Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities. 1930–1943. Trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
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Thursday, July 11, 2019
Committee life
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comments: 3
Healthy growth!
Ha-ha-hahaha! I am grinning big.
Fresca
In those days growth was good, and bigger was better. Every young man of ambition wanted to get on with the biggest corporation he could find.
Even the big failures of big U.S. organizations in Vietnam scarcely dampened that belief, not until the invention of computers, and the flattening of the corporate pyramid, while inflation made disloyal takeovers and selloffs and layoffs profitable. Now nobody wants to loyally pay their dues in a big firm that will not be loyal back. Now the "yuppie" mindset is so prevalent that I no longer hear the term used.
@Fresca: I’ve been.
@Sean: The passage is really about the growth of bureaucracy in a public-spirited campaign to celebrate Austria. The number of committees grows and grows, and the piles of correspondence deepen. It all reminds me of academic life.
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