Title: The Heart Aroused
Author: Whyte, David
Published by: Bantam Doubleday Dell
Year: 1994
Date reviewed: 01.98
ISBN: 0-385-42350-0

“The Heart Aroused” is about the difficulty David Whyte believes most people experience in trying to reconcile their working lives with the creative parts of their nature. His image of the workplace is one of an impersonal organisation, hierarchical and authoritarian, where people work in metaphorical and literal cubicles and narrow corridors – a place where frightened downtrodden workers and managers “who struggle to keep their humanity” have entered into Faustian contracts to sell their souls to the organisation. The book appeals to its readers to rediscover their “souls” – their creative spirit – and live complete lives.

Before discussing how this reconciliation might be achieved, Whyte has first to make his case for the existence of the powerful force he calls the “soul”. He sets out to do this in a frenzy of metaphor, invoking “the hidden and often dangerous inner seas where our passions and creativity lie waiting”, where the soul “has been forced to reside … in dark subterranean caves”. The “human psyche” is “a subterranean landscape”, a “turbulent place”, a “swirling natural boundary”, with “hidden springs boiling and welling”. This language is characteristic of the book, and while to some readers it may at first appear poetic and inspiring, on further reading it proves shallow and inconsistent – a jumble of folk psychology and mysticism with a dash of compexity theory thrown in for good measure.

If the book is addressed to the reader who identifies with the struggling employee, it is the first few chapters that draw him or her into Whyte’s world. If you feel you have given up everything else for work it is easy to say “Yes! Help me!” when Whyte suggests you feel “desperately out of place”, with a quot;sense of loss”, and that you feel a need “for rest, for contemplation, and for a kind of forgotten
courage … demanding … another life”.

Whyte also appeals to a desire to “belong”. In an early development of this theme another characteristic of his writing appears – the use of unsupported assertion as if it were accepted truth. An early example, which develops into nonsense, is on page 21:

“The whole of western cultural tradition is based on [my italics] a primary interior struggle: the essential aloneness of the individual, coupled with a wish to be part of some larger body of people, a company, an organisation, a church, a nation, a world, to achieve things that would be impossible alone. Bridging two impossible worlds, personal destiny and impersonal organisation, we find ourselves standing in a
half-dark, twilight land between them both.”

Most historians would rather say that western cultural tradition has primarily been based on man’s place in relation to God defined through organised religion and power systems, and more recently on consumption economics. Another example is on page 56:

“In Europe there is a tradition of telling, during long train journeys, one’s whole life story to complete strangers”.

Alas, only in fiction.

The third device used extensively by Whyte to illustrate his themes is the ‘appropriate anecdote’. If we believe half of these, Whyte has had more than his fair share of formative experiences. Whether it is the old crone crossing the cable bridge over the Himalayan chasm, the misty walk with a friend in the Welsh Borders (where, with “mythological overtones, the weather conspired as it should so close to the Celtic borders”), or the encounter with hostile locals in Northern Ecuador, each event is endowed with mystical significance and is carefully selected to illustrate his current point.

If the reader resists, or is not swayed by, Whyte’s language and style, can he or she learn anything about modern working life from this book? Despite the effusive prose, the book is rather short on meaningful content. If I were to summarise Whyte’s themes, I would say he is saying:

• there is little room for creativity in most people’s working life;
• without an outlet for our creativity we will never be wholly satisfied, nor whole as individuals;
• the desire to find such outlets is a powerful one which we suppress at our peril but which if and when released can be disturbing and unpredictable;
• we need to find ways of “speaking out” at work – a plea perhaps for integrity (my word, not Whyte’s) based on self-confidence – but without any clear help on how we can achieve this;
• “mid-life” gives us a chance to give more attention to the things that really matter to us;
• modern organisations and economies are complex, governed by the mathematics of complexity theory. They will flourish best if individuals are allowed to use their innate adaptability to build effective, adaptable systems and teams rather than being directed within strong hierarchical management structures;
• the model of the Learning Organisation is close to Whyte’s own view of how organisations need to be.

Although not everyone will agree with all these statements, there is little here that will not already be familiar to anyone who reads the current management literature. It is certainly not controversial, and there is a disappointing lack of constructive guidance on how to improve the quality of working life. Is there, then, any reason for reading Whyte rather than the Harvard Business Review or Management Today?

Whyte’s appeal seems to be aimed at a reader who identifies with his diagnosis of the employee or manager in the modern organisation – someone who feels isolated, exploited, frightened, who wants to “belong”, and who feels something is missing in his or her life. Indeed, Whyte’s premise – and the basic assumption throughout the book – is that his readers have little appreciation of, or involvement in, artistic or cultural activities. The sceptic will say that these readers are easy targets for Whyte’s romantic mysticism.

By all accounts (I have not met him) he is a charismatic and persuasive person who inspires strong loyalties. If reading Whyte, or working with him, encourages people to read good poetry and prose and to find time to develop other sides of their nature, I would not want to discourage them. I would, though, recommend that they look further than Whyte for their inspiration – to the body of Western and World art, music and literature where great works deal with matters which are fundamental to the “soul” in a way which Whyte cannot emulate.