Mind, Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist

Human beings are described by many spiritual traditions as ‘blind’ or ‘asleep’ or ‘in a dream.’ These terms refers to the limited attenuated state of consciousness of most human beings caught up in patterns of conditioned thought, feeling and perception, which prevent the development of our latent, higher spiritual possibilities. In the words of Idries Shah: “Man, like a sleepwalker who suddenly ‘comes to’ on some lonely road has in general no correct idea as to his origins or his destiny.” In some religious traditions, such as Christianity and Islam, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness. Other traditions use similar metaphors to describe the spiritual condition of humanity:

The Human Condition.

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The Precariat. The New Dangerous Class

Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. 2004. New York. Penguin Books. 448 pages. ISBN: 0143035592 (paper).

Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

Encountering development: the making and unmaking of the Third World

In recent years, organization studies have become increasingly aware of the concept of liminality. In our review and critique of this reception of liminality in organization studies, we emphasize that liminality involves a fundamental suspension of ordinary social structures. Although the prevailing use of the concept in anthropology as well as in organization studies has conceptualized liminality as a temporary state, we focus on permanent liminality. Yet the idea of permanent liminality leads to an inevitable paradox, because the concept, by definition, is a temporary state. Conceptualizing liminality as a constant state of social limbo, we show that the paradox in permanent liminality stems from the impossibility of drawing clear distinctions between different social spheres, especially as they apply to modern work–life. Examining a case study about a management consultant, we illustrate the paradox of liminality in terms of a zone of indistinction between work and life as it is reflected in an empiric...

‘It's capitalism on coke!’: From temporary to permanent liminality in organization studies

In the early 1960s, a number of anarchist writers showed an interest in cybernetics, in which they saw the tools for better articulating radical forms of self-organisation. Discussions on the connections between anarchism and cybernetics did not advance very far, however, and by the 1970s the topic seems to have fallen off the anarchist radar. With an increase in interest in cybernetics over the last few years, this paper picks up where these debates left off and highlights some key points of contact between cybernetics and anarchism that have the potential to advance radical accounts of self-organisation. Based on a theoretical appraisal of the core texts and arguments in the debate around anarchism and cybernetics, the paper shows that the way in which hierarchy is formulated in cybernetic thought has a crucial impact on anarchist theory and practice and aids both academic approaches to social movements and, importantly, anarchist and radical left praxis. In addition, it provides a response to the critique of cybernetics in critical management studies that stands as a barrier to taking cybernetics seriously as a contribution to radical understandings of organisation.

Landscapes of Political Action

Purpose




While considerable critical energy has been devoted to unmasking the figure of the heroic entrepreneur, the idea that entrepreneurs are unique individuals with special abilities continues to be widespread in scholarly research, social media and popular culture. The purpose of this paper is to traverse the fantasy of the heroic entrepreneur by offering a reading of Richard Branson’s autobiography, Losing My Virginity.




Design/methodology/approach




The theoretical approach of this paper is informed by Slavoj Žižek’s concept of fantasy and his critical analytical strategy of “traversing the fantasy”. Žižek offers a theoretical framework that allows us to understand how narratives of famous entrepreneurs create paradoxical fantasies that produce desire.




Findings




By offering a reading of Richard Branson’s autobiography, Losing My Virginity, this paper serves to illustrate how the fantasy of the heroic entrepreneur creates the injunction to overcome oneself and become true to oneself, but also how this figure is ridden with contradictions and impossibilities. Branson’s book will eventually be shown to be a religious narrative, where the entrepreneur is responsible for redeeming the crises not only of the economy, but of being as such.




Originality/value




Rather than striving towards a processual approach that lays emphasis on the collective effort involved in entrepreneurship, this paper critically engages directly with the heroic entrepreneur by exploring how this figure is a fantasy that structures desire. This paper shows how critical entrepreneurship studies could benefit from an approach that analyses how the cultural representation of business celebrates the heroic entrepreneur as a source of value creation. The authors further argue that it is the contradictions and impossibilities embodied in the figure of the heroic entrepreneur that carry its far-reaching appeal.

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Traversing the fantasy of the heroic entrepreneur

This article uses the concept of style to rethink sustainable entrepreneurship. Our point of departure is the conceptual distinction between organization as style made durable and entrepreneurship ...

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Put Your Style at Stake: A New Use of Sustainable Entrepreneurship

Perpetual economic growth is an underlying assumption of the contemporary organization of capitalist society. The idea of growth is embedded not only in the corpus of economic thought but also in economic institutions (Binswanger, 2013; Gorz, 2012). The demand for continual growth has been subject to criticism within economic theory (Heinberg, 2011; Herrera, 2011; Jackson, 2009) and the environmental natural sciences (Rockström et al., 2009a; Rockström et al., 2009b). Against this backdrop, there have already been attempts to imagine a sustainable economy beyond growth (see, for example, Daly, 1996; Eisenstein, 2011; Gorz, 1999; North, 2010; Paech, 2012; Rockström and Klum, 2012; Seidl, 2010; Schumacher, 1973). The ‘degrowth movement’, in particular, has been actively engaged in such efforts (Demaria et al., 2013; Kallis et al., 2012; Latouche, 2004, 2009; Martínez-Alier, 2011). The problem of growth is nothing new and many have drawn attention to the negative effects of perpetual growth (Carson, 2000; Georgescu-Roegen, 1971; Giddens, 2011; Meadows et al., 1972). In fact, calls for research that maps the negative effects of perpetual economic growth and explores alternatives to the current way of organizing our society are increasing.

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Christian Garmann Johnsen

Papers

‘It's capitalism on coke!’: From temporary to permanent liminality in organization studies

Landscapes of Political Action

Traversing the fantasy of the heroic entrepreneur

Put Your Style at Stake: A New Use of Sustainable Entrepreneurship

Organizing for the post-growth economy