Goethe's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice": Metaphor for Modern Business & Politics

The tale of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" has been so much a part of Disney folklore for decades that most people have long forgotten Johann Wolfgang von Goethe concocted the most realized form of the story in poetic form. While his philosophic visions are some of the greatest in world literature, the message behind "Apprentice" was one that was much simpler than his other ideas, yet one that managed to become timeless as the world of business and politics became more complex. This tale also managed to evolve (or really devolve) into slightly more complex territory as time went on--namely in how the sorcerer treats his apprentice after the major mishap caused by those anthropomorphic brooms.

When the sorcerer became more retaliatory in later variations, it more or less set the stage for Donald Trump's own real-life "Apprentice" and his quasi cobra-like "You're Fired!"

With a new movie adaptation of "Sorcerer's Apprentice" being filmed at the time of this writing starring Nicholas Cage, we'll eventually have a new vision of what this story means within the realms of American power and having to be trained by someone powerful. Through the original European prism in Goethe's work, there was more of a father-son relationship in the concept of a powerful person apprenticing someone. Mistakes were always going to be inevitable, and the powerful one teaching his young protégé would understand that learning through mistakes was a more fruitful path.

That philosophy was forwarded through into early America--right up through most of the 20^th century before more cutthroat tactics developed in the high-end business world. Even though apprenticing was more docile in Europe, Goethe still understood the concept of power and how powerful business entities already had become. Goethe conceptualized his understanding of this power through epic tales involving the underworld as he did while working on "Faust" concurrently with the publication of "Apprentice." With "Faust", we also had a protégé who makes a pact with the devil just for the sake of obtaining an all-knowingness. While Faust theoretically signs his life way making this pact, the interim interaction with Mephistopheles is subservient in reverse with the powerful one serving the apprentice.

Never once does Mephistopheles show any anger and an attempt to torture Faust, even though we're to assume that'll happen later when taking his soul. But, of course, Faust is rescued by God in the end while Mephistopheles has a fit in anger over the deus ex machina. Through Goethe's philosophy, no matter our monumental mistakes (even ones on a cosmic scale), we're still going to be forgiven in some capacity.

That seems soft in the dark and highly cerebral literary time of Goethe. Yet the lessons learned had to be mined through the process of deduction and how the Sorcerer was really doing his apprentice a favor by letting the mistakes be a process of self-learning. No matter how monumental the mistake, the bigger it is, the more the protégé will learn in the end. There was also a warning in making sure you consult with the suits before making any major decision in the real worlds of business or politics on your own.
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It goes without saying that the Ancient Greeks had a profound understanding of that concept, outside of going a different route to tell it. The Greeks were ones to believe in punishment for doing a major wrong in the universe--hence the Greek gods giving wise punishments to the mortals for sins. When the great Greek satirist Lucian of Samasota told a similar tale to "Apprentice" hundreds of years earlier, the sorcerer in question was an Ancient Egyptian mystic who happens to chastise his apprentice for making a mess of things. We're even led to believe that the apprentice is ultimately given a Trump-like dismissal in the board room for playing with literal fire.

With the same general philosophical warning intact, Lucian was really putting down the aspects of magic in his take, titled "Philopseudes." Long after Goethe's "Apprentice" was legendary, though, the lessons of not delving into powerful territory on one's own through the worlds of business or politics were being forgotten for the sake of advancing in those worlds. Nowhere was that more pronounced than during the advent of big business in America where corporate musical chairs began to be played on a daily basis. The idea of apprenticeships, however, has been one of the greatest alternatives to spending a fortune on a university where job prospects after graduation aren't always pretty.

Most apprenticeships I've seen have always gone the route of Goethe's vision where learning from one's own mistakes is used as the proper educational tool from the trainer. And, ultimately, there does seem to be quite a difference when a very powerful CEO apprentices someone. It doesn't necessarily have to be, outside of Donald Trump more recently setting a new bar of being brutal when a potential apprentice does something even minutely wrong.

All of the literary variations on this tale have sprung directly from the Lucian side of things, or, in a more apropos pop culture vein, Mickey Mouse in Walt Disney's "Fantasia." The Mick only gets a swat on the behind with the broom by the apprentice at the end of the segment, despite Paul Dukas' musical work (written exactly 100 years after Goethe's poem) having a final passage suggesting something much more violent. Whether suggested by "Fantasia" or not, modern pop culture's variations on the story couldn't help showing the anger of the sorcerer to perhaps show a wider dichotomy between a powerful position and a lowly apprentice.

With Donald Trump more or less making that irreversible now, it shouldn't be considered all that inane and surreal to tackle a new live-action take on the story in a film. As powerful as Trump nevertheless is, it might not be surprising to see one of his apprentices take matters into their own hands without consulting The Donald. Once that happens, the real-life variation of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" will take place with Trump giving his cobra hand gesture to fire rather than swatting his apprentice on the butt with a broom...

Sources:

http://www.fln.vcu.edu/goethe/zauber_e3.html

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6829