Arthur Andersen – The Pull Of The Land

The Power of the Powerless II

November 6, 2021November 6, 2021 Richard Barnes

I invite you to read Part I for background on this series of posts, whose title is taken from Václav Havel’s famous 1978 essay.

Havel valiantly attempts to define his terms, beginning with “dictatorship”. One who carefully reads the following extracts from the early paragraphs of his essay, will see he speaks to us today.

Because good writing speaks across generations.

From “The Power of the Powerless”

(all emphases are mine):

“Our system [speaking of Czechoslovakia, in 1978] is most frequently characterized as a dictatorship or, more precisely, as the dictatorship of a political bureaucracy over a society which has undergone economic and social leveling. I am afraid that the term “dictatorship,” regardless of how intelligible it may otherwise be, tends to obscure rather than clarify the real nature of power in this system. We usually associate the term with the notion of a small group of people who take over the government of a given country by force; their power is wielded openly, using the direct instruments of power at their disposal, and they are easily distinguished socially from the majority over whom they rule. One of the essential aspects of this traditional or classical notion of dictatorship is the assumption that it is temporary, ephemeral, lacking historical roots. Its existence seems to be bound up with the lives of those who established it. It is usually local in extent and significance, and regardless of the ideology it utilizes to grant itself legitimacy, its power derives ultimately from the numbers and the armed might of its soldiers and police. The principal threat to its existence is felt to be the possibility that someone better equipped in this sense might appear and overthrow it.

“Even this very superficial overview should make it clear that the system in which we live has very little in common with a classical dictatorship. In the first place, our system is not limited in a local, geographical sense; rather, it holds sway over a huge power bloc.… And although it quite naturally exhibits a number of local and historical variations, the range of these variations is fundamentally circumscribed by a single, unifying framework throughout…. Not only is the dictatorship everywhere based on the same principles and structured in the same way (that is, in the way evolved by the ruling power), but each country has been completely penetrated by a network of manipulatory instruments controlled by the power center and totally subordinated to its interests….

“[This system] commands an incomparably … precise, logically structured, generally comprehensible and, in essence, extremely flexible ideology that, in its elaborateness and completeness, is almost a secularized religion. It offers a ready answer to any question whatsoever; it can scarcely be accepted only in part…. In an era when metaphysical and existential certainties are in a state of crisis, when people are being uprooted and alienated and are losing their sense of what this world means, this ideology inevitably has a certain hypnotic charm. To wandering humankind it offers an immediately available home: all one has to do is accept it, and suddenly everything becomes clear once more, life takes on new meaning, and all mysteries, unanswered questions, anxiety, and loneliness vanish. Of course, one pays dearly for this low-rent home: the price is abdication of one’ s own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of this ideology is the consignment of reason and conscience to a higher authority. The principle involved here is that the center of power is identical with the center of truth….“

As we shall see in future posts, Havel will go on to note that his observations most certainly apply to the United States.

In 1978, even the most obtuse could see that Americans were living in “an era when metaphysical and existential certainties” were in a state of crisis. I began my career in public accounting in that era and during “boot camp” [our tough, initial training] I was aghast at the blasphemy, profanity, and utter cynicism so evident in the speech and actions of many (thankfully, not all) of my professional contemporaries.

These were the crème de la crème of American society and it was ominous. Talking with a colleague there, I told him that I had been born in an American mining camp and my early childhood was amongst WWII veterans. I am certain that their mouths were not ivory soap clean when I was not around, but for sure, even in the club bar, where children were not banned in that era, I never heard even a smidgen of language such as I was hearing at this gathering of young professionals. Nor, as a child, did I ever sense a total disregard or disrespect for the Deity, as I was witnessing now.

Again, thankfully, “boot camp” experience was not a “100%” situation, but it was widespread enough for concern. So, when I heard Solzhenitsyn speak at Harvard and, especially, later when I read the speech, I hearkened back to my early professional career and understood his observations, although a good number of my contemporaries dismissed them.

But he and Havel, having lived and suffered through societies which had lost their liberties and who became subservient to established “power centers” most certainly saw many similarities in western societies, including the United States. They saw that a loss of belief in eternal verities will lead to abject submission and to assignment of transcendence to others, most likely the State; these are dispositions or inclinations which require “abdication of one’s own reason, conscience, and responsibility.”

Havel foresaw our disposition to a ready acquiescence to a ruling elite who would tell us what to do and when. Otherwise known as living within the murderous lie of totalitarianism. And to live under totalitarianism (whose definition Havel will continue to develop) requires living under a lie.

Mr. Shingler, the father of a childhood friend. I post his photo as an example of the men around whom my childhood friends and I grew up. They were not perfect men, in the sense that they had their sins and foibles. However, looking back, I can see they did their best to not harm the consciences of the children who saw them and were otherwise in their ambit.

My father, left, at my little brother’s first birthday. He also reflected the ethos of “do no harm”, to the best of his ability. Havel, and also Solzhenitsyn, saw the loss of that ethos in America. By the time of this photo, many of the Americans with whom I grew up had already left El Pao along with their families.

That’s For Somebody Else To Do (or, That’s Not My Job)

October 9, 2021October 9, 2021 Richard Barnes

Professionals are taught never to use such phrases. At least I was trained thusly in my halcyon Arthur Andersen years when an oft-used expression was, “You can take the man out of Arthur Andersen but you cannot take Arthur Andersen out of the man.” As one progressed in the firm, one took on tasks easily characterized as “not my job” but one did not think in those terms. One tackled the assignment as best he or she could. And we learned along the way.

The late Elmer Kelton’s The Good Old Boys (1978), utters that phrase in a humble context which resonates with many of us. The novel is set in West Texas at the turn of the 20th century, 1906 to be precise. On the surface, it is a novel about a cowboy, Hewey Calloway, who appreciates people and places more than new contraptions and who struggles to understand the, to him, monomaniac interest of younger people in things like automobiles and big cities. Hewey is facing a rapidly dimming way of life and unwilling to step onto the newer way of doing things that was breaking on the horizon. Below the surface, the novel tells us that there is a Hewey in many of us.

Along the way, Kelton uses his novel to reflect upon some things that ought to never change. The phrase shows up in one of those scenes:

Cotton incredulously demanded, “Uncle Hewey, you mean all he asked you to do was to go over and ride on another street?”

“He didn’t ask me to. He told me I had to. There’s a difference.”

“If he’d asked you to, would you have done it?”

“Sure, I always try to get along with people.”

Cotton shook his head. “I don’t understand that at all.”

Hewey wasn’t sure how to explain it; it seemed so natural that no explanation ought to be necessary. “I’m a free-born American. I even been to war. I’d be a taxpayer, and proud to say it, if I owned anything to pay taxes on. I’ve got a right to ride down any street anywhere in this country that anybody else can. Somebody tells me I got to get off, and I do it, pretty soon I won’t have that right anymore.”

Cotton wasn’t satisfied. Hewey didn’t know how to satisfy him.

Wes Wheeler saw Hewey’s chagrin. He looked at Cotton. “Son, I’m a peace officer. It’s my job to enforce the law. I’m not allowed to make the law; that’s for somebody else to do. If I go to makin’ it, I can make it anything I want it to be. First thing you know I’ll use it to help me and my friends. I’ll use it to hurt people I don’t like. If that ever happens, I’m dangerous. That marshall up yonder, he was goin’ beyond his rightful authority. That makes him dangerous. You let people like that get away with it, pretty soon they’ll take you over.”

I last visited Venezuela in 2005. Upon arrival I was informed that my paperwork was such that I would not be permitted to leave the country. Incredulously, I spoke to a fiery US embassy official who confirmed to me that another midnight decree had been recently issued by El Comandante and that I had been entangled by such. However, she was adamant that she would move heaven and earth to get me out. The details are for another day, but the point is that living under decrees or mandates is dangerous and tyrannical.

I have not been back to the country of my birth since, but it is not for a lack of desire.

And now, for over 20 months, has anyone noticed that we Americans have also been living under decrees and mandates? Are we not allowed to say so? I have written a major airline asking them why their employees keep telling us we must submit to “federal law” when no such law has been enacted, having been passed by both houses of congress and signed by the president. That would make it a “law”. What we have now, is a mandate. Or an order. Call it what you will, but it is not law.

Wes Wheeler’s comments are worth remembering as we ponder our situation: “It’s my job to enforce the law. I’m not allowed to make the law; that’s for somebody else to do. If I go to makin’ it, I can make it anything I want it to be. First thing you know I’ll use it to help me and my friends. I’ll use it to hurt people I don’t like. If that ever happens, I’m dangerous. … You let people like that get away with it, pretty soon they’ll take you over.”

Mandates and liberty are not compatible.

Whether in Venezuela or here.

The above quote has been attributed to others besides Twain, including Voltaire, George Bernard Shaw, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is appropriate to today’s post: promulgating mandates and decrees, whether by mayors, governors, presidents, or comandantes, smacks of man playing God. And, as per Kelton, “You let people like that get away with it, pretty soon they’ll take you over.”

Fernando, Sears, the Yankees, and The Beatles

October 9, 2020October 9, 2020 Richard Barnes

Fernando Rodriguez was an Arthur Andersen audit manager in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He had a delightful sense of humor which, upon remembrance, still makes me chuckle, if not laugh outright.

Once, around noon, having gotten his haircut in the barber shop in the lobby of the Royal Bank of Canada, he walked out and ran into one of the firm’s partners who gruffly rebuked him, “Hmmm. Getting a haircut during office hours!” to which Fernando, without missing a beat, replied, “My hair grows during office hours!”

Of course, the partner laughed.

During one of our trips to the mainland, we had a stop in Miami during which he called relatives there, introducing himself as “Fernandito”. After he hung up the phone, I asked him a bit about his childhood in Miami. A couple of his stories remain with me presumably because they are not too dissimilar from my own childhood experiences.

As a child, he had escaped Cuba where, like his friends and family, he was a die hard New York Yankees fan, as I had been in my childhood. They lived in the Coral Gables area of Miami and every day, he and other young Cuban refugees would run to Sears where they could see the previous night’s baseball scores. He told me of their loud delight whenever the Yankees had won and, looking back, how strange that must have seemed to the Sears employees. Who are these Spanish-speaking kids yelping as they would in the baseball stands when this is not a stadium and there is no game going on?

As he told of that era, I instantly related. Every year our family took our annual leave in Miami where we also had relatives. And every year, my mother would include a long, tedious day or two of shopping in Sears of Coral Gables. In retrospect, I have to admire my parents’ planning. They guesstimated their children’s growth for the following year and bought them clothing on that basis. I can remember only once or twice having to buy clothes in Venezuela, for funerals. It was very expensive and that is why we, and other families in El Pao, bought in the USA once a year.

And I also recall rooting for the Yankees over the big short wave radio at the El Pao Club.

Fernando went on to tell of how he and his childhood friends were so taken by The Beatles phenomenon. They would run to Sears every week, baseball season or no, to check the standings of any Beatles songs on the hit parade. He chuckled as he pondered how crazy they must have seemed to those Sears people.

This too rang true. In another post I’ll tell about the “arrival” of that band in El Pao in 1964 and how that coincided closely with a heartbreaking Yankees loss that year. But for now, I’ll say that when their hit song of the moment came on that short wave radio, my childhood friend, Anne, came running to me, insisting that I come and hear them. Just like Fernando and his friends ran to see how they were doing against the competition.

Fernando went on to live and to thrive in Puerto Rico, first as an Arthur Andersen audit manager, and then as partner and president of a regional CPA firm based in the San Juan area. I last saw him when he and I along with a mutual friend and colleague, Vicente Gregorio, met to reminisce and, mostly, to laugh, in Christmastime, 2012, during one of my visits to Puerto Rico. He passed away on June 4, 2014.

Coral Gables, Florida, was founded in the 1920s and was designed to be a pedestrian city. That, it certainly was as my childhood memories can attest: walking up and down Miracle Mile and Alhambra; visiting the Miracle Mile movie theater; walking to and diving into the gigantic Venetian Pool are all vivid memories decades later.

Many Cubans settled in Venezuela and I was privileged to know them, to love them, to miss them. As I miss my friend, Fernando.

Sears in Coral Gables is one of the very few remaining Sears stores in Florida.