Bogusław Nierenberg, Review of a Monograph by Dr Roman Batko: Golem, Avatar, Midas & the Golden Calf

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Zarządzanie Kulturą, tom 6 (2013), nr 3 / Culture Management, vol. 6 (2013), no. 3

Bogusław Nierenberg AREVIEW OF A MONOGRAPH BY DR ROMAN BATKO: GOLEM, AVATAR, MIDAS, ZŁOTY CIELEC. ORGANIZACJA PUBLICZNA W PŁYNNEJ NOWOCZESNOŚCI [GOLEM, AVATAR, MIDAS AND THE GOLDEN CALF: PUBLIC ORGANISATIONS IN LIQUID MODERNITY]

I wish to start with a few general remarks. I think dr Batko’s work to be original for three reasons. Firstly, I know of no other Polish work on management, within the humanities, which has investigated public organisations in such a competent and academically rigorous manner. Secondly, the way the subject is handled (presenting public organisations in terms of four metaphors: Golem, Avatar, Midas and the Golden Calf, although in principle the fifth, Anima, should also be included); dr Batko’s language (vigorous, vivid, sometimes even poetic i.e. “There are situations, in which the Golem of bureaucracy bares its oppressive face, disclosing dominance, a demonstration of power and determination to make citizens’ life hard”– p. 88); and the clarity of the argument makes for a truly ‘crisp’ read. I am using the colloquial term, which perhaps does not commonly appear in academic reviews, similarly to the author of the book, who deliberately intertwines scholarly terminology with journalistic phrases, colloquialisms, oxymorons or poetic metaphors. In fact, dr Batko often quotes lines of poetry in support of his reasoning, and the stylistic devices he uses reinforce his arguments (see the fragments, in which he discusses bureaucratic language by referring to the aphorism by Stanisław Jerzy Lec: It’s not enough to speak to the point, you must also speak to people (p. 83) and all this positively affects our perception of the subject considered in the monograph. And thirdly, because of the scholarly passion with which the author describes the issues he investigates. It is commonly considered that a researcher should be a person washed out of feeling, who merely sticks to his guns, in the form of his research instruments (my apologies to the author and to readers of the review for more colloquialisms). Well, the passion, which is transparent throughout dr Batko’s writing, clearly highlights his arguments while, most importantly, it never strips them off scholarly precision and objectivity. It is at this point that I also wish to mention the author’s erudition and competence, which are evident not only in general matters but also in the smallest details. In fact, the in-depth knowledge of his subject is not used in the monograph for the display of intellectual pyrotechnics but for a better illustration of the issues tackled and for laying emphasis on the legitimacy of his arguments. At the very beginning, dr Batko uses well-chosen metaphors to illustrate various paradoxes of the ways public organisations in Poland operate. For example, he quotes from the queen of L. Carroll’s “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There”, which distinctly reminds us of the principle introduced to management studies by Henri Le Chatelier: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place”. The monograph’s methodological assumptions are primarily rooted in the intellectual resources of researchers who work or have worked within the postmodernist ideology, which – as

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