(eBook PDF) Communication for Business and the
Professions: Strategies and Skills, 7th Edition
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,Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
, 1 Prison and the Hermetic Hermetics— what a lovely word,
Herr Naphta! I've always liked the word hermetic. It sounds like
magicking, and has all sorts of vague and extended associations.
Hans Castorp in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain He [Sergeant
Reynal] had spent eight years in the Marines cloistered in the
hermetic world of the military, rising in the ranks. "I thought I was
one of God's chosen few," he said. Chris Hughes, The New York
Times, 30 May 1991, on U. S. Marines returning from the Persian
Gulf he theme of the day is prison and the closed space, and it 1L
starts with the Stockdale experience, which you can read about in
his essay "The World of Epictetus." The Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat
said in his autobiography that there are only two places in this world
where a man cannot escape from himself— a battlefield and the
prison cell. Prison is a dire form of the closed-space experience, and
its major effect is usually dehumanizing, depressing, degrading. It is
like a disease that makes us twice-over body, that pulls us down
from spirit to matter. So for most, indeed for all, prison has a
negative effect, both moral and physical. But for some few, in
addition to the initial depressing and degrading effect, prison can be
a transforming and uplifting experience, a place of self-discovery, a
locus of finding within themselves something that they did not know
was there and that helps them transcend the dehumanization of
captivity. Back in the 1950s Jack Kerouac, king of the beats, said,
"Prison is where you promise yourself the right to live." And Pat
Benatar, a rock star of the eighties, used to sing a number claiming,
, 2 Prison and the Hermetic "When they close you in, you
open out!" Jim Stockdale says, "It was in prison that I discovered a
happiness I had not known before." Talking to an association of navy
carrier pilots in the fall of 1988, the admiral quoted Alexander
Solzhenitsyn recalling his prison experiences in the U.S.S.R.: "As I
lay there on the rotting straw, I felt goodness stirring within me.
Thank you, prison, for being part of my life." And in 1989, looking
back on his own prison days, Czech president Vaclav Havel said, "Jail
gave me an extremely good preparation for the office [the
presidency]. In the first place it taught me not to be surprised at
anything." He had learned by experience the meaning of the Stoic
motto, "Nil admirariP ("Be astonished at nothing!"). Now prison,
although it is the most dire form of what we may call the closed-
space experience, is not the only way of it. You may not yourself
have been in prison as a POW or for some other reason, but I would
bet that in your personal or professional life, at one time or other, in
one form or other, you have made acquaintance with the closed-
space effect. Although you may not have known it under the arcane
label of the hermetic, you have experienced it nonetheless. The
military profession knows it well. Consider this word hermetic for a
moment, a rather lovely word as Mann's young hero says. We may
take two meanings from it, one quite familiar: sealed off,
hermetically sealed. When you want to put up fruit or vegetables in
jars you must seal them in very tightly, and if the seal is successful
then the corrupting effects of time are stopped, for a year anyway,
and when you open the jar the fruit or vegetable is as fresh as the
day you hermetically sealed it into that container. The other
meaning, less familiar perhaps, belongs to a tradition that ran
parallel with the history of science, philosophy, and of religion as
well. Some say the hermetic culture had its beginnings in ancient
Egypt, for the Greek divinity Hermes was originally the Egyptian god
Toth, and that deity's name was associated with magic. Thus the
second meaning of hermetic: magic; and, by extension, magical
transformation.
Professions: Strategies and Skills, 7th Edition
install download
https://ebookluna.com/product/ebook-pdf-communication-for-
business-and-the-professions-strategies-and-skills-7th-edition/
Download more ebook instantly today - Get yours now at ebookluna.com
,Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
, 1 Prison and the Hermetic Hermetics— what a lovely word,
Herr Naphta! I've always liked the word hermetic. It sounds like
magicking, and has all sorts of vague and extended associations.
Hans Castorp in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain He [Sergeant
Reynal] had spent eight years in the Marines cloistered in the
hermetic world of the military, rising in the ranks. "I thought I was
one of God's chosen few," he said. Chris Hughes, The New York
Times, 30 May 1991, on U. S. Marines returning from the Persian
Gulf he theme of the day is prison and the closed space, and it 1L
starts with the Stockdale experience, which you can read about in
his essay "The World of Epictetus." The Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat
said in his autobiography that there are only two places in this world
where a man cannot escape from himself— a battlefield and the
prison cell. Prison is a dire form of the closed-space experience, and
its major effect is usually dehumanizing, depressing, degrading. It is
like a disease that makes us twice-over body, that pulls us down
from spirit to matter. So for most, indeed for all, prison has a
negative effect, both moral and physical. But for some few, in
addition to the initial depressing and degrading effect, prison can be
a transforming and uplifting experience, a place of self-discovery, a
locus of finding within themselves something that they did not know
was there and that helps them transcend the dehumanization of
captivity. Back in the 1950s Jack Kerouac, king of the beats, said,
"Prison is where you promise yourself the right to live." And Pat
Benatar, a rock star of the eighties, used to sing a number claiming,
, 2 Prison and the Hermetic "When they close you in, you
open out!" Jim Stockdale says, "It was in prison that I discovered a
happiness I had not known before." Talking to an association of navy
carrier pilots in the fall of 1988, the admiral quoted Alexander
Solzhenitsyn recalling his prison experiences in the U.S.S.R.: "As I
lay there on the rotting straw, I felt goodness stirring within me.
Thank you, prison, for being part of my life." And in 1989, looking
back on his own prison days, Czech president Vaclav Havel said, "Jail
gave me an extremely good preparation for the office [the
presidency]. In the first place it taught me not to be surprised at
anything." He had learned by experience the meaning of the Stoic
motto, "Nil admirariP ("Be astonished at nothing!"). Now prison,
although it is the most dire form of what we may call the closed-
space experience, is not the only way of it. You may not yourself
have been in prison as a POW or for some other reason, but I would
bet that in your personal or professional life, at one time or other, in
one form or other, you have made acquaintance with the closed-
space effect. Although you may not have known it under the arcane
label of the hermetic, you have experienced it nonetheless. The
military profession knows it well. Consider this word hermetic for a
moment, a rather lovely word as Mann's young hero says. We may
take two meanings from it, one quite familiar: sealed off,
hermetically sealed. When you want to put up fruit or vegetables in
jars you must seal them in very tightly, and if the seal is successful
then the corrupting effects of time are stopped, for a year anyway,
and when you open the jar the fruit or vegetable is as fresh as the
day you hermetically sealed it into that container. The other
meaning, less familiar perhaps, belongs to a tradition that ran
parallel with the history of science, philosophy, and of religion as
well. Some say the hermetic culture had its beginnings in ancient
Egypt, for the Greek divinity Hermes was originally the Egyptian god
Toth, and that deity's name was associated with magic. Thus the
second meaning of hermetic: magic; and, by extension, magical
transformation.
