Wednesday, March 30, 2011

How am I doing today?

A guest post by my friend Ben, although he states that he is not the original author. 
- Gryphem
- - - - - - - - - -

How am I, you ask?
Well, to tell the truth, I think I’d rather just die.
Cease to exist. Reach the end.  Be done.
Be no more. Out of here and out of everywhere, altogether.

My life is becoming intolerable.
Death of relationship. Failure in my face. Nothing I can do about it.
Aging. Out of shape. Too lazy or tired or stressed to fix it.
Meaningless job. Extreme boredom.
They are kind to me, but I know that I do not fit, or matter.
Fear of change; fear of staying the same.
So many things to do. So many demands on me. 100 little jobs.
I can’t find my purpose.
Can’t seem to fix serious problems for others.
Can’t seem to rediscover real prosperity myself.
So much stuff. So many responsibilities. Not enough time to fix problems.

Too much failure every day. I fail people all the time. I want to do it all but I can’t.
My failures are on display. I feel ashamed that I haven’t done better.
Love is real, but intimacy is difficult.
I try. I really do try to do right for everyone. My best efforts are not enough.
I am tired.
As you might guess, optimism is dying in me.
Hope is fading that it will ever be right.
I need to hear once more the voice of God, telling me it will all be right, someday.


"Despair" by Alex 'Boti' Fernandez

While I live, people turn to me. They need me. I have a responsibility to them.
People need me to do and be for them.
I must give them what help and comfort I can.
I cannot, will not, abandon the people I care for. For their sakes, I continue.
I will help and support them. I will not leave them. I Do Love Them.

Maybe THEY are my Purpose.
I will stay for them, and try to do my best, even though I do not feel like it.

I do have love in my life. She loves me, unconditionally.
Hang onto that...
Energize faith...
Believe even when it seems futile. Believe beyond hope.
Believe by an act of will. Believe through the hurt.

Oh, thank you for asking.
I think, maybe, tomorrow will be better.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

It’s Time to Come Home (Part TWO)

[This article is presented in two parts; this is the second. Part ONE was posted Friday. It would be best to read the two parts in order.   Thanks for reading.   –Gryphem]

“It’s Time to Come Home” (Part TWO)

WHAT WE NEED TO DO 

Just like we accept our inability to manipulate the world of the 22nd century, we must accept our inability to change radically some distant branches of our human family. We should think long and hard about trying to impose change on societies or nations (1) to whom we are only distantly related culturally, (2) with whom we do not share strong bonds based upon geography, economy, or common history, and (3) who are not committed to the effort themselves.

We should realize that sometimes other cultures function as they do because that is how the people of those cultures have chosen. We should admit that there are admirable qualities in many different exotic cultures, and that we might even find some ethical role models among them. To believe that everyone should be like us is xenophobic, arrogant, and closed-minded. Our American and Enlightenment cultures are admirable, yet we must admit that we still might have a thing or two to learn. We must admit that our way is not the only valid way to build a society.

We need a good strong dose of humility. In the absence of oppression, we should extend to other nations and cultures the same respect we expect from them.

We can uphold universal values such as the sanctity of human life and at the same time affirm that differences which are not ethical in nature are a matter of tradition and choice. There are undoubtedly situations in which we should intervene in an unjust or morally repugnant situation, but we are far too quick to disparage any culture that is different even when the differences are benign. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, not every cultural difference is a matter of principle.

For the present, we need to step back and stop trying to do for the Afghan people what they, collectively, do not want us to do. It is consuming our increasingly scarce resources and dividing our people. It is of questionable ethical justification, and perhaps not very effective anyway. Besides, we need our resources to be available to counter other more immediate threats. And we need a break. We ourselves need time to recover and heal.

I do not mean that we should disengage from the world. We know from experience that isolationism does not work. We should converse with all peoples and nations. We should travel abroad, do business abroad, share our values and our best practices in all areas of public life, suggest things others might do to enhance the quality of life for their people. We should be open to learn from others, and stay engaged in a two-way dialogue.

I do not suggest we become isolationists. I do propose that we move away from foreign intervention, refocus our energy and effort on our own situation rather than on other people in other places. I do suggest that we stop overtly trying to change other cultures (1) on a large, unsustainable scale, (2) in places which are not in our sphere of influence, (3) among people who are culturally distinct from us, and who do not share our history or values.

I categorically affirm the right to self-defense, a right which is always valid, whether defense of our own nation or defense of vulnerable others. If we recognize a valid need to engage in a far-away and culturally distant part of the world in order to protect our nation or our vital national interests, then so be it. The right to self-defense justifies striking back when attacked. It justifies removing the enemy’s ability to do us harm.

We must remain prepared to defend innocent life in cases in which a moral imperative is obvious. The Holocaust comes to mind. We must maintain avenues of individual assistance and immigration.

Self-defense does not justify genocide. Self-defense does not justify the unnatural transformation of a culture against the will of persons who are not partisans, even though they may share geographic or ethnic or cultural characteristics of our enemies.

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, and we must always be on guard to preserve our liberty and security. This does not imply that self-defense justifies endless military engagement.

I do not believe we should attempt to remake other portions of the world in our own image. Especially we should not do so by means of military force. Truth, justice, and compassion must be practiced, demonstrated, and modeled. But those values will ring hollow if they are imposed on a people forcibly by a foreign power.

We, the United States and NATO, should begin now to withdraw our military forces from Afghanistan. It is both geographically distant and beyond our cultural sphere. We should be careful not to withdraw too suddenly, because pulling out too suddenly when successor authorities are not yet strong enough might undo what good we have accomplished. It might create an opening for anarchists or tyrants. But we should begin the process.

At some time in the future, if the Afghan people find themselves inspired by their memories or observations of our open society and our respect for human rights, then they may undertake to reform their nation and culture. If and when that happens, we should help them to the best of our ability. But until that happens, we are meddling where the indigenous people do not really want us, and we are wasting our time and energy in the process.


If a certain nation which shares many of our values, a nation which is geographically and historically closer to the Afghans, should choose to get involved, then we might consider supporting the efforts of that nation morally, politically, and in other ways. But, with appropriate humility, we should withdraw.

Once we have pulled out of the combat zones, we need to: (1) Regroup, cut costs, and recover psychologically and fiscally from a decade of war. One benefit of a pullout will be a reduction of the impact of continual violence on our collective psyche. We need to think of PEACE instead of war for a while.  (2) Redirect the efforts of our military toward the threat at our doorstep. We should assist Mexico with the incipient insurgency it faces in the form of drug cartels. This would NOT be an action against the nation of Mexico, our neighbor and ally. It should be a cooperative effort with a neighbor to solve a problem we share here in our North American home. The goal of helping Mexico fight the drug lords and cartels should not be eradication of illicit drugs, but eradication of violence and criminal influences that threaten to undermine and corrupt our two nations.  (3) Rebuild neglected relationships with our allies, those with whom we share close cultural or historic ties, and our geographic neighbors.

CONCLUSIONS

Our idealistic attempts to right all wrongs may be noble in intent, but our efforts are ultimately impractical and doomed to fail. Hopeful optimism, grounded in reality and patience, should replace naïve utopian ambitions.

We are overextended, emotionally weary, becoming poorer by the day, and stressed. Reassessing our commitments, priorities, and methods of dealing with adversity overseas will begin to repair some of these problems.

One definition of stress is being responsible for things over which we have no control. If we reexamine our objectives, reassess our priorities, accept our limitations, and modify our behavior accordingly, we will reduce our collective level of stress. We will become saner, happier people. We will undercut the criticism (however unjustified) of those who malign our motives and cry “imperialist.” At the same time we will improve our financial situation.

We should continue to be committed to doing the right thing for our fellow human beings. We should continue to extend a helping hand in response to injustices and disasters whenever and wherever doing so will solve problems and increase the greater good. But we have no warrant or responsibility to remake entire societies, no responsibility to reform the ethical priorities of the entire human race. 

When innocents are oppressed, we may find a moral justification to act, but we should only do so if we can honestly expect to make a positive difference. Oppression which provokes warfare but does not end the oppression makes the situation worse, not better.

When a group is apart from our American and Enlightenment traditions of human rights and liberty, and when that group is committed to maintaining that distinction, then we are not obliged to change their minds or to force them to comply with our values.

When a culture is opposed to our intervention, actively or passively, we must realize that we will not be able to change their ancient and ingrained ways any more than we can control their weather.

We do not need to force our ways on others. If our ways and values are as attractive as historical precedent demonstrates, then ultimately many others will adopt human rights reforms voluntarily. People have been flocking to America for centuries because we represent to the world freedom, dignity, and opportunity. For the past 50 years, they have been flocking to many nations of Western Europe for the same reasons. If we believe in our free society and our commitment to human rights, then we should also have faith that others will ultimately choose, of their own accord, to adopt similar values and standards.

No approach can ever prevent us from taking military action when necessary in the defense of our own national interests. We reserve the inalienable right to take whatever action necessary to preserve our own freedom and security. With this in mind though, our situation will be improved by reducing involvement in places where our presence is not really appreciated.

We can offer our hand in friendship to all who wish to join us, without using coercion to spread our ideals. We can encourage others to affirm human dignity, create justice, improve standards of living, and live in accordance with the ethics of human rights. In common cause with all who show interest in our system of government, with all who demonstrate appreciation for our values, we can continue to work together cooperatively for the greater good of all.
- - - - - - - - - -

So what should we do about Libya now? That is a difficult decision which will require a great deal of wisdom. Military action may be necessary in the short term to prevent another episode of genocide.

Given the demands for freedom echoing throughout the Arab world over these past months, though, the prospects are encouraging. But this much is certain. We should not allow Libya to become another nation-building exercise for the United States. Our resources are too far spent, and the job can be better done by the Libyan people and their neighbors from the Middle East and the Mediterranean region.

Certainly we should continue to help the Libyan people in their quest for justice, liberty, and human rights. However, once the immediate crisis is resolved our assistance in a military capacity should end. We should continue to help in the role of cooperating equals, allies, supporters in common cause. This approach will be best for Libya, best for the United States, and best for all concerned.
- - - - - - - - - -

ONE FINAL COMMENT…

I fully understand the controversial nature of my conclusions. I fully understand the claim of many honest people that leaving Afghanistan now would be a betrayal of trust, that once we depart it will only be a matter of time until the violent, immoral forces of the Taliban make rivers of innocent blood run in the streets. I cannot argue. There would likely be pain, oppression, abuse, and killing. I have difficulty saying that we should withdraw for these very reasons. Yet when I am able to put aside my emotional reactions, these comments represent my best judgment about what we should do. Of course, I could be wrong. You’ll have to make up your own mind about that.

Gryphem

Friday, March 25, 2011

It’s Time to Come Home (Part ONE)

These comments were written with an eye on Afghanistan. Given the events of this week in Libya, and the sudden potential for a new long-term entanglement there, they take on new significance. 

When I use the words “we” and “our” in this post, I am referring sometimes to the United States, sometimes to all the people and nations of Western Civilization, sometimes to all the “Children of the Enlightenment” throughout the world.

‘Bottom Line Up Front’ – Except in defense of the innocent against atrocities, we should not force change on other cultures which are not willing to change. We are financially and emotionally weary from a decade of war. We need to pull back, reevaluate, and take time to heal.

[This article is presented in two parts; this is the first. Thank you for reading. –Gryphem]
- - - - - - - - - -

“It’s Time to Come Home” (Part ONE)

OUR LIMITATIONS

We cannot guarantee that our great-grandchildren will live in a better world. Removed from them in time, we cannot control the actions of our descendants. We cannot ensure that the world of the future a century hence will be prosperous or just.

Likewise, we cannot control the experience or environment of those who exist outside our realm in other ways. Some of those with whom we share this planet today are far removed from us by distance, or by cultural values and traditions. The social and philosophical frameworks by which they comprehend reality are utterly different from our own. For these, our distant human brothers and sisters of the year 2011, we can no more guarantee a good and just society than we can for our distant descendants of the 22nd century.

Here are a few essential beliefs that we live by.
       • All human beings are of value, and have certain rights.
       • All human beings share similar hopes, fears, abilities and aspirations.
       • We are all connected. All human beings are, at some level, children of a common family. We are all cousins.
       • We do not have the ability to correct all the problems of all the troubled societies of the world.

Those of us who live in nations that are prosperous and free do have a certain ability to influence, perhaps even a responsibility to improve, the bigger world beyond our borders. But we need to realize our limitations. We do not have either the understanding or the resources to fix all the problems of humanity. We may be persons of goodwill, yet we are human beings nonetheless. We are not gods. Our nations may be more prosperous, our governments more libertarian, our cultures morally superior to others.* Even so, it is unreasonable for us to attempt to control things which we have no right or ability to control, no matter how much we want to help.
[* Not all cultures are morally equivalent. For a defense of this statement see the Gryphem post of November 29, 2010 entitled, “All Cultures Are Not Created Equal.”]


THE PRESENT SITUATION

At present, the United States and the NATO Alliance are pursuing a noble cause in Afghanistan. Some might argue that the motives are not noble, but whether we choose to believe the best or the worst of ourselves is largely irrelevant. It is irrelevant because no matter how high (or low) our motives, no matter how powerful our military, whether or not we have the right to do so, the United States and NATO do not have the ability to radically change the people and cultures of Afghanistan.

The problem is that we are attempting to impose our enlightenment values on people who find those values utterly foreign. The people of Afghanistan are not invested in the process. Many do not share the goal of a free society; many do not value human rights. If they did aspire to these things, the story might have a different ending. That appears to be the way the story will end in Iraq, which shares more cultural history with Western Civilization than Afghanistan does. In Afghanistan we are battling on behalf of a population that does not share our values or even our goals. That is not to say that most Afghans want a return to the times of oppression under the Taliban. They do not. But it does not matter that most Afghan people do not support the Taliban… because they do not support us, either. It does not matter that we mean well. It does not matter that we are militarily powerful. It does not matter how much we wish it were otherwise.

A few of the Afghan people do understand human rights, liberty, and the potential for a better life. But they are a minority. We do have the ability, with extreme effort and expense, to produce small changes. But the essential character and motivations of this region, so different from our own, are ultimately in the hands of the Afghan people, not us. We can create minor changes if we exert major effort. We can change the lives of individuals, but not transform entire cultures. We can influence… but in the end the people of Afghanistan are going to create their own reality and their own society, based on their own vision of how it should be.

Meanwhile, we are overextended. We have been overextended for many years. Our military is incurring long term degradation of mission capabilities. Essential training and maintenance, especially in the sea services, has been put on hold while we fight two land wars. The land forces are being exhausted by recurring deployments to war zones. Reserve Forces have been employed routinely as a normal part of the operating force composition to such an extent that we no longer have much military capability actually held in reserve. It’s all being used, and depleted.

Now consider the financial situation.  Our nation once was the world’s greatest creditor. In the past couple of decades we have become one of the world’s greatest debtor nations. This development is not solely because of military spending, but the expense of ongoing wars has certainly contributed to our economic decline. In a world in which economic factors can be as significant to national security as diplomatic or military factors, our overspending makes our nation less secure.

The American public is tired of constant war, even if it is far away. Children in middle school have no memory of a time when we were not fighting a war in Afghanistan. We have financial troubles that are made far worse by warfare.

We are obliged, if we are able, to defend the innocent, to aid the victim, to extend compassion and justice as far as we can. But it is neurotic for us to think that we can overcome all the evils of the world. We are not that powerful.

For ourselves, to the extent that we are able, we need to end the warfare.


UNACCEPTABLE ALTERNATIVES

Some readers are thinking that we really do have the ability to change Afghan society, if only we tried hard enough. In one sense, they are correct. We have the ability to utterly destroy.

If we decide we value victory more than we value human life, if we are willing to forsake our own values in order to win, then yes, we have the military ability to eradicate Afghan culture by killing most of the Afghan people and utterly intimidating the rest. Then we could create a new society in the rubble.

In centuries past we did that with Africans who were taken from their homes and brought into a slaveholding society. We did that with Native Americans when we eradicated many of them and forced most of those who survived onto reservations. Of course, few would argue that slavery or the Indian Wars were morally defensible.

We did something like that with Japan after World War II. The post-war occupation of Japan was the ultimate way to neutralize a nation which had been a threat and held the promise of becoming a threat again, in time. As an ongoing response to the unprovoked attack by Japan on the United States, the occupation had an element of moral defensibility. We remained true to our values in that case by staying out of most aspects of traditional Japanese culture and focusing our reform efforts on government and economy.

Some readers are thinking that we now have a moral obligation to Afghanistan, that it would be wrong for us to turn away from a people, nation, culture, who need our help to end oppression and avert a human rights catastrophe. It is true that when we remove ourselves from the Afghan situation, we should do so carefully, gradually, in order to minimize the chaos that is likely to follow. It is true that we should evacuate some individuals and families who would be targeted by enemies for their former support of our efforts.

As we withdraw, we should take every reasonable precaution to prevent chaos and injustice.  We will grieve for the inevitable tragedies that evil people will create for their fellow human beings. Those tragedies will happen because other people with other values will decide that is how they want their society to be.


THERE ARE OTHER OPTIONS

Here is an opt-forgotten fact.  The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are ‘Wars of Choice.’ That means that our national survival is not at stake. That means that we have the option to end them.

Some say that the war in Afghanistan is a war against Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization behind the attacks of September 2001, which has as one of its stated goals the destruction of the United States. True enough. That is why our Afghan involvement began, and countering terrorism is still a consideration. We must balance expenditure of effort, energy, and wealth against the return we achieve. We must include in the calculation the ongoing damage we may be doing to our national psyche.

For nearly a decade we have contained, but not destroyed Al Qaeda. Here are some hard questions we need to bring to the light of day. How long are we willing to maintain our forces in Afghanistan to contain Al Qaeda? How much effort are we willing to give? How many American casualties are we willing to accept? How much more damage are we willing to accept to our image among the community of nations, and to our own self-image as we continue to fight a war that might not be necessary? How much are we willing to increase our budget deficit to keep boots on the ground in Kabul, Kandahar, and the Afghan outback? Is perpetual warfare justified? What are the other alternatives?

The unspoken secret is this: There ARE alternatives. There are alternatives that will continue to check Al Qaeda and keep us safe. We do not have to keep doing the same thing in the same way just because that’s how we’ve been doing it. We need an honest national dialogue to answer these questions: (1) What are we accomplishing in Afghanistan? (2) Is there some way we can end combat operations there and accomplish the same or better results?

It is important that we not waste our effort and resources in futile attempts to change far-away and exotic societies who don’t really want to do things our way anyhow. If we spend our effort and our resources in futile attempts, we reduce the amount of effort and resources we have available to do real and lasting good… and we can do real and lasting good in places that are closer, to whom we are more culturally connected, who are more willing to partner with us in the effort. That is where our efforts will do the most good. But only if we return home, regroup, and refocus.
- - - - - - - - - -










[To Be Continued…]

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Raising the Threat Level

The following is not original, but I found it entertaining. Sometimes a little humor is good for your disposition and your heart.

Let me say in advance that I have the utmost respect for all our NATO and ANZUS Allies, including the French, who regularly get worse than they deserve. Incidentally, I am particularly proud of the comments about my Scottish kinsmen.

All in good fun, gentlemen and ladies. So smile.
- - - - - - - - - -

Nations around the world are raising their national Threat Level in response to international unrest.

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved."

Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued "A Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when they were threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbor" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual. The only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the B*****ds." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.


The Spanish are excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

In the Pacific, New Zealand has raised its security level from "baa" to "BAAAA!" New Zealand has only one more level, which is "I hope Australia will come and rescue us."

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, mate". Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey!” and "We may need to cancel the barbie this weekend." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final level.
- - - - - - - - - -

Gryphem


[With appreciation to www.scotster.com and www.singletrackworld.com.]

Monday, March 21, 2011

Thomas Sowell

Today I present some quotations from the wisest man I never heard of until this week. I don’t know how I missed Thomas Sowell before, but I consider this post to be the first step toward correcting my indefensible oversight.

Thomas Sowell remains an astute commentator on the national scene at age 80. His website can be found at www.tsowell.com. Some quotes:

• "The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best."

• "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."

• "What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long."

• "Many bad policies are simply good policies taken too far. For example, we have taken tolerance to such an extreme that we tolerate the immigration into our country of millions of intolerant people who hate millions of Americans who are already here."

• "If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism."

• "One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and oppression breed wars. Most wars, however, are started by well-fed people with time on their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or imagined grievances."

• "Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late."

• "The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling."

• "If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today."

• "For bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing."

• "The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite."

• "Anyone who is serious about extending the same benefits to others must become serious about developing the same abilities in others—that is, raising them up to the same standards, not bringing the standards down to them."

• "Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good."


It is my hope that sharing these quotes will inspire thought and conversation among people of good will about our situation, the future of our nation, and our American values.

Gryphem

Saturday, March 19, 2011

I'll Be Seeing You...

This is for someone special.  I hope everyone appreciates it, though.



I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces all day through
In that small café, the park across the way
The children's carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well

I'll be seeing you in every lovely summer's day
In everything that's light and gay
I'll always think of you that way
I'll find you in the mornin' sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you

I'll find you in the mornin' sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you…


(Apologies for the abrupt ending.  But isn't that just like real life?)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Strange Headlines

Below I present some actual headlines and excerpts from this week’s online news.  How stoopid is we?

  • "Carpenters build many things like buildings."
    • Do they also build things that are not like buildings?
  • "I'm having difficulty beating the Bandersnatch."
    • Then stop.  The SPCA might have something to say about you beating your Bandersnatch anyway.
  • "A plane is a two-dimensional doubly ruled surface spanned by two linearly independent vectors."
    • Huh?

Okay, this one’s not from this week. 
But it fits the category so perfectly otherwise.
    
  • "Buddhists, Dog Meat and Santa Claus"
    • Name three things that have never been thought of together until now...
  • "Specific ligands were found to induce erythroid-specific gene expression."
    • Is this the plane dimension independence guy again?  What is his problem?!
And my favorite...

  • "Boneless Smoked Ham - Delicious for Hanukkah"
    • Why is the advertiser writing about Hanukkah in the month of March?  He should’ve said his ham would be delicious for Passover.

Gryphem

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Found Wisdom: “Motiveless”















He loves us -
not that we might love Him,
for being Love itself,
He comes by it honestly
.

Words of Wisdom found at http://www.poncer.blogspot.com/

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Micro-Management and the Ruse of Superiority

I had a “eureka moment” today.  Here’s what I realized:  The more detailed our organizational objectives and task lists become, the less our members – and especially our leaders – are able to communicate intelligently and effectively.

This eureka moment was inspired by a high-level, very experienced leader in the bureaucracy of a major government organization.  He talked with me for ten minutes about a topic of great concern.  He tossed out names and acronyms, demonstrated in-depth understanding, even insight about the topic of the moment.  His intensity was obvious.  This listener did, albeit with some difficulty, follow his points. 

But at the end, the boss walked away obviously expecting the listener to get to work on some aspect of the topic at hand.  Although he intuitively understood something of the leader’s concerns, the listener had absolutely no idea what the leader expected him to do.  Unfortunately, he knew from experience - both firsthand and secondhand - that any inquiry was most likely to unleash a string of profanity but no enlightenment.  Apparently the leader was so bound up in his own mental bureaucracy, locked in by buzzwords, acronyms, mental constructs of organizational operations – that he was unable to communicate in depth with anyone beyond the bounds of his own limited sphere of concern.

What makes this more intriguing is that the topic of the angst-inspiring soliloquy was the organization “task list."  The "task list" is a list of millions of essential things each organization must be able to do.  To quote some experts in the field, “A task… is a specific action that enables a function to be accomplished,” and, “All must ensure that no function is forgotten.”  That’s fairly comprehensive.  The fact is, the task list explains every little thing in such intimate detail it is practically useless in implementation.  Real people don't think about the thousands of component actions they must accomplish in order to get through every day.  They just do them.

Returning to this morning's conversation...  The boss wanted something that he was incapable of describing - and that something involved the list that intimately describes every single micromanaged task in the entire organization.  Yet although the leader could talk all morning about issues surrounding his area of concern, he was incapable of a coherent explanation of what he wanted.  He had  become so intimately involved with the intimate details of the job that he was unable to communicate person-to-person with ordinary people.  

In all fairness, I believe the boss might agree with some of what I'm writing here.  His concern this morning was, at least in part, the inadequacy of the “task list” as a guide for professional action.  The trouble is, I’m not sure whether he thinks the solution is to think more like real human people, or to make a more thorough task list.  I’m not about to ask him.  I did hear him say recently that no one had any business being here if not "thoroughly conversant" in every aspect of the enterprise.  There is irony here.

To expand the scope of the topic somewhat, I'd like to point out that the government “essential tasks” are the equivalent of the school system’s “essential learning requirements.”  Same idea, different functional part of society.  Both purport to improve the output of their respective organizations.  Both involve extreme micromanagement.  Both seem to detract from the ability of members of the respective professions actually to communicate with other people.  Perhaps this diminishing ability to communicate on the part of micromanagers is due to intense pressure to perform to impossibly detailed and specific standards.  Perhaps it is due to a the stress of a pervasive focus on matters that are extremely - but uneccessarily - complex.  Or maybe it's that part of the brain of the organization leader is always busy complying with the organizational expectation that every discrete function be overtly stated and set forth to digital standards of specificity. 

Humans just weren’t meant to work like that, to think like that.   We naturally comprehend the world around us not as a series of distinct points, not only as black-or-white, on-or-off, one-or-zero.  No, just as our eyes are able to see shades of color our minds perceive a gradiated universe of infinitely fine variation.  We do not naturally think of the world as a group of distinct points, but as an undifferentiated spectrum of points along an endless range.  Our current preoccupation with "digital" analysis is a product of training.  It is an artificial demand imposed by leaders who insist that we all align our performance, our learning and teaching, all our individual actions and behaviors, with certain predetermined “expectations."

I'm sorry that sounded so complex.  Even thinking about these things can get convoluted.
Sidebar: when I was a teacher, I once had an administrator who insisted that, at the beginning of every single lesson in my eighth grade class, I state to students exactly what they would be learning.  Like most of the other teachers in the school, I knew that was a silly requirement.  The difference was, they didn’t want to deal with the fallout of saying so, and they pretended to go along with it.  I, on the other hand, responded to his directive by telling him that it was a ridiculous requirement.  Certainly it might be a good idea for some lessons - but a very bad idea for others.  I told him that some of my most effective lessons involved “surprise” discoveries, and that stating the conclusions up front would short-circuit the learning process, would tend to increase boredom in a class that had become completely predictable.  His response was priceless.  His eyes got bigger, his jaw fell open.  He laughed, truly at first, then nervously as he realized I was serious.  He had never been confronted with his own absurdity before, I suspect.  Apparently he was unable to comprehend that I, an experienced professional teacher, could disagree with him.  In the end, he did force his point.  Because he was my boss and I needed to keep my job, I complied with the letter of his law.  For about two months.  That was the amount of time it took me to arrange other employment.  I did not leave because of that one incident or that one individual.  I left because that administrator was typical of the educational leadership in that school district;  I did not know of even one administrator of good sense, good will, and courage that I could go to with this problem.  So, weighing all my options, I left the profession.  And that was too bad, because I was a good teacher and I loved teaching.  To this day I resent being forced out after 16 years by arrogant people who believed that they were smarter than they really were.  I hope one day sanity will return to our educational system.  If and when that happens, I would love to return to the classroom.  Until then, I’ll make my way elsewhere.

Now back to the main topic…

As we learn throughout a lifetime, we retain much of the information and skills we’ve learned in our subconscious mind.  The current troubles are because organization gurus have been trying for decades to short-circuit our normal thinking process, trying to make every single thought and movement and process a conscious act (at least on paper).  Maybe this is due to the inordinate influence of lawyers with their emphasis on the letter-of-the-law, their us-versus-them, win-lose mentality.  Maybe it is due to the influence of a computer culture in which every thought is conceptualized as a series of electronic switch positions as in an electronic “brain.”  Maybe it is because we are beginning to think of our organizations as living entities and our defined processes as their brain functions.  Don't laugh... there's some validity to the allegation. 

In any case, the attempt to force digital thought processes and behavior onto our fuzzy-logic analog selves seems to clutter our brains so much that we can no longer think clearly.  Maybe the parts of our mind that routinely manage trifling details for us atrophy when they are forcibly excluded from the thought process for long periods of time.  Maybe that is why the professional educator or “mission-essential task-master” forgets how normal human beings think and communicate.  Maybe the extreme “organization man” (or woman) is already halfway to becoming the digital robotic entity he (or she) seems to admires so much.

For those of you out there who haven’t been as polluted as I have by all this micromanagement of your every action and thought, I just insulted the intelligence of people who think they are better than the rest of us, and who try to control us through the tyranny of institutionalized micromanagement.

Dang, I did it again.  Let me try to put this in ordinary language one more time.

People who think they are smarter than the rest of us are really stupid, because they don’t understand the basics of how to communicate with other people.

That was better.

I conclude with a reflection on a children’s story I’m sure most of you know well.  It is a parable about people who think they are smarter than they are.  More specifically, it is about a man who is really not that smart, and who desperately wants to prevent anyone else from discovering that fact.

Do you know the story of "The Emperor’s New Clothes," by Hans Christian Andersen?   [In case you haven’t, here’s a link to a version of the story adapted by children’s author Stephen Corrin: http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Emperors-New-Clothes.htm]   Well, it’s like that.  By attempting to appear smarter than everyone else, the Emperor demonstrated his undeniable ignorance for all to see.  Instead of a wonderful new suit, he really had no clothes.  It’s okay to be amused with him, because he brought the embarrassing situation on himself with his own arrogance.

The Emperor really has no clothes.  It’s okay – go ahead and say so.  Go ahead and call him on it  After all, in the story it was the honest comment of an innocent child that led to the Emperor finally gaining a degree of wisdom in the end.

Likewise with the education professionals and the professional bureaucrats who demand that we comply with extraordinarily detailed “task lists” or “learning requirements.”  The fact is, they are engaged in an arrogant attempt to micromanage the behavior (and sometimes even the thoughts) of the poor slobs under their control.  They do so because they believe those poor slobs are not smart enough to do their jobs otherwise.  They believe they alone are smart enough to get the job done, that in order for the rest of us to accomplish anything of value, we must be told what to do every step of the way.  They certainly believe that they are smarter than the rest of us.  That is why they try so hard to micromanage others' behavior, and to police others' thoughts.

You are allowed to laugh at their superiority complex.  By means of their inflexible, intolerant, “my-way-or-the-highway” attitudes, they display their shortcomings, insecurities, lack of faith, inability to communicate, and lack of understanding of people and of how the world works.  Their arrogance earns our derision. 

Of course, after we have laughed at the arrogance, we must be kind and extend a hand of friendship.  The misbehavior of the micromanager is no excuse for us to be mean.  Once the controlling leaders realize how foolishly they have behaved, they are going to feel kind of bad about themselves.  It will be up to us to build them up, just as we wish they had done for us.  So expose the arrogance, but then reach out in compassion.

Bottom lines: 
  • People are more important than checklists.
  • No one is smarter than everyone.
  • Treat other people with respect and kindness.
That's what I think.  Of course, your opinion may differ.  I respect your intelligence so please draw your own conclusions, and feel free to share them here.  Thanks for reading.

Gryphem

Sunday, March 6, 2011

What Happened to the Space Program? And Us?

Within the lifetime of nearly half of all Americans, within the scope of memory of nearly every current political leader of this nation, we once accomplished something beyond all human dreams.  It was awesome, remarkable, and audacious.  It was arguably the greatest scientific feat of all time.  It was the most amazing achievement, representing an unprecedented triumph of the human spirit.  

Nothing in all of history can match it.  Our astounding accomplishment rises above the great adventures of the ages.  Only four decades ago the American people put one of their own on the surface of the Moon.
Since time immemorial, human beings dreamed of flying through the sky, of speeding like lightning high above the face of the Earth, of traveling to other worlds.  Our American nation, collectively, finally made that dream real.
We launched our first satellite in 1958, put our first astronaut in orbit in 1962, and landed a spacecraft on the moon in 1969.  Eleven years from Explorer, a shot-put in orbit, to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin dancing across the face of the Man in the Moon.
The last person on the Moon was Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan in 1972.  There was talk of a space station, talk of a colony on the Moon, talk of a mission to Mars.  Given time and effort, we knew we could do anything.
Having proven ourselves in conquering the distance to the Moon, we stepped back.  The next steps, we said, would require the ability to go easily between the surface of the Earth and Earth orbit.  Although it lacked the excitement of flying to another world, we set about developing the Space Shuttle. 
We were right in creating the Space Shuttle program.  We were on task.  The rationale for development of the Space Shuttle program was valid.  We needed to develop the capability to go to and from orbit quickly and reliably. That capability was a necessary prerequisite to building the Space Station, or the Moon colony, or the trip to Mars.  Everything beyond required it. 
The trouble was, we lost our sense of urgency.  In the absence of a challenging mission, of a  “Space Race,” it seemed that there was no popular mandate to keep up the prolonged effort of space exploration.  Instead of the near-omnipotent agent of universal exploration, we began to think of NASA as a glorified taxi service.  Somewhere along the way we lost sight of the real objective.   
The colony on the Moon retreated to the realm of science fiction as the people of America, and Earth, silently gave up on actually being able to build such an ambitious project.  It would require too much coordination, and cost too much.  
Surface of Mars from Viking
 The Mission to Mars became something we could accomplish with robots instead of astronauts.  It was dangerous, and we had become risk-averse.  We were too fearful to actually go there ourselves.  In fact, even though there remained some brave astronauts willing to accept the risk, we could no longer conceive of permitting anyone else to set forth into the dangerous unknown.  Ironically, we did continue to sending troops into combat with some regularity.  Humans have never been accused of being extremely consistent.

The Space Station did get developed to a point, and continues to exist.  But it has become a small scientific outpost, a sort of orbital bus station for the Space Shuttle rather than the city-in-Earth-orbit we imagined a decade or two earlier.  The Space Station became a support facility for the Shuttle, instead of the other way around.
International Space Station
Instead of an “enabling” capability, the Space Shuttle became an end in itself.  We forgot that we wanted to do more.  We got fearful.  Unlike the 1960s, when we had plenty of problems but got things done anyway, we got distracted.  We lost the faith. 

Some people blame the profiteers of Wall Street for the failure of the American Space Program.  The business community was supposed to take up the cause of space exploration, and they have not.  Businesses exist to create profit and, let’s face it - with the broad range of problems attendant to space flight, the tremendous expense, the risks and the uncertain returns, for now at least, space flight is a poor business venture.  Space exploration, while it has created profits here and there, was and still is an unreliable source of financial return.  The rewards of space flight are real, but they are not primarily monetary. 
Space flight may be motivated by nationalistic effort, by pride-in-accomplishment, by the curiosity that spurs major scientific investigation, by the indefinable impulse of the human spirit to explore.  But, to date at least, we should not reasonably expect that space flight will be motivated by capitalism.
To tell the truth, I’m glad that space flight was undertaken by government rather than business.  As an American citizen who was watched the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions of the 1960s and early 1970s, I feel like a very real participant in the Space Program.  It would not have been the same if the whole thing had been underwritten by IBM or Exxon or Coca-Cola.
Lunar Module in orbit above Moon,
with Earth in the background.

Some people blame the decline of the Space Program on naysayers who ranted every time a rocket lifted off about the waste of money, about how we should feed more poor people instead of spending money to fly into space.  According to these, we have no business building a space program until poverty is eradicated and all of Earth’s problems are solved.  To follow their misplaced idealism to a logical conclusion would mean that we never undertake any new venture until the world has been made perfect.  In other words, never. 
Although we cannot lay the blame for the initial failure of the Space Program on the priority-Earth people, they do bear some responsibility.  Their rhetoric led to a decrease in enthusiasm, a loss of motivation.  Their larger impact has been effectively eradicating space exploration from public consciousness.  By continuing to emphasize scarcity of resources for everything other than their own priorities, they demonize space enthusiasts as elitists who don’t care about poor people.  They have stifled or marginalized the voices of those who would’ve had us out in the Cosmos once more.
[Sidebar:  I support feeding hungry people.  There is no reason we cannot do both.]
Risking the danger of a comment on real-time politics, I will say this.  Perhaps the apex (an ironic term) of the priority-Earth movement was reached as late as 2010.  That was when President Obama redirected NASA, the greatest organization dedicated to exploration in the history of the human race, to become an instrument of political outreach to Islamic cultures.  I cannot even think about this without being stunned and amazed at the utter lack of comprehension and long-term vision this demonstrates.
In the end, we cannot completely blame either the business community, or the priority-Earth people, or even the current administration.  No, the real responsibility for the decline of the American Space program lies with the people themselves.  We got to the Moon, then we got self-satisfied.  We accomplished what we had set out to do, then relaxed and smugly forgot why we had done it in the first place. 
About the time the Apollo landings were coming to a close, a series of unfortunate events pulled our collective attention away from the heavens.  Watergate shook faith in our American government.  The energy crisis of 1973 damaged our self-confidence.  The Vietnam War turned even uglier and we came to grips with the fact that for the first time the United States was losing a war.  We got depressed.  Extreme inflation made it worse.  The Iranian hostage crisis made it worse.  Somewhere along the way we lost our sense of direction, even of purpose.  By the early 1980s we were a mess.
Under the optimistic, can-do environment engendered by President Reagan, we began to believe in ourselves again.  But instead of exploring space we thought of it as a place to counter the missile threat posed by our enemies.  Instead of exploring, we turned our efforts to defeating Communism and making profits. 
Astronaut John Glenn
Space exploration began to be thought of, in the common mentality, as a piece of proud American history.  Important, but past; irrelevant.  Even when we had a rare interlude of widespread peace from 1989 to 1999 (with a brief interruption for the Gulf War in 1991), we did not make a greater effort to expand the space program.  Instead of using the financial savings that came with the end of the “Cold War” (the “peace dividend”) to reinvigorate our exploration of space, we squandered it on this and that until it was no more.
Whether subsequent events cause you to love or hate President George W. Bush, he did come closest of any recent President to reinvigorating NASA and manned flight beyond Earth orbit.  During his campaign in 2000 and in the first months of his presidency, President Bush hinted about a new space program like that of the 1960s, hinted of a challenge to send astronauts to Mars.  But before the initiative was fully developed or formally announced, the attacks of September 11, 2001 changed everything.  In a sense, our return to space was derailed by terrorist attacks and the two wars that followed.  Instead of sending people to Mars, we had to send military forces to Southwest Asia.
Although President Bush’s Mission to Mars might have brought new life to the American Space Program, we cannot blame terrorism for its demise.  We had already allowed space exploration to atrophy.  The terrorist attacks just distracted a leader who was thinking about reinvigorating a program that was already on life-support.  Long before 2001 we had reordered our societal priorities.  As early as the late 1970s we had decided that instead of sending people to live on the Moon, we should apply our collective efforts in technology to improving communication and entertainment.  So today, some three decades later, we have cell phones that can tell you the temperature in Kansas City or Klamath Falls, the phone number of your sister’s ex-boyfriend in Winnipeg, or the scores of this morning’s cricket matches in South Africa.  We can communicate electronically - and incessantly - to people far far away, or a block away.  We can send and receive pictures and music as well as our voices. 
But we can no longer build a rocket that will reach the Moon. 

We have fantastic special effects in our movies and video games.  But we can no longer fly between worlds. 

No matter… even though we cannot “really” do that anymore, our special effects make us feel like we can.  And that’s what matters most, right?  We build great simulators, for training and also for playing.  Gotta love that X-Box.  No one can top the way we pretend.
We went from being masters of the Earth and Sky to being pitiful pretenders.  We care more about the latest “app” for our “cell,” we care more about the newest version of  “Tomb Raider” or  “Mortal Kombat” than we care about accomplishing great things in the REAL world.  The real world requires too much effort.  The real world takes too long.  The real world is tiring for a populace trained to avoid exertion and boring for a populace addicted to the instant gratification of electronic stimulation.
How did we let this happened to US?

The sad little person of 2011 believes that the ability to accomplish is tied to technological resources.  The heroic person of the 1960s knew that achievement is more about the ascendancy of the triumphant human spirit, coupled with dogged determination. 

Today's consumer sits alone in the dark, linked electronically to others just like him, and plays.  With his playmates, he ridicules the shortcomings of a past he judges by the feeble standards of his own limited experience.  He dismisses the potential of a vast nation of capable, courageous and determined pioneers in pursuit of a common goal. 
Perhaps the ultimate insult is the growth of conspiracy theories.  Greater numbers of people than ever before believe the moon landings of 1969 to 1972 were faked.  They just can’t believe that people with less technology than we have today could have performed a feat so far beyond our own ability. 

Too many people today judge the past using the yardstick of their own limited ability, motivation, and accomplishment.  We have fallen so far that many among us not only dismiss the possibility of returning to the Moon… Many are incapable of comprehending that we ever really went there in the first place. 
As the Space Shuttle winds down to its final few flights in the coming months, we stand at a crossroads.  We could allow the last vestige of the glory of manned space flight to disappear from our nation (and at this point, from the planet).  We could let NASA become a fancy high-tech surrogate for the Peace Corps.  Or we could take this opportunity to reestablish the American Space Program as it was, and as it can be again. 

There might be hope.  We were great once, and we can be again.  But it won't happen if we keep playing games.  If we are to approach the heroic stature of our parents and grandparents, we're going to have to put down the electronics, turn off the television, take the earpiece out, turn off the cell phone, and get to work.
We can start by answering some hard questions.  Who are we and what is our role in the world, and in this universe?  What’s the world of our future going to look like?  What are we going to do about it?  Can we exist apart from our home planet?  Can we explore space and still protect Earth?  Can we remain earthbound and still protect Earth?  Are we tough enough to do this?  Are we mentally and emotionally up to the challenge?  Can we match the courage, drive and determination of the first spacefarers of 40 or 50 years ago?
It might be possible.  An advantage we have over the space pioneers of a half-century ago is the benefit of their impressive example.  Do we have enough life and strength and valor to undertake the quest again?   We have a long way to go, even if we do find the courage to try.  It has been 39 years since any human being traveled beyond Earth orbit.

Do we have it within us to be worthy heirs?  

If we are going to return to space, we have to begin finding some answers to those hard questions.  We will begin finding answers by looking within ourselves.  If we look within and find valor and curiosity and a sense of boldness and determination and the seeds of greatness... Then perhaps we will be able to go forth to find many more answers out there somewhere, blowing in the solar wind. 
Gryphem