Curing the monster Some images of and considerations - Prof. Dr ...

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machine" (Berg 1987a). There can be no doubt that "the dragon itself is powerful,
ruthless, determined - but not necessarily evil. It is people, who cannot stand things
they cannot control, who see cruelty and viciousness in him" (ibid.).
What the dragon in the SCOS-logo is supposed to symbolize for our contemporary
institutions and our work enterprises, in particular, is a different metamyth from the
glittering and sterile pseudo-reality as it is expressed in the best-selling soap
operas on corporate culture and the related search for excellence. The dragon in
this newly created version may get the previously explored function of the
avantgarde in order to help us to create a new tradition of looking backwards to
previous dragon myths and images in order to (re)discover that there may be other
ways to cope with a dragon than just to annihilate it. It may even be the case that,
by referring to the Chinese version of the dragon, we may discover new ways to
help wisdom out of the wheel-chairs where it has been dislocated societally, in
order to incorporate it in our organizations again (cf. Sievers 1986 a/b). The
dragon tearing down the organization-chart may thus e.g. help us to perceive our
history of industrialization from a new tradition, i.e. the repression and
imprisonment of that part of reality which cannot be counted and measured.
So far as the image of the "dragon breaking out of the corporate psychic prison"
(Berg 1987a) in the SCOS-logo is concerned, I found two pictures which caught
my thoughts and which may help on further attempts to perceive the mythology of
this logo. The first one obviously is well-known; it is the front page of the first
English edition of Thomas Hobbes' 'Leviathan', which appeared in London in
1651.
Figure 7: Front page of the first English edition of Thomas Hobbes'
"Leviathan" (1651); ill. By Wenceslaus Hollar, Mansell Collection, London;
from: Vrandt 1987
The Leviathan, in the Judaic tradition, is the cosmic dragon which along with his
counterpart Behemot was created at the beginning of the world (cf. Steffen 1984:
83 f., 112 ff., 142 ff.). Althoug this cannot be the occasion to argue about the
meaning and the possible failure of the Leviathan as a political symbol - a point