Remember Enron?

Often the most powerful sermons don’t come from the pulpit. Case in point: This weekend my hubby and I watched a flick that was the best example I think I’ve ever seen of how somebody can “gain the whole world but lose his own soul.” The DVD was a 2005 documentary, “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.” Talk about hubris.

The film took a behind-the-scenes look at the arrogant, largely unregulated principals in the company that started the economic earthquake. The producers pieced together TV news clips, Enron company footage, pithy interviews, and even some psych research on how humans compromise ethics, and in doing so they created a fascinating look at a primo example of how “pride goeth before a fall.” Netflix described the film as “a serious lesson in the potential trappings of dishonesty and unethical behavior dogging corporate America.” Somehow those words don't even seem strong enough.

As I watched the guys in this "men's club" engaging in life-risking entertainments like extreme dirt-biking, I was struck by how little male-female partnership was going on here, and how a high-testosterone view of leadership played into the men's thinking. "How the Gentiles love to lord it..." The gender of the courageous whistle-blowers was also interesting. I'm not saying women are in any way more moral than men. But I do think one of the unexplored factors in the economic mess Enron helped to create is the relationship between the kinds of stuff they did and a certain kind of thinking on gender.

Worth watching.

Oh, and I finished exam one in my comps. Next one starts Tuesday, 10 AM. Three to go.