Gardener

When I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, preachers and teachers and professors and, perhaps, medical doctors were the most influential voices in our CRC sub-culture. Businesspeople are the dominating influence in our culture these days. If someone is successful in business—which usually means “makes lots of money”—we have a tendency to genuflect as he passes by. The conventional wisdom of our time is that business people, bankers and lawyers are the smartest guys in the room. Of course, this tendency to venerate successful business people has been a major characteristic of the larger culture for a much longer time--which leads me into my topic for today, the film documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. I had seen the film a couple of years ago, but seeing it now, in the context of the international economic meltdown, it spoke to me even more powerfully, and it prompted some observations about whose influence should dominate in our culture. The Smartest Guys in the