In search of a title
1/24th
By
One of twenty four Executive Directors of the World Bank Group
November 2002–October 2004
Some respectfully irreverent questions and suggestions about a great multilateral financial public-sector institution that the world needs more than ever to be a lean and mean poverty-fighting machine and that at sixty years of age should perhaps be renewing its vows in order to move up from “knowledge” into wisdom and instead of trying to advance impossible agenda like justice and social responsibility might do better settling for fights much easier to monitor against injustices and social irresponsibility … all made by a perhaps a somewhat naive but very well-intentioned former executive director equipped only with his long private-sector experience, and his willingness to speak out … sort of.
Or
HAVE THINK-TANK, WILL TRAVEL
Or
ANOTHER MOUSE WHO TRIED TO ROAR
Or
Mr. KUROWSKI GOES TO WASHINGTON (My daughter’s suggestion)
Or
VOICE AND NOISE
That’s it!
VOICE AND NOISE
Having an opinion and voicing it is what Voice is all about. Putting together thousands of perfectly pure voices might synthesize into a harmonious symphony but, without some noise, it will never ring true and that is what Noise is all about.
The world I remember when I was young moved forward on carrots and hope in the belief that it was going to be a better place, while today’s drivers are more the sticks and despairs of those looking only to hang onto what they’ve got.
To stand a chance of a better tomorrow, we need the Voice to recreate our dreams but also the Noise to make us want them come true.
A shrinking world that makes isolation impossible presents the human race with the challenge of really having to get along. If we resist facing this challenge, the world will be a much-saddened place: let me get off. However, if on the contrary we truly try to make it work, we will at least have some beautiful dreams again.
This book with all its simplicities and contradictions is but an effort to put my voice and noise on the table. All yours are needed too.
P.S. After having decided on the title I found on the Web an article by Ingo R. Titze, Ph.D., titled “Noise in the Voice” that originally appeared in the 2005 May/June issue of the Journal of Singing. It reassures me a lot, as it argues that “A little noise, turned on at the right time, can go a long way toward enlarging the interpretive tool."
