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Breaking the Code
Jun. 20th, 2010 09:03 amWe went to see a local production of "Breaking the Code" (about Alan Turing) last night. A couple of things that have gotten me thinking:
1) The original logo (on the playbill, for example), shows a swastika in the "o" of "Code" to signify that part of what Alan Turing did was to quite literally help save his country by breaking the Nazi "Enigma" code. As we arrived to the theater, one of the crew was repainting the sign, replacing the full swastika with a fist crushing a swastika (a "breaking" of the swastika, if you wish). I wonder whether they had been getting complaints from people driving by and just seeing the swastika without knowing anything about the play -- or if they were getting lots of neo-Nazi people wanting to see the play thinking that it was something else who were then upset by Turing's homosexuality.
2) Alan Turing was "good enough" during the war because his intelligence was needed. Later, his country treated him incredibly poorly and he ended up committing suicide. It got me thinking about how often this kind of things happens at all levels. A country, or company, or person, ignores or excuses behavior they don't like while they are getting something that they need or want from the person, but once that person's usefulness ends to them, suddenly this same behavior becomes a major factor. I'd like to think that I'm better than that -- that I would act with integrity in all situations, but I really don't know. It's all too easy to be forgiving and accepting when things are going your way, and all too easy to be judgmental when things are going poorly.
1) The original logo (on the playbill, for example), shows a swastika in the "o" of "Code" to signify that part of what Alan Turing did was to quite literally help save his country by breaking the Nazi "Enigma" code. As we arrived to the theater, one of the crew was repainting the sign, replacing the full swastika with a fist crushing a swastika (a "breaking" of the swastika, if you wish). I wonder whether they had been getting complaints from people driving by and just seeing the swastika without knowing anything about the play -- or if they were getting lots of neo-Nazi people wanting to see the play thinking that it was something else who were then upset by Turing's homosexuality.
2) Alan Turing was "good enough" during the war because his intelligence was needed. Later, his country treated him incredibly poorly and he ended up committing suicide. It got me thinking about how often this kind of things happens at all levels. A country, or company, or person, ignores or excuses behavior they don't like while they are getting something that they need or want from the person, but once that person's usefulness ends to them, suddenly this same behavior becomes a major factor. I'd like to think that I'm better than that -- that I would act with integrity in all situations, but I really don't know. It's all too easy to be forgiving and accepting when things are going your way, and all too easy to be judgmental when things are going poorly.