Today’s short walk around the barn is prompted by David Brooks’ latest lengthy article in The Atlantic, “How the Ivy League Broke America”, linked by my friend John Gulla. John is still on sabbatical, so he has reading time. The end is near, John.
I agree with much of what Brooks puts forward but would address the issue from a different angle, and more briefly.
As I see it, the problem with progressives is that we don’t start foundationally in our consideration of the world around us. We focus inordinately on symptoms of our problems without due regard to the underpinning causes.
As I see it, progressives are, at the core, traditionalists in our view of the human condition. To wit, we are social creatures, inextricably tied to each other. This is not new. This is foundational. In many respects, we’ve lost our connection to this notion of a shared purpose. Too much focus in society is ironically not societal but individual. Now, being a Canadian, I’m sure some of my American friends are already seeing a raving socialist seeping through these few words. Not so, I say. Hear me out.
Life is a balancing act at every turn. This precarious state applies also to how we consider and act on our view of the human condition, our view of the interplay of the individual with the collective. Public discourse, always seeking simple binary labels and narratives that rally the troops, turns this necessary balance into an on-off switch. It is not an on-off switch. It’s a fluid dynamic along a continuum that, in balance, enables the advancement of the individual while protecting the collective… which in turn enables the individual… and so on in a virtuous upward spiral.
The striking of this balance is our challenge. When public discourse takes the form of a teeter totter, this on-off switch can create a battle of increasing extremes. Each side creeps further from the fulcrum, with voices at the extremes ultimately collapsing the structure in the middle. Elites on both sides – make no mistake of it, both sides in this conversation are elites – dwell on symptoms, not root causes. Policy debates as they now play out will not bring us to a happy place because they do not speak to the underlying human condition.
At one end, focus on the individual takes on a zero-sum framework. For me to win, you must lose. King-of-the-hill games ensue with the skyrocketing Gini coefficient (disparity of wealth and income) plunging society (again and again) into revolution.
At the other end, focus on the collective turns government into everyone’s keeper, killing initiative and bankrupting the economy.
Somewhere in the middle lies a happy balance, from which we will inevitably wander, and to which we must repeatedly strive to return. Life is like that. All life is like that. Just as our mind, body, and spirit need constantly to be returned to a state of balance (if ever there is one), our view of the individual and the collective needs also to strive for functional equilibrium.
If I reside on the first level of Maslowe’s hierarchy, can I afford to consider all these wingnut ideas that pander to your need for self-actualization? It’s about the economy, stupid! Help me to put food on my table! With increasing disparity in wealth and income, progressive conversations as put forward today become less and less meaningful to more and more people. At which point in my progression up the hierarchy do I welcome such considerations? Is this a continuous progression or do I turn that corner when I find myself a billionaire, ready to “give back”?
Every revolution is followed by ambitious individuals seeking power and wealth. This is inevitable. These people will always be here, and they will always create policies that perpetuate and advance their own power and wealth. Like it or not, this is a part of human nature. Like it or not, this is a part of each of us, albeit in widely varying proportions.
Can we as a society afford to consider “the other”?
Can I as an individual afford to consider “the other”?
Survival of the fittest, in isolation, is neither good for the collective nor, in the end, good for the individual. I would argue that individual ambition also serves the collective… but only when balanced by the wider view of that collective. We are inseparable. We have shared needs. We have a shared purpose. We are in this together. We should have shared strategies.
Can we as a society afford not to consider “the other”?
Can I as an individual afford not to consider “the other”?
Progressives on the far left have done great disservice to consideration of these questions. In all communications, we must ask: To whom am I speaking? Are they in a position to hear, understand, and respond? If not, I’m speaking only to the wind, serving only to alienate the people I seek to save.
To Brooks’ argument, when our system of education is designed to cull the herd with so-called skill building without appropriate regard to well-being, there’s a lot of collateral damage involved. When our system of education is focused, and its success measured, on technical proficiency, that collateral damage is to our societal loss in the name of elitism. You are in the club… and you are not.
When we focus our children on rising to the top, that’s what they do… or they don’t and get shuffled aside. When we focus our children on making a contribution, they thrive and we all rise.
To Brooks’ argument, my work with schools over almost three decades has taught me that the presence of curiosity, not standardized test results, is the better predictor of success. The absence of curiosity is a pretty good predictor of failure. Grades predict only grades.
And yet, we disregard Dewey and Ouchi in favour of Taylor. We’ve become very good at producing “clever devils”, Mr. Lewis.
I would contend that we have lost sight of character and values in our system of education, and to be frank, in our society in general. Character and values, in my view, should be at the very heart of our families and our education. In large part, we have lost sight of the heart. We have abrogated our responsibilities, to our children, to our families, to our society. “The other” is and should be at the core of our every move. It is not. “The other” needs to be inculcated into our development at every stage in our lives, no matter where we reside on Maslowe’s hierarchy. It is not.
Character and values. Character and values. Character and values.
How do you want to be remembered? How do you want your children to be remembered?
From Albert Pine: “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.”
Kevin Graham
You seem to have time for exercise everyday. My time for reading is exercise of the mind which is as important as exercise of the body, no? Unsurprisingly, we agree much more than we disagree, eh? I especially agree with the teeter totter/balance metaphor. Here is an example in terms of US leadership. I just wish the amplitude of the swings weren't so great.
John Gulla