Do you suffer from Charientocracy? I do. Let me explain.
Every time I travel and go around different places and give lectures and presentations I approach students, colleagues, and friends with a sense of mission (and concealed superiority). After all I am a university professor with several degrees and an IEEE Fellow - - - and sometimes forget that thinking too highly of oneself is a fatal vice.
This last trip to South America I took a more relaxed approach. I still lectured, but took a different outlook. At the end of my visit I had (I believe) a more profitable and enjoyable time.
On my way back, from 33,000 feet, I kept thinking about a term introduced by a British professor (*): Charientocracy - and from which I borrow much of the following ramblings).
The professor starts by rightly affirming that Theocracy is the worst corrupted form of leadership - then he observes that we are not in any danger of it (unless from the desire of some religious radicals). The real danger, he says, comes from something that would be only a little less intolerable, but intolerable in almost the same way. And that is what he calls Charientocracy: not the rule of the "saints" but the rule of the Cultured, the Educated, the Academic, the Manager - - - -
He goes on to comment that as the old social classes broke down two new ones have developed. On the one hand we have people building themselves into groups within which they can feel superior to the masses; the self-appointed aristocracies. On the other hand we have a new ruling class: the Managerial Class. The combinations of these two groups bring us Charientocracy. And the two groups are already combining, because university education is the main mean of access to the Managerial Class, and rightly so since we do not want our rulers to be stupid people.
With regard to the students the professor mentions that they are now far more defenseless in the hands of the professors as they come from suburban areas in which there are fewer opportunities for spontaneous learning. The educational machine seizes them very early and organizes their life, to the exclusion of all unsuperintended solitude or leisure. In short, the modern student is the ideal patient for those masters who, not content with teaching a subject would create a synthetic character.
Every time I travel and go around different places and give lectures and presentations I approach students, colleagues, and friends with a sense of mission (and concealed superiority). After all I am a university professor with several degrees and an IEEE Fellow - - - and sometimes forget that thinking too highly of oneself is a fatal vice.
This last trip to South America I took a more relaxed approach. I still lectured, but took a different outlook. At the end of my visit I had (I believe) a more profitable and enjoyable time.
On my way back, from 33,000 feet, I kept thinking about a term introduced by a British professor (*): Charientocracy - and from which I borrow much of the following ramblings).
The professor starts by rightly affirming that Theocracy is the worst corrupted form of leadership - then he observes that we are not in any danger of it (unless from the desire of some religious radicals). The real danger, he says, comes from something that would be only a little less intolerable, but intolerable in almost the same way. And that is what he calls Charientocracy: not the rule of the "saints" but the rule of the Cultured, the Educated, the Academic, the Manager - - - -
He goes on to comment that as the old social classes broke down two new ones have developed. On the one hand we have people building themselves into groups within which they can feel superior to the masses; the self-appointed aristocracies. On the other hand we have a new ruling class: the Managerial Class. The combinations of these two groups bring us Charientocracy. And the two groups are already combining, because university education is the main mean of access to the Managerial Class, and rightly so since we do not want our rulers to be stupid people.
With regard to the students the professor mentions that they are now far more defenseless in the hands of the professors as they come from suburban areas in which there are fewer opportunities for spontaneous learning. The educational machine seizes them very early and organizes their life, to the exclusion of all unsuperintended solitude or leisure. In short, the modern student is the ideal patient for those masters who, not content with teaching a subject would create a synthetic character.
The independent minded students will not get good marks unless they produce the kind of responses which commend themselves to their teacher. This means that they are trained in the (not very difficult) art of simulating the orthodox responses. For nearly all students are good mimics. - - -
But the new system wants to control the outcome by presenting every student with an ultimatum: "Read the books and do these simulations, etc, whom we, the educated, approve, and say the sort of things we say about them, or else.” And this shows how Charientocracy can deal with the minority of students who have tastes of their own: They get low marks, are kicked off the educational ladder and disappear into the proletariat.
Having explained why Charientocracy is probable the professor goes on to explain why it is undesirable: culture is a bad qualification for a ruling class because it does not qualify men to rule. The things we really need in our rulers are mercy, financial integrity, practical intelligence, hard work, and these are no more likely to be found in educated persons than in anyone else.
The old professor then affirms that culture is a bad qualification in the same way as sanctity. Both are hard to diagnose and easy to fake. Of course not every charientocrat will be a cultural hypocrite nor every theocrat a person who hypocritically pretends to be deeply pious. But both systems encourage hypocrisy.
But hypocrisy is not the only evil they encourage, he says. In the one we have the docile youth who has neither revolted against nor risen above the routine pietisms and respectabilities of his/her home. Their conformity has won the approval of the parents, the influential neighbors, and their own conscience. They do not know that they have missed anything and are content. In the other, we have the adaptable youth to whom learning has always been something "set" for "evaluation.” Success in this exercises have given them pleasure and let them into the ruling class. They do not know what they have missed and are content.
Both types are much to be pitied - both can sometimes be very nasty. Both may exhibit spiritual pride, but each in its proper form, since the one has succeeded by acquiescence and repression, but the other by repeated victory in competitive performances. One tends to be raw, truculent, eager to give pain, insatiable in its demands for submission, resentful and suspicious of disagreement. Where the soft slinks and sidles and sometimes scratches like a cat, the cultured gobbles like an enraged turkey. And perhaps both types are less curable than the hypocrite proper. A hypocrite might repent and mend and rendered innocuous. But who could bring to repentance those who were attempting no deception?
Finally, the prof points to the fact the why Theocracy and Charientocracy are almost identical. The higher the pretensions of our rulers, administrators and academicians are, the more interfering and impertinent their rule is likely to be and the more the thing in whose name they rule will be defiled. The highest things have the most precarious foothold in our nature.
Reflecting on this writings helped me to tune up again for the semester – in which I hope to fight the temptations of Charientocracy; to foster independence, creativity and even rebellion. I will do my best to not require students to regurgitate what the textbook authors say, much less my rendering of their content. I hope to excite their natural modes of resonance, to encourage spontaneous learning and creative-imaginative responses; to map out boundaries for analysis and development, all constrained by ethical principles.
I then remembered that I learned a great deal from a blind uneducated fisherman (in the northeast coast of Brazil) - - - and who contributed to my college education more than some of my own engineering professors.
Thus, perhaps the lesson for all of us: be appreciative of the good education received (even from unconventional sources) and never to boast in it.
I feel a little lighter now - - - as the plane prepares for landing.
Cheers
Paulo
(*) CS Lewis
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