Shakespeare, Proust, and Business

Lately, my night time reading has consisted of Shakespeare and Proust, perhaps in a quest to overcome the usual slam-bam or bureaucratic writing that surrounds us.

Read either of those writers and you are taken to a time when language mattered as much, and often more, than action. Last night, I read part of an account of a parlor conversation in Proust's Remembrance of Things Past that dealt with the design of a piece of furniture. It will remain with me the rest of my life. Contrast that with other books where you forget the names of the main characters two days later and where the plot is only a dim outline.

Shakespeare's plays, of course, have shaped our language. In Julius Caesar, for example, you can find one vivid expression after another that we still use because they are so finely fashioned.

I suspect that pragmatism has drained much of the color from our language and our literature. The sparse style of Hemingway may be powerful in small doses but it loses its impact in larger ones. The language that we employ to get through the day and to conduct business is effective and practical but is usually less than memorable.

This emphasis on getting things done, which is reflected in our language, sounds practical but is it truly so in the long run? Do we not risk losing nobility and insight if we adopt styles and approaches that are so powerfully linked to immediate results? Currently, there is a debate on the role of universities in the United States. Some "reformers" would toss aside classes and programs that are not directly tied to the marketplace and, in so doing, transform the university into a trade school. I believe that is a mistake. Courses in Medieval French History may not have the closest connection to getting a job but if the universities don't preserve and provide such knowledge, who will? Furthermore, students trained in the liberal arts can often see issues and opportunities the more narrowly-trained business students miss.

Many a management lesson can be found in Shakespeare but, even if that were not the case, is not the study of such material justified by the simple need for knowledge? Is knowledge a tidy equation? Or do many of its deepest insights emerge from such unlikely places that its expansion is our safest strategy? Can the hurried quest for the pragmatic be highly impractical?