Wills on McChrystal & Obama

Garry Wills enters the conversation to reiterate a point that he made very firmly last December: it's time to get out of Afghanistan. I gave the benefit of the doubt to Obama's decision, but it doesn't look very promising to me, regardless of the McChrystal issue. Can Petraeus do better? Lots of bodies and reputations have been buried in Afghanistan.

Move!

Everyone who works in an office ought to read this. Sometimes my staff must think that I have St. Vitus Dance because I move around a lot, taking out papers, getting drinks, etc. that I could leave until later. I use the downstairs rather than upstairs can. "Is All That Sitting Really Killing Us?" addresses these issues. Interesting.

Ross Douthat on Liberals & Obama

Courtesy of Tyler Cowen @ Marginal Revolution once again, this Ross Douthat column from NYT seems to track with one of my posts yesterday about Obama alternatives. Obama can't act by fiat. Perhaps, as Garry Wills has argued, he's been somewhat self-limiting out of excessive caution, but he can only do so much so fast. The other issue Douthat raises (citing Cowen) about what will and won't work deserves the healthy skepticism that Cowen & Douthat accord it. I've been intrigued by the stimulus vs. debt reduction debate going on between some very smart and capable people; however, in the end, we don't know which course of action will bring us the promised land. We should, I suggest, try to avoid obvious harm. Finally, liberals (a term I hate to have to use, so indefinite and at times pejorative) don't appreciate what Obama has done. If nothing else, some health care reform that brings us within reach of universal coverage is a tremendous accomplishment, as Douthat notes.

Steven Johnson on the Effects of Media

This post from Steven Johnson, a fine author, includes a link to his article in the NYT today. It's a point I wonder about: what effect does the bombardment of media, now especially web-based media have upon us? I think it's good, but I've spent a good deal of today writing blogs and catching up on blogs, as well as having read the NYT last night. I haven't yet turned to a couple of fine books that I'm reading. Good or bad? I think good, overall. I think that the faster movement of ideas, especially in bite-sized chunks on the web, is constructive with positive intellectual benefits. I do think that longer, considered works are important, perhaps more important than these smaller pieces, but we just have to balance our diet. I worry that there's a lot of books that I'm not reading because I'm spending more time with on-line reading, which I consider more current, more cutting-edge, so I do try to balance the current with the proven. Johnson & Nicholas Carr, whose work he reviews, discuss some important issues very thoughtfully.

David Brooks on Stimulus vs. Debt Reduction

I found this at Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution: David Brooks in the 6.10.10 NYT on "Prune & Grow". I think that Krugman addressed these arguments somewhere in one of his blog posts. So where does that leave laypersons? I think that in this book review by Herbert Gintis, also courtesy of Marginal Revolution, lays the best answer: faulty economic modeling, models based on equilibrium that don't tell us about dynamic states in disequilibrium.

The Judts on Political Optimism & Pessimism

Tony Judt, NYU professor of history and his son, 14 year-old Daniel, published this written exchange today in NYT. It hits upon a number of issues, it's well written, and it provides some topics for further consideration.

1. Political Cynicism. Many folks are down on Obama these days. He isn't providing the leadership we need; he's too conciliatory and not confrontational enough; he's not changed the world sufficiently, etc. Certainly some criticisms are justified, and concerned citizens (well, some anyway) should express their concerns. We need to act and think cautiously in this regard, however, as political cynicism comes easily and cheaply. No, Obama has not brought peace the Middle East, has not gotten us out of Iraq or Afghanistan, and has not stopped the oil from spewing into the Gulf. Has he neither parted the Red Sea nor walked upon water. We must judge him, like all actors on the political (or perhaps any stage) by the choices available to him, and the choices available to him are in large measure a matter of constraints laid upon him. To what extent has he held the political, not the mention the technological, power to control and shape events? I suggest that this is the test for all actors in any arena. Before coming down too hard on Obama, we should think about what options that American people and their Congress have provided him. Did the electorate get behind a better health care reform bill? Is Congress saying they want to address global warming? Are the American people now going to say, "we've got to use less oil. Please tax and price oil so that it reflects the real costs that it imposes on us by supporting corrupt regimes, despoiling our home (the Earth), and skewing our choices about energy"?
   
2. Political Choices. We as voters elected Obama. Some now seem unhappy with him. So what choice do you wish you'd made differently? Do you now wish that you'd voted for John McCain? Not me, not by a long shot. I admire Herbert Hoover in some ways, ditto Jimmy Carter, but as political leaders, they weren't the right person for the job when they served. BTW, the implicit comparison for McCain with Hoover and Carter should be taken cautiously, very cautiously. I don't want to besmirch Hoover or Carter unfairly. Do you wish that Hillary Clinton would have received the nomination and been elected? To my mind, that would have been fine, but I don't believe that we'd see a significantly different political environment. On the down side, we'd have a different but probably still virulent cultural and political divide. BTW, Secretary Clinton seems to being doing a fine job as SOS. However, I don't know that her preferred policies would differ significantly from those chosen by Obama. Would you have preferred some other Democrat? They all seem rather small—if not downright toxic—now, and none of them were the best choice at the time, either.
   
3. Corporations. I think that we have a big problem with corporations. Simply put, most multinational corporations, or publically traded corporations, have a huge gap between shareholders, management, and stakeholders. Shareholders are out there, distant from the actual corporation. Does a mutual fund that I own hold shares in BP? I could find out, but I don't—what good would it do? Shareholders want return on their investment measured in terms of money, not measured in terms of green fields and blue oceans. I know, we all want a clean environment in the abstract, but how many honestly invest on that basis? Managers have to please shareholders, which are increasingly large entities, by the only reliable measure available to them: money. Other stakeholders, such as workers, neighbors, and the larger world, have precious little say in all of this. This leads me to think that maybe we need to re-think the business corporation. How do we prevent externalization of costs and misevaluation of resources across such a wide variety of interests? James Gustave Speeth, a Yale law professor, raises this concern in one of his books (excellent) on the environment. (I read a library copy; sorry I can't provide the cite.)
   
4. Regulation. It does seem that regulation will make a comeback, but we should be careful. The market, imperfect as it is, should be the bedrock of regulation. I know, I know: the misplaced faith of Greenspan, et al. was in the market's ability to regulate. But the market needs help, not junking. Here's where one hopes first-rate legal scholar and social scientist Cass Sunstein will do good work in his job as head of the regulation overview agency in the White House. Some regulation by regulation is in order, but let's do it effectively, and not just by bureaucratic (no malice intended) fiat. See James Surowiecki on financial reform, for instance. I think that this is a great challenge for all governments (I'm talking to you, too, China): how to keep the golden goose of markets and capitalism producing without letting the sorcerer's apprentice get out of control.

Warner in NYT re “Dysregulation”

Judith Warner has a short article in the NYT Mag today on "Dysregulation Nation". The idea of our failing to regulate ourselves as a nation isn't new, as Warner knows by citing Christopher Lasch's classic from the late 70's, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Era of Diminishing Expectations (1979). Let me offer some quick thoughts on her article:

1. The issue of self-regulation and of social & political regulation is one of the oldest problems to vex humankind. The Greeks thought a great deal about it, the Old Testament is full of the issue, starting with the story of Adam and Eve, and I think (here I'm getting a bit out of my league), this is what Confucius was largely about.
   
2. A great analytical consideration of the problem comes from Thomas Schelling in an article entitled "The Intimate Contest for Self-Command", which I read many years ago, but which has stuck with me because of it's a compelling metaphor and applicability to my life. Schelling, a Nobel prize winning economist and author of a great book, Arms and Influence, used the story of Odysseus binding himself to the mast so that he could hear the Sirens' song and yet not be drawn irresistibly to them (and thereby death). Jon Elster gives an extended treatment of these issues in his book, Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality (1985), which (like all of Elster), is brilliant and insightful.
   
3. Modern brain research is giving us better insight into the physiological basis of how different brain structures and systems allow for this shortcoming. However, I think that psychiatrist and Christian spiritual writer Gerald May got it right even before the current bounty of brain research allowed us greater insight into brain functioning and structure. May posits that our reasoning brain, our most unique and human (and weak) characteristic, works by saying "no" to impulses from the other parts of the brain, such as the emotional brain or the hunger signal, to give but two examples. Let me quote from May:
   

   The vast majority of feedback that naturally occurs in the brain is inhibitory. The cell systems that initiate activity are, for the most part, in a constant state of readiness and potential activity, so the higher systems of the brain must maintain balance and function primarily by inhibiting them. The cerebral cortex inhibits deeper centers; the right and left sides of the brain mutually inhibit each other; ceils in the brainstem inhibit cells in the spinal cord. Effective action primarily takes place thought selective inhibition.
   

   I have often marveled at this arrangement of things. It seems to indicate that human beings . . . are inherently active, dynamic, vibrant. Maybe it is in the nature of sentient life not to have to be stimulated in order to act, but to be always ready to go. It means we are not simply passive responders to external stimuli. In the very essence of our being, we are initiators. Perhaps, in the image of our Creator, we ourselves are endless creators.
   

       Addiction & Grace: Love & Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions (1988), pp.74-75.
   

4. Just as individuals seem to ebb and flow on issues of self-control (well, I do anyhow), so, I think, do societies. In fact, this may be the greatest challenge for any democracy. The problem that I perceive with democracies comes from the fact that they seem to gravitate toward a lowest common denominator. Low taxes, high spending, disregard for long-term consequences: these problems may be worse for democracies, although all forms of political organization suffer from these problems. (Exhibits: Greece, California.) It's just that other systems, more tightly controlled by elites, can inflict pain (present loss of some sort) for some anticipated future (and current) gain. Of course, non-democratic political systems inflict pain primarily for the benefit of the rulers, but something like defense (e.g., the Soviet Union) can be argued to be necessary for the long-term survival of the regime. Perhaps I'm too hard on democracies, but we need some forms of self-binding. Jon Elster, at least at one time (Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraint (2000)), suggested that constitutions in a democracy were a form of self-binding. I think that he later recanted that argument, but I'm not sure why. For instance, the Iowa constitution, like many constitutions, requires a balances budget. (N.B.: This would probably not prove a good addition to the federal constitution.)
   
5. Many religious directives come in the form of "thou shalt not", or prayers like "lead us not into temptation". NNT, coming out of a Greek Orthodox and ancient Mediterranean tradition, endorses such thinking as a way of maintaining our robustness and of dealing with our blindness to Black Swans. NNT argues that the cultures of the Mediterranean, including Islamic culture, wisely put limits on debts. This is also a form of self-binding. Some debt, however, is certainly good; however, if it's for current consumption, probably not so good.
   
6. Warner suggests that contemporary culture may be worse that other times in dealing with the challenge of delayed gratification. Comparisons of this sort are, I think, very tricky, yet I think that they provide us with a worthwhile ideas. We are, I'd wager, significantly different from the New England Puritans of the 18^th century. Warner does a good job of identifying possible mechanisms (hope I'm using Elster's term correctly here) for our seeming lack of self-control. It's an interesting—and as you can discern from this post—thought-provoking article for me.

Shenk’s The Genius in All of Us & Straud’s Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain

I just finished listening to David Shenk's recent The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong
(2010 320p.). Shenk's book joins The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How (2009) and Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World Class Performers from Everyone Else (2^nd entry) in emphasizing what we do by way of learning over what we endowed with by nature. Shenk goes after the idea that genius, however we define it, resides in our genetic inheritance. He argues that we no longer can accept a G (genetics) + E (environment) paradigm. Instead, we have to think of G x E; that is, how genes interact with the environment to create outcomes. Genetic expression, not genetic inheritance, becomes a foundation for understanding how we come to perform and act. He follows many of the common examples, such as Mozart, Beethoven, Yo-yo Ma, Michael Jordan, and others. What sets them and others at that level apart? It isn't their genetic inheritance; it's their intense practice and drive.

 

These three books, all quite interesting, all point to one answer: if you want to be really good at something, do the hard work of practice. "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, man, practice."

I usually wouldn't note a book that I haven't read, but since it's in a similar vein, and I have it on good authority, I'll make an exception. C read and enjoyed The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind
by Barbara Strauch (2010 256p.). This book helps us older folks understand that our aging brains have a lot left in them. Among the most interesting things, some studies have shown persons who functioned at very high levels up the time of their death had definite signs on autopsy of Alzheimer's. Their brains perceived that some portions weren't functioning and apparently moved the functions to a different area of the brain. And, of course, the nuns study gets plenty of mention. It also seems that a high level of education is as good a protection of brain health as one can hope for. It's going on my "to read" list.

NNT & Roubini on Newshour

NNT appeared with Nouriel Roubini in a recent segment of Newshour. Both of them predicted the crash, and did so on Newshour in 2006, so they invited them back for a joint appearance. Interestingly, Roubini joins in the call of deficit reduction although he recognizes that it could trigger an economic slowdown. I trust his opinion in this regard more than NNT's. Both fear the potential for a longer, bigger downturn if we don't act to reduce the deficit.

NNT Interview & Krugman to the Contrary

A pithy interview with NNT here. He really likes the UK's new PM, David Cameroon, whom impressed me on a TED talk that he gave. This interview gives a sense of NNT's irreverence and insight. And in case anyone is interested, more drum beating on deficit reduction. I think that we may want to think about debt reduction as St. Augustine prayed about chastity: "Oh, Lord, make me chaste, but not yet." (This may be a loose translation, but we'll go with the popular version.)

But Paul Krugman to the rescue from Germany in today's NYT. Krugman uses the 1937 analogy, and he notes that stimulus seems the way to go because the economy far under capacity, with no sign of inflation. So why the belt-tightening now? NNT & NF & others like them have to answer the question. Of course overeating is bad, but if you've been undernourished for a while, you should eat more than you normally would. Contrary to NNT, is all debt bad? For those out of a job—as I was in 1974 under Gerald Ford's "Whip Inflation Now (WIN)" recession, you'd really like to have paycheck and you don't worry so much about the long-term balance of the federal budget. And, by the way, where were these deficit hawks from 2000-2010. Do they all think that Obama and the G-20 stimulus was unjustified? What's different now?

Cohen on Soccer & Brooks on Two Capitalisms

Roger Cohen writes in the NYT about Kissinger, soccer (football), and how it all relates to international politics. Fun.

David Brooks addresses the topic of free market capitalism vs. state capitalism, taking off from Ian Bremmer's new book, The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?. As usual, Brooks gives a complex topic a careful consideration within the very limited confines of a newspaper column.

Ferguson, NNT & Krugman Miscellany

Niall Ferguson on Australian television from 5/31/10: He's worried, and he thinks Keynes can be right, but not when you start from a position of fiscal weakness. The debate continues. BTW, some economies, like China and India, as well as Australia and Canada, seem to be in pretty good shape.

NNT speaks with James Surowiecki of the New Yorker about the new edition of The Black Swan and current economics. Like Ferguson, NNT remains worried about the banks. Yikes! NNT, like Ferguson, is campaigning to bring down the level of debt, both public and private. Will it crash and burn a fragile economy, or is it the start of fiscal sobriety? The debate continues. NNT wants a more "robust" society, one that doesn't fail as easily as what we just experienced. Robustness means the ability to take shocks and survive. Robustness comes from redundancy, and redundancy is the opposite of debt. However, in the name of efficiency, we eliminate a great deal of robustness in society. NNT suggests:

1. Low debt. It's like stopping smoking: the best way to reduce your risk exposure.
   
2. End complex derivatives.
   
3. Eliminate moral hazard (i.e., no bailouts).Don't give a drug addict more junk.
   
4. Don't try to predict Black Swans, just make yourself immune to them (or reduce their impact).
   

Another NNT interview, this time on CNBC: Shorter than the above interview, but long enough to cover some important points. NNT gets his points across quickly:

1. Fragility from too much debt.
   
2. Untrustworthiness of forecasts, so create robustness.
   
3. The 2008 crash was not a black swan; it was not as a surprise to all. It's a frame of reference situation. The turkey is surprised at Thanksgiving, but not the butcher.
   
4. NNT fears inflation, even hyper-inflation. He fears a failed Treasury auction.
   
5. NNT fears all currencies currently. He likes only short-term treasury bonds because of the fear of inflation.
   

Here is NNT @ NYU-POLY, where he teaches and does research. In this talk, he talks about iatrogenic injuries, "healer" caused injuries, in this situation it's applied to market advisers as opposed to just physicians.

"You are what you overcome."

"You may know all the answers, but the important thing to know is, what are the questions?" Reality demands the right questions.

Finally, a dose of Paul Krugman to keep the deficit hawks honest.

Tony Judt on Israel and the U.S.

Tony Judt in today's NYT, "Israel Without Clichés" presents the most insightful and succinct appraisal of Israel and of its relation to the U.S. that I have seen. A huge amount of sloganeering and worthless posturing goes on when someone tries to address issues in the Middle East that involve Israel, so to read someone with a open-minded perspective that will discuss the problems and strengths of Israel should cause everyone to rejoice. Highly recommended.

Krugman on Sachs Joining Fiscal Conservatives

This post notes that Jeffrey Sachs, best known currently for his work to alleviate extreme poverty in the developing world, weighs in via Financial Times as a deficit hawk. Sachs thinks that the stimulus is too slow, and the need really goes to investment, not immediate spending. Continuing his ongoing argument, Krugman, via Brad DeLong, argues that Sachs has no firm ground for this conclusion. This may all seem quite ethereal, but whatever path we follow will create very real results—the only question is whether those results will be for good or ill.

Barnett on Globalization & Identity

Thomas Barnett's interesting article in World Politics Review about globalization and identity addresses issues that Barnett comments upon frequently. I find his perspective instructive and worth serious consideration. In short, the issues resolve around how we may define ourselves as distinct while we become more closely connected. Interesting stuff.

Krugman, et al. v. Ferguson, et al.: What’s the Problem?

This article directly addresses an implicit debate that I've been following. On one side, Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong, on the other, Niall Ferguson and others, including Nassim Taleb. The issue: cut back federal spending in fear of long-term debt (think Greece), or stimulate the economy to continue raising the us out of the economic doldrums and avoid a lost decade (think Japan). At this point, I side with Krugman, who is thinking (rightly, I believe) short-term. Long term, Ferguson and Taleb and the deficit hawks are right: too much debt is a bad thing. The bad guys: W. Bush and his cronies. He and his Congress ballooned the federal deficit, leaving the Obama administration much less room to do what is necessary in the way of deficit spending.

For history buffs, remember that FDR became deficit hawkish at the beginning of his second term and took the nation into a second down turn. It took WWII, with its unprecedented deficit spending, to lift us out of the Great Depression. Keynes tried to warn FDR, but to no avail. Are we in danger of repeating the same mistake?

Stanley Fish & Company: Whither Education?

Stanley Fish writes on the benefits of a "classical" education. By "classical", he does not mean exclusively concerned with a Latin & Greek language and civilization curriculum, but more an emphasis on basic subjects taught in a rigorous manner. He enlists recent writing by Martha Nussbaum (for whom I have very high regard), Diane Ravitch, and Leigh Bortins on the subject. I have a lot of sympathy for this perspective, but does it apply appropriately to all kids? On one hand, one would think not; however, it seems like this is more the curriculum of American schools in the first half of the 20^th century, which I believe proved immensely successful. Also, too much seat time, especially in the early years, probably isn't such a good idea. I'm not sure, but the debate is an important one, as it seems that many find our education system still faltering in many places.

Incredibly Strong, Balanced & Flexible

As a three or so times a week yoga practitioner for about the last three or so years, I now have an even greater appreciation of challenges of strength, balance, and coordination demonstrated in these videos. We see it in gymnasts and acrobats as well as yogis. This Youtube video, like those of Damian Walters (2009) and (2010), makes me green with envy. I feel like I ought to get down and give 10 every time I see something like this. Amazing stuff.

William Li: Can we eat to starve cancer? A TED Talk

An interesting presentation by William Li @ TED. A theory of why diet can and does make a difference in helping prevent the diseases of civilization.

John Wooden: 1910-2010

I can't let my blog go without acknowledging the passing of John Wooden. In late grade school I started following college basketball, as I become interested in playing basketball about that time. I quickly learned about UCLA. Their press became famous, and then they recruited Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), who was an incredible player. This only made them better.

College games on television were relatively rare in those days, but if they played, I wanted to see it. When Iowa had its great team in 1970, the Hawks stumbled in the first round, but UCLA, without Alcindor and before Walton, still won the NCAA. (I'd liked to have seen the Hawks take a turn at the Bruins; UCLA defeated Jacksonville in the Finals, the team that eliminated the Hawks in the first round.) At that time I had no appreciation of the man on the bench, but since then I've learned a lot more about him, and like very many of his players, have come to a much deeper appreciation of his talents, values, and skills. He was a high school English teacher turned college coach, and he always continued to think of himself as a teacher. You can read articles from the NYT here and here and here.

BTW, the game that Drake played against UCLA in 1969 in the semi-finals was a great game. The Bulldogs had their finest hour then.

One final note: In The Talent Code, the authors describe a couple of UCLA profs who decided to observe Wooden to learn about his methods. They had been jocks, so they came to practice expecting lots of whistles, exhortations, and scrimmages. Instead, they found a quiet man who would explain exactly what he wanted to his players exactly what he wanted them to do, then he'd watch them, and then he'd correct the flaws to get the result he wanted. Each drill was carefully prepared and executed. No yelling, no ranting, just teaching.

Taleb Interview by Lydon

Click here to listen to a good interview of Taleb. Taleb, who makes for delightful reading, can be difficult to listen to when interviewed because he can become a bit agitated and tongue-tied (English is not his native tongue). However, in listening to the first part of this interview, he gives a rather calm yet always interesting exposition of his ideas. The site (courtesy of Huffington Post) also provides a written summary of the interview by Christopher Lydon, which I paste below for your reading enjoyment & consideration:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is one of the great wiseguys or wisemen of the moment. Quite possibly both.

For a world that wants better than the fatuous "perfect storm" account of the economic meltdown -- or of BP's gusher in the Gulf, or of 9.11 for that matter -- Taleb has revised and extended his cult classic, The Black Swan. His anomalous "black swan" (since swans are by definition white) has three properties: it's (1) any one of those unforeseen developments that comes (2) with big consequences and (3) a concocted cause-and-effect after-story. In conversation, Taleb is trying to get us to let go of "causes" and fix on the word "fragility." He is explaining -- sometimes elliptically, aphoristically, through metaphors, jokes and old folk wisdom -- why "the economic crisis has barely begun," why indeed we seem to have entered the Age of the Black Swan.

In a Letterman List, our conversation might be reduced to this:

10. Mother Nature is robust. Large modern corporations are fragile.

9. When the big bridge collapses, the "news" interest will be in the last truck that made it over, when the real story should be about the fragility of the bridge.

8. Somewhere in every Black Swan story there's a turkey. The turkey has a clear understanding of history, and of growth. The nice farmer feeds him every day, and the turkey keeps getting fatter. Then comes Thanksgiving. It's a Black Swan for the turkey. But not for the butcher.

7. We can say safely that the Black Swan started entering society with agriculture, with the fact that we started settling. Complexification started then... In my tableau of what's fragile and what's robust, the nation-state is a fragile entity, whereas city-states are more robust. So the creation of the nation-state created this big unpredictable event, that First War. Even those who saw it coming didn't see the damage it was about to cause. So the First War probably is the most consequential one, and it came in two volumes...

6. I think that today we are entering a different world of Black Swans because of the Internet.

5. Newspapers make us stupid. They overexplain with "causes" of things that can't be checked. And because they are driven by the sensational, they misrepresent risk. I prefer the social filter of news, over dinner or lunch. Anything that draws me away from face-to-face contact is harmful to my health.

4. Grandmothers had a rule of thumb after the Great Depression: work and save for a few years before you get into risk... Unpredictability and debt are not friends.

3. On bailouts: My analogy is to the gambler who is now gambling with the trust fund of his unborn great-great-granchildren... Prudence should be the first thing on the agenda of governments, not speculation. Stimulus packages are speculation... We are gambling on a massive recovery. It's too big a gamble, and besides it's immoral.

2. In the economic crisis, and in the Gulf of Mexico, what we should be discovering is not who made what mistake, but the fact of fragility. Alas, what we don't learn is... that we don't learn.

1. No government can fortify something that's inherently fragile

Sinek on Why

Simon Sinek presented a very good TED talk that I that I learned about from a useful site, Presentation Zen. Sinek's premise, which he's published as Start with Why, seems incredibly simple, yet it quite ignored by many speakers. Sinek argues that to persuade people you have to let them know "why" before going on to "what" or "how". Sinek calls upon contemporary brain research to argue that we begin with motives arising out of the emotional part of the brain. When we reflect upon this, it's really old hat dressed up anew: Aristotle emphasized the trio of logos (reasoning, logic), ethos (the trustworthiness of the speaker), and pathos (emotions). Those who persuade effectively have always known this insight, at least intuitively. Sinek, however, does us a favor by reminding us mortals that we cannot take the importance of placing the emotional grounds up front as given. Sinek agrees with the premise of the book Switch, which I'm now reading, that uses the metaphor of the elephant and the rider; the elephant is the emotional drive, the rider the rational decision-maker. Both have to work in tandem to complete a change or switch. Sinek's take away line: MLK didn't give the "I have a plan" speech; he gave the "I have a dream speech." So true! This book will go onto my list to read.

Orlando Patterson on Democracy & Violence

Orlando Patterson, sociology prof at Harvard, wrote an interesting article in the Sunday NYT about democracy and violence. The argument, I think now well refuted, was that democracies wouldn't go to war with each other. Patterson, however, looks at domestic violence and suggests that some democracies have greater violence than their authoritarian peers. Patterson points to street crime in India compared to street crime in China as one example (although the horrific attacks on school children in China demonstrate that no society can claim immunity from random violence). Patterson cites factors that seem to allow greater violence in developing democracies. I cite the article because Americans seem to place so much faith in democracy, although we don't stop to think what democracy means and entails any more than we carefully consider the meaning and implications of love. Both are god terms that users intend to conjure up images of goodness without considering the depth and implications of the terms involved. The Greeks, who left us the records of the first experiments with democracy, executed Socrates. Plato spent much of his adult life trying to figure out a better way. I don't think that he succeeded, but he and other critics surely have raised some legitimate concerns. In the end, I come down with Churchill on democracy: it's the worst form of government, except when compared to all of the rest.

Robert Frank on Economics & Framing

In my continuing crusade to identify sounder economic thinking, I want to share an article by Robert Frank in the NYT. In short, humans are not Spock-like reasoning machines, but we're imperfect decision makers who are often swayed by the deceptive and clearly irrelevant. Frank cites the gold standard studies of Kahneman and Tversky to show how random numbers can influence a totally unrelated estimate of the number of African nations in the U.N. But here's Frank's interesting take on their well-known research: "In such cases, Professors Tversky and Kahneman wrote in 1981, 'the adoption of a decision frame is an ethically significant act.'" Frank goes on to discuss how framing affects political decisions, how lies and deceptions can influence a debate. Frank notes—and I agree here—that the legal system provides a relatively poor vehicle for rectifying such deceptions and outright lies. Rather, Frank cites none other than Adam Smith (a great moral philosopher) in support of the use of social sanctions "as an effective alternative to legal and regulatory remedies". He cites Jon Stewart for his use of humor as a sanction, although Frank doubts that many of the targets of his barbs know or care about Stewart's skewers. Frank concludes by writing: "That's why it's important for the circle of critics to widen — and why we need to remember that framing a discussion appropriately is "an ethically significant act". I concur.