In Cold Blood vs. The New Effective Public Manager

Well I’m up late and I’ve had a hellish weekend and so I’m surfing around and I find this little gem. I really needed a laugh today and this was just what the doctor ordered.

From ilikecheese at dKos…

I’m a liberal. I’m 20-something. I’m a Democrat. I think that George W. Bush is the worst that could have ever happened to me, my friends, and my generation. I worked in government. I’m leaving government.

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I did what I could. I gave everything I could. I registered more voters in one small county in a state than other people did in counties that were fifty times the size of my county. I went to school at one of the best schools in the world in public administration to get my masters. And then I realized that my constitution couldn’t take politics anymore, and my soul couldn’t take public administration anymore.

And why, you ask, can my soul not take public administration anymore? Public administration, you might imagine, was never seen as a riveting field. But I saw the importance it could have for people — that it could change people’s lives. That veterans could get the money they needed, that federal workers could get the medical help when they were injured on the job — if only someone would make this thing work.

And then I had to read this stuff. Man, soulsucking is an understatement. But I kept going. For two years. But then I realized, why? What is it that I’m going to do that’s going to keep me interested? The only thing keeping me going is anger at what I see in the government. I don’t love this. I hate it. I hate what I see. And I’m leaving, for my own sake, before I’m consumed by it.

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So I’m switching to the much less materially lucrative but much more personally lucrative career of literature. And I thought I’d share a rant I decided to have below to show you why I’m doing this.

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So here’s a prose competition between Truman Capote and a couple of PA scholars. You decide what you want to study! Literature or public administration?

In Cold Blood vs. The New Effective Public Manager

Round One, First line:

Cohen and Eimicke, first sentence: “There is a crisis of confidence in government in the United States.”

Capote, first sentence: “The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there.’

At this point, we see a slight lead for Capote. Cohen and Eimicke, here, have at least stated something dramatic, if cliched and overstated. Capote’s description is not the best opener I’ve ever read, but it grabs the attention slightly more. It is not cliched in the least.

Round 2, randomly chosen sentence from page 98.

Capote, page 98: “He had not seen her again, or ever heard from or of her, yet several years later he’d had her name tattooed on his arm, and once, when Dick asked who ‘Cookie’ was, he’d said, ‘Nobody. A girl I almost married.’”

Cohen and Eimicke, page 98: “Organizational structure can be viewed as a management tool designed to modify behavior patterns.”

In this second round, Capote comes out way ahead. Capote’s passage leaves you wanting to know more about the character, and really gives you a sense of the loneliness that Perry feels. Cohen and Eimicke’s passage is more than boring, it is a little bit evil. “Tool” and “modify behavior patterns” should never be used in the same sentence. Some sort of Orwellian nightmare, it is.

Round 3, closest thing I can find to a cliche on page 41:

Cohen and Eimicke, “Why Good People Are Hard to Find.”

Capote, “‘Like I said, nothing out of the ordinary.’”

This one isn’t even close. Capote is given a bit of a bye because the only cliche I could find was in a character’s dialogue, but C+E’s cliche here is pretty near unforgivable. I think people have been shot for less. I would definitely shoot them.

Round 4, most poetic sentence on page 193

Capote, “At half past ten he began to worry; by eleven his legs were pulsing with pain, which was always, with him, a sign of approaching panic — ‘bubbles in the blood.”

C+E, (seeing as page 193 is blank, I go to page 195), “Your definition of success has implications for the resources needed and for the strategy formulation and entrepeneurial projects taken on by your organization.”

While this is not Capote’s most poetic page ever, and while Capote is probably not considered one of the most poetic prose writers ever, he blows C+E out of the water. I think C+E’s sentence not only hurt me physically, it also lessened my chances of ever finding Jesus. I became that much more of an atheist. What is really sad is I spent time debating between this and several other sentences as “least bad” when it came to poeticness, because they were all so bad. I don’t think I can write this blog much more. I might need to go vomit. Hold on… … … ok, I feel better now.

Round 5, most personally helpful sentence on page 233.

C+E, “Relations with groups outside your organization will be easier if you bear in mind the fact that their mission is separate and distinct from yours.”

Capote, “Dick must have said it a million times: ‘No witnesses.’”

To be fair, C+E is supposed to be an “advice” book. It is supposed to tell me how to most effectively manage the public, or something (that’s never quite clear.) And here, I have to say, I give the round to C+E, if for no other reason than I feel like I should give them at least one round. No? Alright, you’re right. Fuck em. I already know that you should know where other people are coming from. But Perry’s character here shows me that when people are set to do evil, you should not trust them — they will burn you. I guess I already know that, too, but I’d rather be reminded of the latter. It’s probably a little more helpful. And it gives you insight into a character, which is more valid than metaphysical babble. So I go with good old Capote. You win again. How are C+E still standing?

Round 6, the final sentence:

Capote, “Then, starting home, he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat.”

C+E, “We believe we need a new type of public manager, a more effective public manager” (italics theirs.)

OH THE HUMANITY!! CHRIST LOOK AT ALL THE BLOOD. SOMEBODY CALL AN AMBULANCE. IT’S JUST NOT RIGHT, JUST NOT RIGHT. END THE INHUMANITY!!!! I THINK IT’S TIME WE END THIS SPORT. END IT. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!

Thanks ilikecheese, I think you made the right choice.