The Trap - BBC2 Documentary

I just wanted to flag up this excellent documentary to people. There are two more episodes to come, 9pm Sundays. This week's episode looked at how a simplistic model of human behaviour has come to dominate interpersonal relationship theory and practise in the Western world since the cold war. This horrendous, cynical theory purports that:

a) people who see themselves as working 'in the public interest' are dangerously unpredictable because there is no definition of what 'the public interest' might be, and therefore they are zealots and need to be eliminated from positions of power

b) the ideal employee is predictable, and therefore is the person who is motivated wholly and exclusively by self-interest, and who therefore can be manipulated through the use of 'incentives'

What a disgusting theory ! Yet how prevalent it's application has become !No wonder life is so miserable and governement and business management seems so detestably unethical presently ! The person who came up with this theory, and those who sold it to the world, should be taken out and flogged, in the public interest !


In the context of bullying at work it is easy to see how this policy of promoting the self interested feeds into an institutionalised form of bullying. The self-interested are more likely to behave in ways which are callous and unthinking simply because they are only interested in what benefit they can gain from a situation. That the basis of this theory is the corruption of the human spirit through the use of what are effectively bribes to 'get your own way' repulses me. Yet it is interesting to be made aware of it, so that contexualisation can be arrived at. We knew it, but now I understand it a bit more, thanks to the (imho frequently manipulative) BBC.