It’s Tough at the Top
Or
It’s Tough at the Bottom
If you have ever wondered why so many who have authority over us seem to lack wisdom, which is to put it politely, here is an answer from Joseph Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent, he is describing a character,
“…Chief Inspector Heat was not very wise—at least not truly so. True
wisdom, which is not certain of anything in this world of contradictions,
would have prevented him from attaining his present position. It would
have alarmed his superiors, and done away with his chances of promotion.
His promotion had been very rapid.”
So the certainty needed to make decisions and get the job done requires you do not see the perplexities, and that’s what employers are looking for when promoting staff. The wise do not get promoted.
Conrad also has an answer to why many under the authority of others seem so resentful, he is describing another character in the book,
“His struggles, his privations, his hard work to raise himself in the social scale, had filled him with such an exalted conviction of his merits that it was extremely difficult for the world to treat him with justice—the standard of that notion depending so much upon the patience of the individual.”
So people can get an elevated notion of what they deserve because of the struggles they have had and the distance they have travelled such that they will always feel undervalued and hard done to by those in authority. There really is no pleasing some employees.
One might ask, are you too wise to be promoted or too resentful to be content?
Or have you gained advancement despite your wisdom and now find yourself wrangling endless intractable perplexities?
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