then we can say look let’s
work this out and assert this is what I
want
and I know what you want and if we can
get that clear we can work out a
we can compromise we have a little play
of give-and-take
but if you don’t have that you’re
absolutely snarled now look at it this
way you can’t operate business nowadays
without a whole team of lawyers and what
is the function of lawyers there to
write down the rules of the game so that
we have what is called the rule of law a
lot of people talk today about law and
it means that all organizations are
business corporations bureaucratic
government corporations even churches
they are operating according to a manual
and in many corporations individuals
have constituted to consult some sort of
manual to know what they should do
this doesn’t work it means that an
organization is entirely different from
an organism
you each one of you are an organism a
very very complicated organ which your
and you don’t know how you do it you
couldn’t begin to describe how your
nervous system works and even
neurologists don’t know how it works
and yet it works reasonably well because
your brain can handle an unknown number
of variables a variable is any
identifiable process such as breathing
such as the circulation of the blood
such as the secretions of the glands
such as the digestive system and so on
and so on
now you operate those all day without
there are no there’s no book of rules
according to which you do this so in the
same way if a corporation is to be a
true organism that’s distinct from an
organization it must be based on the
principle
trust and not a mall because if you
can’t trust other people you cannot have
but on the hair if you do trust them the
on 6240
[Music]
the system simply because they’re
trusted and as soon as you’ve got a
system where for example in a
supermarket all over the place TV
cameras watching everything all kinds of
checks on the cashiers they won’t sneak
off with something you’ve got a system
that increasingly won’t work because
nobody won’t want to work there one of
the major reasons for hippies and
dropouts is that human beings don’t want
to work under conditions like that
because there are mechanical conditions
and the mechanism is quite distinct from
the organism because the mechanism is
arranged on linear plans the book
whereas the organism transcends that
we don’t know how that means we can’t
write down how because it’s more
complicated than any form of writing and
now the computer
speeds up linear calculation to a
terrific extent but it still comes
nowhere near the capacity of the human
and so this is something that
has to be recognized as a principle now
let me give another illustration on
every corporation employs a number of
people in research
let’s take I Bea em they have a huge
center down near San Jose where they
and one of the first things they had to
recognize is that you can’t put creative
[Music]
you’ve got to trust creative research
people to fool around to sit about drink
coffee or maybe whiskey and scratch
their heads and look at blackboards and
play and then suddenly Zynga some
interesting result will occur but if you
make them punch clocks and if you say
these are the things that you’ve got to
so the corporation has to make an act of
faith in its research personnel it has
to say we recognize you having made an
amazing gift called brains we don’t know
what these are but it seems that in the
past you’ve been fruitful so we’re going
to employ you to do your thing whatever
that happens to be and we’ll make an act
of faith in and invariably if they make
that act of faith it will work some
fantastic idea will come out not perhaps
the idea you expected in fact it may not
even apply to your particular business
but you could always sell it to somebody
else now then let me go that this is an
a fundamental principle if there cannot
be community there cannot be corporation
and therefore there cannot be Commerce
which really broken down means being
merciful to each other there cannot
become us without mutual trust I mean
there even insurance companies called
mutual trust but it just can’t happen
the society at the moment is mutual
mistrust and therefore it becomes
increasingly difficult to do anything
business is inhibited by the lack of
free enterprise
[Music]
that sounds very right-wing
but actually fascist States corporate
states totalitarian states are after Lee
against free enterprise
[Music]
some Paul said that the labourer is
worthy of his ire and I as a philosopher
dealing in higher things
people say well you have to stop for
money
because I get most of it away
[Music]
it’s a very simple knife but I’ve got
enough and enough is as good as a feast
you see a lot of people don’t feel happy
unless they have another thing beyond
money which is called status and status
to a very large extent in our economy
consists in conspicuous consumption in
having this thing and that thing and the
other thing and having a swimming-pool a
Ferrari certain kind of clothes and
certain kind of house with an enormous
round style picture window and so on and
so on and so on and we think we need all
that because we’ve been persuaded by a
certain kind of propaganda that that’s
how we ought to live because we haven’t
asked ourselves whether that was what we
really wanted in other words we’ve been
propagandized into thinking what we
wanted I remember my daughter when she
was in high school number one daughter
who’s now become very sensible insisted
that she had to have a certain number of
in those days I couldn’t afford them I
said my dear do you really want these or
is it just that you’ve been reading ads
in the magazine or listening to the
other children because you see schools
and places where you send your child to
be brought up by other children and
therefore they get a kind of lowest
common denominator of culture they all
think they got to have this they gotta
have that and they don’t really want it
if they sat back and considered do I
need all that is this trip really
necessary they would come to the
conclusion that it possible and that
would be very important because they
would save energy you all know of course
that we are nearing an energy crisis
that there is not enough physical energy
going to be available for all the things
we think we’re supposed to do go rushing
around so on so we need to take towards commerce a more relaxed attitude
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