I have been working in the gigantic
cubicle for almost 30 years. One significant thing that I have noticed is to
watch people exercising their power with language. It’s even more interesting
to watch how people are dominated and respond to it. The gigantic cubicle has
its own ways and stories.
it’s still clear in my mind when the
newly appointed previous master of the cubicle, address his speech of welcome a
couple of years ago. He was expecting the entire troops of the cubicle to
transform themselves into intellectual leaders of the nation. As many other political speech they
tend to be vague and moving. He blew spirit into his words and the words become
alive in everyone’s memory. Unfortunately nobody could explain what
intellectual leaders were. So what actually happened at that time, all the
text, be it oral and written text mentioned intellectual leaders and put their
own intepretation into it. The words are too beautiful and powerful. It’s
better to leave them unquestioned and fill the empty spot of meaning with each
own interpretation.
My boss is not an exception. He
translated the expression into a program. A series of benchmarking to many
countries were planned. He said, we have to be intellectual leaders in this
nation. It is important that we upgrade outselves so as to be able to walk in
front and be the walking leaders for
this country. He proposed the plan and it was approved for it bears the label
intellectual leaders on top. The word of the master and the power that it
beared was interpreted to serve his self interest. Benchmarking to a number of
countries is equal to perdiem in US dollars. The gigantic cubicle is notorious
for providing decent perdiem. The power behind the words, worked like a gaze.
They made people stop to think and obey the words. Some actually doubt, but
they murmured behind the curtain as to be able to avoid the gaze. They wanted
to look just like the rest “ordinary” people, who admires and adores the words.
I
went to the master himself and asked him:”What do you mean by intellectual
leaders?” He explained to me beautifully.
In a moment I was caught by the charms of his explanation. Once I went
out of his room, I realize, he was not explaining anything, he was just
showering me with the spirit of his words.
In short, allow me to say, he did not really know what he meant by those
words and therefore he could not pinpoint his expectations at the operational
level. The empty words carry the master's powerand everyone was busy interpreting it to cater their self
interest.
