The Vision Thing

This is partly a reflection of context out of which vision statements arose. Vision statements did not really originate with the church, despite misguided appeals to the KJV translation of the first half of Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” They come from the world of marketing. Th e mathematician and philosopher Archimedes is said to have declared, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” The lever of the marketer is advertising and its fulcrum is dissatisfaction. Media critic Jean Kilbourne observes, “Advertising creates a world view that is based upon cynicism, dissatisfaction and craving.”
 General Motors executive Charles Kettering famously observed that the key to economic prosperity is “the organized creation of dissatisfaction.”