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Who Schools the Fish? Reflections on the Governance of The Families of Man and Beast

Audrey is on the volcanic ledge where the Castle rises from the sea's cold tides. With a staff she is stirring the waters where the fish come to feed. Tutor can see the speckled fish coming and going in schools, this way and that as Audrey muddles the waters with her stick. A kid alone on the rocks, tossed last year from her prep school. In the rooms where Trusted Advisors to Wealth come and go, discussing her case with Momma, discussing and rating her on her Capitals and Liabilities, it is said, "the jury is still out on Audrey; she could still go either way." A family therapist has a file on her so thick it bulges, and takes a thick rubber band to stay closed. Before Tutor came to the Castle, as Momma's last resort, Audrey walked the cold stone floors barefoot at night, in her white shift, eyes wide and fast asleep. Therapist said she is looking for her father, and no one even Momma can name his name, or say who or where he is.

Can this kid be fixed? If anyone could, it would be Tutor because he loves her and needs her as his connection to the future. "Hey, Audrey," he whispers, "how did fish form schools? Do you think their Momma made them?" Audrey knows his ways, a Silly Grownup among the Stupid Grownups, and holds a disdainful silence, agitating the waters and scaring off the fish. Yet the question sinks in. At bedtime she returns to it, "So why did the fish form schools?" "Same reason," says Tutor, "that lambs form flocks, the birds fly in formation, ants form mounds, and the whales come in pods." "Because their mommas make them?" "Yes," says Tutor, "thank God for Mommas! Your Momma loves you very much, and so do I." His little lamb falls asleep, with Tutor her teacher, pastor, Mentor, babysitter, enabler, straight man, fellow traveler, kindred spirit, and lost soul. What has love got to do with teaching? Child rearing? Giving? Faith? Poetry? Scripture? Schools of fish, or thought?

I was expressing my interpretation to Tutor, and he said, "What has hate got to do with it, Phil? Why do the schools humans form have teams that play against one another? Why do communities have boundaries, walls, gates, property lines? Why do fans of one faith, chant, "USA" and "Build that wall?" Why does one color lynch another? Why did Athens when sickness spread, burn a pharmakos, at the cross roads? Why in chapel at the altar where I give communion can you look up and see the Shepherd bleeding, like the lamb he might have fleeced and butchered? Why do we eat of his body and drink his blood like a bunch of barbarians? You mention art, and love. As for tragedy? Abraham and Isaac? The Book of Job? As for satire, and the blurred dance of the priest, the knife, and the goat? As for the bliss of conquest and subordination? As for pillage and what historians politely call 'rapine?'" Why do fish form schools? And why do dogs and wolves run in packs? Speaking of rapine, do you know the story of Audrey's conception on the killing floor at the Bank of Wealth Bondage, the night the traders and trusted advisors celebrated her mother's first world historical trade? So the capitals circulate, in the economy of wealth, love, rancor, and revenge."

Inspiration from below - that is really Tutor's problem.  I wish he would admit he needs help. I am all for speaking truth, but it is revolting, all the same. We humans wear skirts or trousers for a reason. Our Mommas make us, and rightly so.

 

A Word to the Wise on Wisdom Consulting to the World's Wealthiest

My role, to the extent I can get work, is helping wealthy families "beat the proverb: shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in the three generations," as Jay Hughes and his many followers say. Helping families, very rich ones, help themselves is my calling, as others might be called to serve humanity, God, the body politic, or art. We all have a Summun Bonum and helping the rich get richer, and stay rich forever, is mine. The problem is that there are only a few hundred families that can afford a family governance team to prepare the wealth for the heirs and the heirs for the wealth, so the family's "capitals" (including but not limited to money, culture, education, political connections, self esteem, inside information, virtue, and spirituality) can continue to grow and synergize for 100 years. I can see the Trumps doing it, but they are on the low end as far as net worth goes for this kind of work. Without this education, I like to tell my family governance prospects, they risk being "deported from Paradise back to the Middle Class." I am always amazed that people buy this line of thinking, but almost anything people find flattering or self aggrandizing, will find a market. In a lot of families the moral mentor, and spiritual guide for the kids, has been a woman of color and of faith, from say, Mexico or Guatemala. The kids learn about love and ethics and spirituality, and family values, and can pick up Spanish, from their "Second Mother," as some call her.

The market opportunity now for me personally and for Tutor and for those we train in Wealth Bondage as Spiritual Guides to the World's Wealthiest, is that the low paid women who have served these families, for room and board and subsistence wages, are now being deported by ICE from the lower class here back to abject poverty in Mexico or South America. This opens a space for the more reputable moral instruction providers like me and Tutor, to raise Children of Affluence to stay rich and rule us. If you find this interesting and want to cash in, let me know. The superrich are the fastest growing market segment, they have all the money and power, and all the other capitals, too, and if you have aptitude and interest in serving as their spiritual guide, and are not too squeamish about it, there are openings all over the world. You think I am kidding, right? Buddy, there are actual placement agencies, for nannies, butlers, trusted advisors, family office staff, spiritual guides. You would know that if your own ancestors had not been deported back to the Middle Class for lack of virtue, or whatever. It is hard to explain this world of extreme wealth and privilege to losers like us, but it seems important, because it is systemic, unresisted, and apparently irreversible. Which is why I say, "Why fight it, when you can join it?" Call me.

Please Rate your Beating on a Scale of One to Five

Sometimes I am just not sure about Tutor. I can't tell whether he is operating as a Catholic Priest (Monk), a free lance morals tutor, a satirist, a Dungeon Master, or as an employee in good standing of Wealth Bondage, Incorporated, The Metaphysic of our Age. In any case, after singing a High Mass, in the Chapel at the Castle by the Sea, complete with incense, religious regalia, a crucifix on a staff, Audrey disguised an as altar boy, and Holy Communion, Tutor sent around a Zoomerang Customer Satisfaction Survey, with a five part Lickert Scale, rating his singing, the quality of the wine, the taste of the bread, and the degree to which the Sermon addressed the Customer's greatest moral improvement opportunities, and induced a change of heart that he called "repentance." How do you read this? Maybe at age 2000 or so he is finally losing his holy mind.  In any case, attendance is up at Chapel, and the weekly take in the collection basket is up 14% YTD. Tutor is buying better wine. He must be doing something right.

Estate Planning is Dead; Long Live Legacy Planning

In the Bank of Wealth Bondage, where The Happy Tutor was Senior Dungeon Master to the Stars, and I was his apprentice, working with the less corrupt clients, and those needing less in the way of Moral or Spiritual guidance, or corporal punishment, or who just wanted moral improvement at a lower price point, we were housed in the Family Wealth Division, and our Sister Organization was Estate Planning. Wisdom and Wealth was in the Chapel down the hall, near the sauna where I doubled as cabana boy, in my early days, before turning to prostitution, being saved by the Grace of God, and entering the wisdom and virtue field, at the high end. Last night, drunk as a lord, Tutor was holding forth on Our Noble Trade:

Estate Planning is Dead, Long Live Legacy Planning.  Estate planning is about preparing money for heirs, in the largest amount possible, as well protected as possible. Legacy Planning is about passing on assets, values, and a way of life that enhances the well being of the heir, family, and the communities important to them. Estate Planning is a financial science. Legacy planning is at the intersection of love, wisdom, money. Estate planners need to think like an attorney, even if they are not one. Legacy planners need to think like a liberally educated human being, even if they are not one.  Attorneys have a monopoly on the documents. They are trained to win, and make another lose. Uncle Sam is the enemy. The moral inadequacy of the macho estate planning paradigm is painful to behold, or to be subjected to. Legacy planners see the documents as a sunken treasure ship, around which an ecosystem develops. To be a legacy planner is to have a moral imagination, as well as technical chops. The attorney maximizes net to the heirs. The legacy planner asks how the family will thrive, as individuals, as a family, and as part of community. (Well governed, ill governed, despotic, democratic, saved or damned). So maybe estate planning needs “An Extreme Makeover," or better yet a Takeover by the poets, roisterers, and street prophets. Come let us drink!

Thriving communities. The purpose of legacy planning is thriving communities? I could be a comic at Heckerling warming up the crowd for Tutor who could give his infamous talk on "Passing on The Right Amount to Heirs." He has this Sermon based on the Book of Job, the parable of Abraham and Isaac, and the example of God the Father, whose Son inherited a crown of thorns and three iron spikes, to prepay the monstrous debt of sin of those in attendance, and their clients, for not just 100 years of dynastic hegemony, but until the end of time.  "What profits it that your client inherit the earth, and lose her immortal soul?" With Tutor's sermon orator voice, the rafters would ring.

He gave that Sermon, for practice, to Audrey, and it scared the bejesus out of her. He has to learn to back off.

Audrey will Reign Over Ivanka one Day?

Would it surprise any of you to know that chunky, muscular, freckled, red-haired Audrey has taken a venemous disliking to slim, fair, elegant, blond Ivanka? Tutor assures Audrey that Momma can buy and sell 1,000 Trumps by lunch and it would only be a rounding error. Put Trump's net worth, and all the Russian Olgarchs, plus Zuckerberg, Gates and Soros, and Big Momma could own them all on the proceeds of her last trade. Since Momma owns a controlling interest in all the world's wealth, what is one slim blond heir of a small time billionaire in the larger order of things? Yet, Ivanka went to Chapin then on to Choate Rosemary Hall, then Georgetown and Wharton. Audrey got tossed from second grade after the Annie Oakley incident, is on the No Fly List, and would be wearing an ankle bracelet if Momma had not intervened with the judge. Audrey gets home schooling from one disreputable Tutor, while Ivanka has every advantage that education, breeding, good taste, talent, straight blond hair, connections and power bestow. 

Audrey will not discuss Ivanka, but she draws endless pictures of her in various predicaments, which if published might get Audrey in even more trouble with the powers that be.

And really, can Momma expect Tutor, holed up in a Castle, in the midst of the sea, to teach Audrey all she needs to know if she is to reign over all the other G2s and G3s (second and third generation billionaire heirs) and rule wisely and justly the world she inherits? 

The Style Best Suited to Subaltern Advisors Writing on Governance of Flourishing Familes of Wealth

To say that for a priest, Tutor is a bit macho, in a 1540's kind of way, is putting it mildly. His true calling was Dungeon Master to the Stars in Wealth Bondage; the priest gig was just because in his day, under primogeniture, the career choices for a younger son were not many. The army, the church, or the law. The priests were the biggest drunkards, gluttons, and whoremongers at Oxford so he went with them for his Masters of Divinity. In our times, he would have been an attorney.

Today, I was talking to him about prose style, the style of our Noble Trade, as Wisdom Consultants to the World's Wealthiest. I was asking him what he thought the right style should be for writing about dynastic families and to help them flourish, from our position as spiritual guides and trusted underlings. I asked if it seemed to him that the prevailing style was more masculine than not, even from the pens of the women. "You mean the virile plain-style?, Phil?," he asked. "Yes," I said. "You mean the prose of the honest man?" "Yes, I said. "You mean the prose that descends to us from insiders in the courts of Emperors and kings, like Horace, Seneca, and Dryden?" "Yes," I said. "You mean the prose of the Courtiers to Louis The Sun King, as it descends from...." "Well, yes, Tutor," I said. "You mean the prose of the coffee house, the prose of the earliest English magazines, like those of Dr. Johnson, Addison, and Steele?" "Yes, Tutor," I said. "And all these highly educated, highly professional women write it. Even when writing about family, and surely that is when we ought to be speaking female. And if they did we could all learn from them." "You mean," said Tutor, "that these females you mention, who do family governance and dynamics, write the prose of Strunk and White, at best the urbane prose of those New Yorker Talk of the Town pieces that E.B. White did, in imitation of Horace, the occasional essay?" "Yes," I said. "The best women in the field sometimes say that the field is male dominated, but they have internalized those very conventions, and don't need to be dominated, because they now quite handily dominate themselves in favor of dynastic, hegemonic, mostly patriarchal power and its prose." "Well," said Tutor, "domination is certainly an interesting topic. Which females do you have in mind?" But we were interrupted.

Audrey hobbled over to Tutor, like a pintsized miscreant in foot manacles. The shoelaces of her faded red Keds, were tied together. "Audrey," said Tutor, "what are you doing, kid?" Says Audrey, "I tied my shoelaces for fun, and now they are all  knotted up and I can't get them apart!" At that she almost toppled over. Tutor picked her up and put her on his lap, working the knots with his deft fingers until they loosened.

Now, Audrey has called Rex her "mascot," and is doing her cheerleader routine for some World Class team in her own imagination. The crowd is roaring. The best of her moves is the cartwheel, from one end of her room to the other.

Now, where were we?