Sacred Cows & Spittoons: Faking-Friendly Fads

I can’t help marveling at how the maturity, sophistication, and impressive intellectual capital of an organization seems to become so feckless and cramped in the face of forces that derive from patently short-sighted motivations.  All it takes is for a few key people gifted with lumbar pliability to convince the circus master of their contortionist skills.  And voila…the results are an impressive vaudeville act featuring a whirligig of fads, buzzwords, plats du jour, and sacred cows.  The act ends abruptly, for a swift and theatrical switch to the next show on the bill.  A clownish little entr’acte might follow, and then a garish magician walks in.  With deft leger de main and consummate showmanship, the sacred cow of the previous act turns with a puff of smoke into a drab little spittoon.  The audience laps it up, and promptly proceeds to fill the spittoon through well aimed shots from the galleries.

One sees so many circus masters who can mesmerize audiences with a clever combination of fear, thrill, entertainment and charismatic showmanship, so that an august and senatorial group of people can turn in a flash into the herd-like proletariat of the Roman colosseum, high on bread and circuses.