More About Chaos With a Jimmy Kimmel Chaser

We continue our focus on chaos leading with the media's Jimmy Kimmel fest. We won't add to the agonizing details; we've been exposed to them enough - agreed? And doesn't it fit right in with our chaos theme? First he's gone, then he's back, then...well, who knows what's next?

Add to this the annual UN gathering in NYC. Having worked in Manhattan many years, it was a week to dread. Traffic was always a mess, with those big black SUVs commanding right of way, going here and there with all those "important" people. The most vivid memory was passing by the Pierre hotel on my way to a meeting when a cohort of SUVs pulled up suddenly and out jump what were security people with guns drawn. Scary, at least for a few moments. We little people all had to stop in our tracks to make way for...whoever it was.

Anyway, back to our discussion of chaos, leaving Government, now focusing on our Culture. 

Here's a definition of "culture": the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. We'll stick with nation and people. 

How's this for a start: It's "degraded." It's a word spewed by a priest in Confession during the Covid Mess. We had sought out this parish because we heard Confessions were being heard, which they were not in many parishes - including ours. Having not been to Confession is a while (for the a fore mentioned reason), Father was trying to encourage getting back on the wagon of regular Confession. The description was a kind of reminder why frequent Confession is important. 

There's no intent to dwell on the negative here. On the other hand, to cherry pick those bright spots in the midst of the degradation wouldn't be of much use, would it? Venturing out into our world each day with an exaggerated sense of how wonderful the world is leaves us open to at least disappointment, at most disaster.

This world has always been a challenge to those who know Truth and love God. Hence the phrase: the world, the flesh and the devil - a long-standing and infamous trio that greets us each day. This band of "brothers" operates even in the best cultural environments. But when the culture itself goes into a tail spin, these three can easily gain the upper hand. They rise to the level of false idols. When the culture is degraded, these false idols no longer have to operate behind the scenes. They emerge in full recognition, even adulation.

At work and in our personal lives we may have to deal with the symptoms of a degraded culture in different ways, in different degrees, depending on our circumstances.

Here's a striking example from personal experience in those former days of commuting into Manhattan to a workplace:

The scene was a first day session filling in forms under the supervision of one of the HR minions of a big bank. It was my second go-round with what was once considered a sort of venerable institution given its founding close to the time of the founding of our country. It was the only company I worked for twice, but that experience provides our example. 

While I thought the on-boarding would be uneventful, having previous worked there, it was anything but. After the initial filling out, a lecture in the form of pointed instruction commenced. Thence flowed words and phrases making it clear that LGBT (that original alphabet soup hadn't yet expanded), gender (the gender fluid thing hadn't yet appeared), and all that entailed were firmly planted in my corporate sensibility. Any offense against this new Litany of Rules would not be tolerated. Consequences would be severe.

Very little, if anything, was spoken of having to do with the business of this once-venerable corporation. The underlying message seemed to be that personal compliance with this new regime of cultural shibboleths was far more important than anything having to do with work performance. 

It was, as they say, a rude awakening.

Of course, now it's just part of doing business Such a session would not be unexpected anymore. And, while the recent dialing back with the new Washington administration has taken a bit of the edge off of all this, it's not gone away. The push-backs have helped, but the "values" and habits that have been finely honed do not just disappear. Will they ever, and to what degree? Time will tell.

The more obvious examples of degradation likely don't need a lot of explaining to anyone who has even a splash of decency and sense of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. These Big Three suffer most in cultural degradation. They are shunted aside to make way for at the false, the bad and the ugly. 

Meanwhile, in the midst of our degraded culture, financial markets churn in the strangest fashion we've ever encountered. And if our tenure in this world doesn't command attention, we pass on similar comments from those whom we have come to call our "Brain Trust" - those writers and analysts whose work we have followed for almost our whole time in this messy business of planning and investing.

While feelings aren't always our best guide in picking our way through the avalanche of noise that assaults us each day as we try to ply our trade in providing counsel to clients, nevertheless we can't escape the feeling that "something big" is just waiting to descend on us. 

And you can be sure chaos will accompany whatever that might turn out to be.