Hold your ground, Hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when then courage of men fails. When we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!
Competent adults doing meaningful work with capable peers, fair pay, and low drama tend to report higher satisfaction than those in fluff-heavy environments. Chronic “happiness initiatives” often signal underlying dysfunction (poor selection, weak management, misaligned incentives). Studies on “overly nice” cultures or high psychological safety without competence standards show risks of groupthink and lowered standards.
This isn’t “theory X” brutality or ignoring human nature. It’s realism: humans respond to accountability, status, reciprocity, and competence hierarchies more reliably than abstract “care.” High-trust, high-performance teams (think special operations, certain tech scale-ups before they bloated, or old-school professional services) are often blunt, direct, low on ceremony. They fire fast, celebrate wins hard, and have low tolerance for excuses.
When employee self-actualization as the north star, endless DEI/engagement/wellness budgets, psychological safety theater, and the idea that the organization’s primary moral duty is to its people’s feelings and “growth.” HR departments professionalizing into mini-social services, with metrics around “engagement scores” rather than output. Union-adjacent thinking even in non-union environments: voice, equity, process over results.
“Leaders remove obstacles so the team can deliver” morphs into “leaders exist to serve employee needs/emotions/identities.” The mission becomes subordinate. Customers and shareholders are treated as abstract funders of the real work: culture crafting and personal actualization. This creates predictable pathologies—diffused accountability, tolerance of mediocrity (“be kind”), performative programs that signal virtue more than they drive productivity, and resentment when reality (deadlines, quality standards, market pressure) intrudes.
Once “happy employees” or “inclusive culture” becomes the explicit goal rather than a byproduct, budgets bloat with diminishing returns. Engagement surveys, mandatory trainings, affinity groups, wellness stipends, endless feedback loops.
Competent adults doing meaningful work with capable peers, fair pay, and low drama tend to report higher satisfaction than those in fluff-heavy environments. Chronic “happiness initiatives” often signal underlying dysfunction (poor selection, weak management, misaligned incentives). Studies on “overly nice” cultures or high psychological safety without competence standards show risks of groupthink and lowered standards.
This isn’t “theory X” brutality or ignoring human nature. It’s realism: humans respond to accountability, status, reciprocity, and competence hierarchies more reliably than abstract “care.” High-trust, high-performance teams (think special operations, certain tech scale-ups before they bloated, or old-school professional services) are often blunt, direct, low on ceremony. They fire fast, celebrate wins hard, and have low tolerance for excuses.
When employee self-actualization as the north star, endless DEI/engagement/wellness budgets, psychological safety theater, and the idea that the organization’s primary moral duty is to its people’s feelings and “growth.” HR departments professionalizing into mini-social services, with metrics around “engagement scores” rather than output. Union-adjacent thinking even in non-union environments: voice, equity, process over results.
“Leaders remove obstacles so the team can deliver” morphs into “leaders exist to serve employee needs/emotions/identities.” The mission becomes subordinate. Customers and shareholders are treated as abstract funders of the real work: culture crafting and personal actualization. This creates predictable pathologies—diffused accountability, tolerance of mediocrity (“be kind”), performative programs that signal virtue more than they drive productivity, and resentment when reality (deadlines, quality standards, market pressure) intrudes.
Once “happy employees” or “inclusive culture” becomes the explicit goal rather than a byproduct, budgets bloat with diminishing returns. Engagement surveys, mandatory trainings, affinity groups, wellness stipends, endless feedback loops.
I’m actually a case manager and I know all about SDOHs. It is a Trojan Horse for socialism. Step 1 is to turn medical care into “healthcare” step 2 is to get government sponsored “universal healthcare” step 3 is to redefine health as any and all social determinants of health including transportation, food, shelter, jobs, utilities, “social support”, and self actualization. Step 4 is to make the case that only a centralized government planner can bring forth a health utopia.
Truth is this leads more people to be poor and unproductive so that the people who actually need help can’t get it. The vast majority of people in America that are poor and unhealthy and stay poor and unhealthy because of their bad choices and unhelpful subsidies. We help people by having them carry their own load to the furthest extent they are capable and not subsidizing them with things that harm them. Allow them to be helped by their community that is not being taxed to death.
@JoelWBerry Working in the hospital, you would be amazed at the people who are 350+ pounds asking case management for food resources because it is “too expensive”
Funny you say that, I had a conversation with a coworker just the other day, and both of those things came up. She said her and her boyfriend went to Disney together and she wore different Mickey ears every day and then said she was in no rush do get engaged or married and have kids for years and years
@KristanHawkins All believers were chosen
“But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”
Romans 8:10 ESV
Your question about natural law is at the heart of the gospel. We know right from wrong, but consistently choose wrong. We don’t need a new law, we need a new heart, to love what is good.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”
Romans 1:18-23