The photo shows a hired circus act performing at an Enron Gala Event.
There is a multiplicity of themes to be analyzed in this third SEPTET element. They can be masked by the Theatrics of Capitalism.
Themes of oppression fan out in rhizomatic weaves, and are met by themes of resistance. SEPTET analysis traces oppressive themes and counter-themes and all the multiplicity of Poetic elements create Enron Metatheatre. There are themes of sexist, fear-ridden (rank and yank), and workaholic working conditions for on and off stage performers. There is a shrouding themes of oppression of villagers in India in ‘free market’ and ‘deregulation’ Star Wars dialog (rhetoric), in beating out rhythms of global predation, within ideological frames of hidden tragedy and comedy, until the integrated (concentrate & diffuse) global spectacles disintegrated into megaspectacles. In short, all the Septet elements came into play in a theme analysis of Enron.
Aristotle's Themes – (or Thought) – is defined by Aristotle (350 BCE) as what Burke (1945) will call purpose. Aristotle, for example says:
“Thought is shown in all they [agents] say when proving a particular point” (1450a: 6, bracketed additions mine).
“Thought, i.e. the power of saying whatever can be said, or what is appropriate to the occasion” (1450b: 5). A tragic theme is a catharsis of the emotions of pity and fear in the spectators (1449b: 25).
Thought (theme) says Aristotle is already developed elsewhere in “Art of Rhetoric” (1456a: 35). Freire (1970) develops thematic analyses of oppression.
Augusto Boal (1979) and Paulo Freire (1970), for example, extend critical dramaturgy to a more neo-Marxist critical theory Themes of LJM span what Freire (1970: 86) calls a “thematic universe” defined as a complex of “generative themes.”
Our point is quite simple. Enron is Theatre. Enron accomplishes its theatre to persuade and seduce employees, investors, and students into the willing suspension of disbelief. We life in what Boje (2002a) calls Theatres of Capitalism, in what Guy Debord (1967) calls the Society of the Spectacle and what our friends A. Fuat Firat and Nikhilesh Dholakia call the Political Economy of Theatres of Consumption (1998).
Boje, D. M. (2001a). Narrative
Methods for Organizational and Communication Research. London Sage.
Boje,
D. M. (2001b). Carnivalesque Resistance to Global Spectacle: A Critical
Postmodern Theory of Public Administration. Administrative Theory & Praxis.
Vol. 23 (3): 431-458.
Boje, D. M. (2001c). Global Theatrics and Capitalism. Presentation to Academy of Management Conference, Washington D.C., August.
Boje, D. M. (2002a). Critical
Dramaturgical Analysis of Enron Antenarratives and Metatheatre. Plenary
presentation to 5th International Conference on Organizational Discourse: From
Micro-Utterances to Macro-Inferences, Wednesday 24th - Friday 26th July
(London).
http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/ENRON_critical_dramaturgical_analysis.htm
Boje, D. M. (2002b) Enron
Metatheatre: A Critical Dramaturgy Analysis of Enron’s Quasi-Objects. Paper
presented at the Networks, Quasi-Objects, and Identity: Reintegrating Humans,
Technology, and Nature session of Denver Academy of Management Meetings. Tuesday
August 13, 2002.
http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/enron_theatre_LJM.htm
Boje, D. M. (2002c) Theatres of Capitalism. Book being published by Hampton Press (San Francisco). Available until publication, on line, at http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/theatrics/index.htm (password is required).
Boje, D.M., Ann L. Cunliffe & John T. Luhman (2002). A dialectic perspective on the organizational theatre metaphor. Paper under review.
Boje, D. M. & G. A. Rosile (2002a). The Metatheatre Intervention Manual. To be published by ISEOR Research Institute of University of Lyon 2, France.
Boje, D. M. & G. A. Rosile (2002a). Theatrics of SEAM. Paper to be
published in Journal of Organizational Change Management Special Issue on
Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM), guest edited by Henri Saval.
Boje,
D. M., Grace Ann Rosile, Rita A. Durant & John T. Luhman (2002). Enron
spectacle theatrics: A critical dramaturgical analysis. Under review at
Organization Studies, for special issue on organization theatre.
Burke, K. (1945). A grammar of motives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Freire, Paulo (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. NY: The Seabury Press (A Continuum Book).
Please contact dboje@nmsu.edu to offer suggestions that will develop the SEPTET of Leadership and Theatrics.
To Navigate this web site there are convenient menus at top (press here to go to top).
SEPTET Dimension, Enron Themes