Billy Ballston had a mean streak, or so said the neighbors who watched him
pull the wings off of fireflies, electrocute frogs with his model train
transformers, and throw cherry bombs at the alley cats behind the Chinese
restaurant. He had no spiritual nature, they said, no native Christianity; and
far worse no sense of compassion or consideration for others. His violence
toward animals surely represented some sort of diverted misanthropy; and the boy
was headed for trouble.
The neighbors, it turned out, were right, but only if one continued to look at
Billy through an officiously moral lens. Seen that way, Billy remained
inconsiderate and morally absent; and while his overt violence had been
trimmed, his native cruelty could never be tamed. Looked at more objectively,
Billy was simply a very smart man who understood that controlled violence –
aggressive ambition and limitless aspiration – was as American as apple pie; and
who fit perfectly into the amoral American paradigm.
The Board of Excenture International were unsure of how to deal with this
young executive whose numbers were higher than any older, more experienced
directors, but nettling reports about employee dissatisfaction kept surfacing.
While not exactly a Simon Legree, Billy Ballston did run his office like a Roman
trireme. He kept his idealistic minions rowing in the galley until
they faltered, their place at the oars quickly filled by other young, idealistic
women.
The Board of course did nothing since Billy’s numbers were higher than even
the most seasoned director, and because they endorsed the same employment
philosophy as Billy did, and as long as he committed no actionable labor
offense, they were happy.
Supporters of Billy argued that his attitude towards his employees was not
exploitation, lack of consideration, or even misuse of his office; but only
business. His industry was one of the most competitive in the sector, and there
was no reason why he should let up on the accelerator. He in fact was the ideal
director – one who was not troubled by compassion or unwieldy concern for
others, navigated the complex labor code with ease, and understood his employees
with uncanny insight. He knew exactly how much he could get out of each of them
and how.
As Billy rose through the ranks, he built up a substantial company stock
portfolio, lived well on its generous salary and benefits, and invested early
and wisely in a number of tech start ups in California and Boston. Before long
he was able to leave his position with Excenture and form his own investment
firm. He was quickly known on the Street as a comer – one of the most talented,
ambitious, and determined investors they had seen in a long time. And that from
the highest ranks of Citibank, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.
Wall Street bankers have always been accused of excessive ambition and
immoral greed. They buy and sell companies with none other than the bottom line
in their sights, and whether or not the new, restructured company returns to
profitability or not, they have done their job for investors. Either they turn
an expected profit, or write off the losses against their gains.
This accusation of avarice is unfounded of course. While there is nothing
more expressive of American no-holds-barred enterprise than Wall Street, it is
only following the accepted cultural code of conduct in America – run close to
the wind, gain speed and advantage at any cost, sail close to markers and
buoys, heel to 75 degrees, and win.
There is no morality, spirituality, or compassion in business let alone in
corporate America and especially on Wall Street.
Billy Ballston was in a perfect place at a perfect time. Regulations were
once again slipping and increasingly ignored by government watchdogs, elaborate
derivatives and swaps were once again popular but in new and even more complex
forms, and the Street was once again rolling in cash.
Wall Street aggressiveness was an example of controlled, socially acceptable
violence. Most of the bankers on the Street had pulled the wings off of
fireflies, cherry bombed cats, and played dirty during recess. They never had ‘a
mean streak’ but a violent, anti-social one which was, they soon found out, an
oddly positive trait. They had been born with more lymphatic juices; extra
survival genes that had held their own since the early Paleolithic, and an
uncanny understanding of how the strong would not only control their own
destinies but the destinies of others.
Is America a violent country, many people ask? Of course it is. It is by no
means a Rwanda which erupted in a genocide which killed millions, a Cambodia in
which millions died in the forced marches of an autocrat, a Soviet Russia or
Communist China whose leaders exiled millions and killed others through famine
and politically enforced economic ruin; nor a Nazi Germany where millions were
gassed with the complicity of common folk.
Yet America has more than its share of mass shootings; violent crime,
protests, and demonstrations; and while gun control advocates insist that guns
are the problem, any less blinkered observer knows that it is because the
natural, normal restraints on violence have been removed, diluted, or eroded.
Gone are the days of uniform morality enforced by church, community, and
neighborhood. All is fair in the new world of identity politics where the
commonweal is ignored in favor of the demands of the supposedly oppressed and
put-upon. Crime, if not tolerated, is given a generous bye because of
the white supremacy and capitalist greed that have encouraged it.
Americans may not all be as violent by nature as Billy Ballston, but most
have neither the intelligence, savvy, insight or ability to harness it as he
did.
Alexander Hamilton was afraid of the populist mob that he thought Jefferson
was enabling through his expansive and generous view of human society. Men will
always act in their own best interests within the context of the good of others,
Jefferson felt; but Hamilton knew differently. The mob rule of the Jacobins
after the French Revolution was no surprise to him; nor was the restoration of
the aristocracy. One always did well to mistrust the mob. Examples of Roman
history and Shakespeare (Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Henry VI, Part 2)
offered the same wisdom.
Mobs turn violent because human beings are violent by nature; and those with
little education, intelligence easily and quickly resort to it when encouraged
or roused. Violent crimes are committed because men are inherently violent and
when society becomes overly permissive and tolerant of them.
Billy Ballston was one of the fortunate few gifted with good genes, better
psycho-physiology, and the luck of the draw. He would be a genius in any
generation, in any culture. He would be a Henry VIII, a Pope Innocent III, a
Shah of Persia, a Seljuk prince, or a Medici.
Men like Billy have no use either for spirituality or social compassion.
They simply follow the rules of engagement of human society – accept man’s
basic, inviolable, permanent, and aggressive human nature and the
necessary brakes society puts on it; accept that faith and religious belief are
special means to control antisocial behavior without force; and that compassion
is a kind way to accept brutality kindly.
Billy Ballston lived a good life with few if any regrets. He was a man of
action, not reflection; but others who watched and admired him liked his
uncompromising realism. He more than anyone refused to be tempted by false
morality, sanctimony, or religious posturing. If man was worth anything, he
owed it to himself to fulfill his genetic destiny, to navigate a world trying
imperfectly to control it, and to chart his own course. The only validation of
the individual, said Nietzsche, is the expression of pure will. Billy Ballston
came as close to that ideal as anyone.
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
The Violent, The Spiritual, And The Compassionate–Why The Strongest Always Prevail
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