Lighting Plato’s Cave with Netflix and Star Wars
Shadows are dancing on the wall of Plato’s cave. Are they real or are they a distorted reflection of reality? If you’ve studied philosophy, political theory, or classical teachings, then you may know the Allegory of the Cave. If it’s new, let me loosen your chains. This is some rabbit hole.
Source: Philosophytube.com.
In Plato’s cave analogy, there is a fire outside that casts light on the cave wall. And one group of people, prisoners who are chained in a line facing the wall, see only the shadows on the cave wall. To them, reality consists of these shadows. And to some extent, this allegory describes the human condition, since we are dependent on our senses and we form impressions based on what we perceive, even when we have a very incomplete picture of reality.
If one prisoner could break away from the chain, then he could escape the cave. Outside in the light, his eyes would adjust to seeing real people and places, not merely shadows. Of course, Plato and Socrates suggested that the escapee would doubt what he saw and then want to return to the cave. That may be true for some, but it generally seems like an elitist notion to say that only the good people can live outside the cave.
Elitism Hurts Us All
The Allegory of the Cave is elitist at its core. The upshot is that only educated people get see the world for what it is, while the less educated are stuck inside a cave of shadows. I don’t necessarily disagree with this. I’d rather trust someone with a good education to run my country or my company.
What bothers me is where this leads. It leads to exclusive groups, insider clubs, and the self-perpetuating belief that the elites who run the world are better than others. A separation grows based on heredity and economic status. Different classes are created which divide people based upon wealth, race, gender, and other factors that should be utterly meaningless in today’s world.
Economic imbalances persist as we perpetuate the system. Soon, we end up with severe economic inequality and a world where lack of opportunity feeds peoples’ interest in extremist political ideas (sound familiar?). Meanwhile, we fail to recognize that many of our best people are stuck in the cave.
That doesn’t mean everyone in the cave is worthy of leadership. But they have every right to the opportunities that have been denied to them. Opportunities include education and knowledge.
For those who have the skills to lead in any field, they should be welcomed. A true meritocracy welcomes its best, no matter what the person’s background. Even from a selfish perspective, upward mobility is absolutely critical, because it helps us identify and support our best talent.
Leadership According to Netflix, Ricardo Semler, and Andrew Chakhoyan
In a recent article for the World Economic Forum, author Andrew Chakhoyan posed the question, “Is the era of management over?” He led with a quote from a viral TED Talk in which Ricardo Semler suggested: “The key to management is to get rid of the managers.”
Chakhoyan then referenced the famous Netflix slide deck that was developed by its Human Resources Director and its CEO. That slide deck also went viral after Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, said that it “may well be the most important document to come out of (Silicon) Valley.” The key takeaway was that, as an organization’s complexity grows, the percentage of high performance employees decreases.
Source: Netflix.
The more managers you add, the more performance from the best workers declines. The implication is that managers can get in the way. Many employees do a better job when we trust them with the responsibility and let them get it done their own way. Netflix is famous for trusting its employees with a great deal of responsibility, from setting their own vacations to not having to submit expense reports.
The author’s examples all come from Silicon Valley, which is not a microcosm of human labor. It is a white collar world. Tech companies hire highly educated employees who are highly paid to produce results. What works for Apple or Google may not be as successful for managing employees of various salary and skill levels at restaurants, banks, retail stores, schools, assembly plants, janitorial services, car dealerships, and other organizations.
Nevertheless, the idea of a “post-management era” blasts the door wide open.
Gone fishing?
“What it boils down to,” according to Chakhoyan, “is that all the work that requires supervision is being outsourced to robots and algorithms. Non-standard, creative, experimental work, on the other hand, doesn’t naturally lead itself to management.”
Light another fire in Plato’s cave. If workers are expected to be productive, we need them to see what they are doing and understand its importance. Showing workers only their piece of the puzzle is the old model, especially if the cave’s chain gang managers were laid off in favor of robots or less control over employees.
Source: Netflix.
[Those ex-managers found out no one was hiring managers, so they went off to drive for Uber or post on Steemit! Jobs will become harder to find, but hopefully the near future opens many more flexible opportunities for people.]
Star Wars Joins the Party
If we’re turning on Netflix in the cave instead of watching shadows, how about choosing a movie? As soon as Star Wars: The Last Jedi is available on video, it may be an apt choice. Without spoiling the plot for those of you who have not seen the movie yet, I’ll confine myself to the movie’s title and what’s publicly known from the movie’s free trailers.
Luke Skywalker proclaims (even in one of the trailers) that the Jedi must end. And who are the Jedi? An elitist group that holds the balance of the universe in their hands. They may be more good than evil, but is their elitism good? They hold their power exclusively. Certainly, they have a skill set that is not common, but at some level, those skills could be developed in more people. And there may be people with natural skills (as we saw from Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father, before he became Darth Vader) who are not necessarily Jedis.
At my home, we had some family visiting over the holidays who had not seen this new Star Wars movie yet, so now I have seen it twice. For anyone who doubted that the # MeToo movement was taking over popular culture and exposing many years’ worth of bad leadership (in the form of sexual harassment), all you have to do is look at the preview trailers before this Star Wars movie to confirm that times have changed.
Diversity in Force. Source: Disney.
The playing field is being leveled like never before. I counted no less than three ads for upcoming movies where the heroic lead is a girl or woman. And that’s not counting Star Wars itself, which has turned to a strong female heroine and a diverse supporting cast.
Popular culture is insisting that we move forward together. Giving everyone the same opportunities is not only the right thing to do. It also makes us stronger.
The cave grows brighter. It’s a start. Someday, those chains will become a tourist attraction and people will pay to see shadow puppets.
Sources:
Text of the Allegory of the Cave: http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html
Wikipedia, Allegory of the Cave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave
Philosophy Tube, Allegory of the Cave: http://philosophytube.com/analogy-of-cave/
Is the era of management over? (Chakhoyan article for World Economic Forum): https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/12/is-management-era-over/
Netflix Culture: Freedom & Responsibility (Slide deck, including the slide image used in the post): http://www.businessinsider.com/netflixs-management-and-culture-presentation-2013-2#-1
Sheryl Sandberg on Netflix document: http://www.businessinsider.com/netflixs-management-and-culture-presentation-2013-2#-1
Very interesting post! You weave together many thoughts and ideas in this one post. I liked the fact that you used classic sources like the allegory of the cave, but also modern pop culture references to make your post and support your ideas! If there is one thing that is clear to me, it is that elitism has always been present in societies throughout history, but our acknowledgment of elitism and awareness of it can create positive change going forward. Elitism may always exist, but we can continue to work to balance the division.
Your comment is spot on. It will never be erased fully. But if we recognize it and demand something better, then I think we can do better as a society.
I completely agree! Glad there are people out there like you who want to make a better society! You have done a great job at pinpointing a really problem of today. Now all we have to do is get out there and try and make this world a better place! Have a good day :)
REALLY GOOD COMMENT
This is what i will like to term a decentralized system of running an organization and this sure has a way to make productivity worth striving for and when this is a target, employees and employers become winners. Nice post and also the Star Wars Diversity just goes a long way to show how we can do good if we allow our people to be themselves by first believing in them to do right.
So just they know, the elites are just elites and will never be truly able to lay claim to ruling the world. If you take away that elitism, you will discover they are as empty as can be. The ruling is with the creative commons and the tides are changing.
I'm merely writing about giving people opportunity. You, on the other hand, are making this happen every day by empowering people who have had no such opportunities, and giving them a reason to hope. :)
Thanks boss, I guess your writings helps me see the need to act and i am trying to be a good student of an awesome teacher.
This post is one of the most interesting post i have read in a while. So much put together.
"The key takeaway was that, as an organization’s complexity grows, the percentage of high performance employees decreases."
I totally agree with the above quote. Many people tend to be more effective/efficient when they are trusted to do what they know how to do. The presence of a superior breathing down ones throat, could cause nervousness and affect productivity.
Enjoyed reading this post altogether. I must confess this is one post i have read every word from begining to end in a long while.
Thanks for the insights and Happy New Year to you. I'm flattered that you read the whole post. :)
A deep idea by Plato.He is probably about the masses living in a mode of ignorance I'm trying to challenge this little, but the public does not agree with them.Such a challenger was Socrates.
He dared to ask these questions and ultimately sacrificed his life.But his philosophy lives amongest us @donkeypong
Thank you and happy new year to you too.
Man, you touched on some great topics here, almost too much. I think we could talk about pieces of you article for hours on end, so I'll try to keep to the point here. I fully agree that we need a system where people are based on merits, but then again how do we determine merits? does getting a good grade on a science test prove that someone is good at science, or that said person is just good at memorizing information? The school system as it is, needs a whole lot of fixing. We teach to the general and don't do enough to recognize that students re not all the same. Then there is the issue of public schooling vs private. Who is receiving the better education, is the government purposely keeping certain schools down so the children coming out of them are not able to compete with children from elite families?
What should we be teaching in school? Arguments can be made that coding language is now just as important as English or Math and yet no computer programming courses are mandatory anywhere.
I have just scratched the surface on the education problem we face and there are so many other points that I would like to discuss but to avoid turning this into a novel, I'll stop here, look forward to you continuing this discussion in future posts.
Equality of opportunity is what we should strive for as long as we realize that equality of outcome is not what we want.
You have a great perspective there and should consider your own post! "Avoid turning this into a novel" : welcome to my world, where I have to stop writing at ~1000 words or else the post becomes a thesis.
You are absolutely right. Many people either employees, mates or leaders have the ability to spur themselves to success with little motivations. And this is produced when we allow them innovate, think and aspire to do things in the best possible way, that their mind can reach. Alot of talents are somehow buried by the stereotyped nature of major corporations.
I have not seen it aswell. I probably might not. Since movies are not always on my list. Maybe in years to come I would be able to pass some times seeing movies too.
That's correct. Letting people innovate is very important. When we don't, our collective progress is much slower.
Deeps thoughts by Plato.
He maybe about masses living in the mode of Ignorance
Only a few try to challenge this , but the masses don't agree with them.
One such challenger was Socrates.
He dared to ask these questions and eventually cost his life.
But his Philosophy is still Alive with us Today!
Yes, great point! Socrates, in fact, told this story in Plato's account of it. Asking the right questions can be a form of rebellion, right?
Quite often it can be.
And the People who do Rebel can most often be crazy enough to stand by thier beliefs, no matter what the circumstances.
They would often value thier Philosophy over money or even thier life.
Such is thier Greatness or Craziness!
In the modern surrounding, "Prisoners who see only the shadows on the cave wall" can be understood as related to media control by the centers of power. I believe that this is what Martin Luther King was referring to.
I read an interesting note about the intellectual elitism in one of the Albert Ellis's books: we consider horrible to call someone a "nigger" or a "cripple" or "poor". On the other side, calling someone an "idiot" or a "fool" is much more socially acceptable.
"If workers are expected to be productive, we need them to see what they are doing and understand its importance." - There is a saying that a "NASA" janitor, when asked what does he do, replyed with "I'm helping people get to the moon".
I'm glad I've bumped into your post as we seem to like similar topics, I've followed you.
Cheers!
Absolutely. Whoever is in control of the media, government, large companies, and so forth, may have some strong influence over manipulating those puppets. GREAT addition about the NASA engineer; I love that!
It's true that complexity leads to less high performance workers, as i work for DoD, I get that impression
In government, it's probably even more true much of the time.
On the contrary, they are not . Elitism stresses more on social status and this is far from being healthy for any society because it would then mean that those without social status sucks and are therefore not good enough.
Exactly. I have no problem with elites (the people). It's elitism (the obstacle to everyone else's success) that needs to be corrected.
i really look forward to the day when people will have a more open mindset to change, being used to one's comfort zone hinders development.
humans should be spontaneous and ready to improve or change at any moment, because development is paramount and development brings change
That's a good thought. Maybe the cave could be seen as a comfort zone also. It's good to challenge ourselves and enlarge those boundaries.
exactly, the cave is the comfort zone and when presented with a new idea most people shun it just like the imprisoned cave men did. and that;s a really bad attitude to life.
change is constant and we all need to embrace it when it comes