Dan Erwin

Finally, We're Asking the Right Questions. But What's Going to be Done About the Answers?

Good thinkers are good questioners. Answers can be helpful but they only have a fixed value. Furthermore, answers tend to become obsolete at an accelerating rate. In addition, analytical thinking is only powerful when it can access a large and accurate base of knowledge--and when one's biases are kept in check.

Do angry blue-collar voters have a point? The losers have been ignored. The evidence reveals that a safety net is going to be needed for companies and workers who have been exposed by policy. Eduardo Porter

Why are high profits a problem for big American companies? Big profits are usually ignored, except by investors.  

Profits could be a sign of brilliance or wise investments. But they could be a way to squish competitors. So what, if anything, should be done about them? Economist

Why is learning central to sustained innovation.
The key to successful innovation, most think, is all about improving the development process--or adding new tools. But actually, it's skilled people, not processes, that make for great product. MIT Sloan Mgmt Review 

Why do both conservatives and liberals thrill to 'populist' politicians?  
Do they have anything in common besides bluster? NYTimes Magazine   

Are college students becoming victims of fear and pain? 
Some Emory students describe themselves as afraid and in pain after reading "Trump 2016" in chalk around campus. They demanded that the university president take "punitive and positive action." Is this merely political correctness? Or is there another way to understand their demands. Two sociologists argue that there is a new moral order of a victimhood culture, and it is turning students into moral dependents. Heterodox Academy.

How has truth changed for all of us?
Google's Larry Page has imagined a society where smartphones are miniaturized and hooked into a person's brain. If you need some facts, the phone will tell you the answer. Jill Lepore writes that in the history of truth, a new chapter begins. For example, An American Presidential debate has a lo more in common with trial by combat than with trial by jury, which is what people are talking about when they say these debates seem 'childish': the outcome is the evidence. Essentially, when we Google facts, we give up our reason, and, in a republic, our citizenship. Lepore has her finger on how truth has changed. A new chapter begins. The New Yorker.                  

 

Cool It! The US Is, Was--and Always Will Be--a Messy Experiment

When those wise revolutionaries, the Founding Fathers, created our government, they referred to it as an "experiment," admitting to its potential for chaos and failure. Churchill's comment that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others, applies directly--and significantly to today's conflict regarding Trump within the Republican party.

The reality, however, is that the US, unique among nations, has a long history of self-correction. Indeed, you may be surprised to learn that about every 30 or 40 years we have had similar messes--followed by...

College on a Barista Salary?

If you really think a kid can earn his way through college, guess again. Or live with $100,000 college bills? 

Occasionally I talk with someone who tells me he earned his way through college, so his kids can too. That's not a surprise, since the percentage of parents willing to help their kids go to college stands at about 77%--and it continues a downward plunge. But just how realistic is it that a kid can cover all college costs?  Sure, I finished my BA with an indebtedness of $100. That’s right, exactly $100. Of course, I need to add that tuition at my state school was $60 a semester in the 1950s. I got most of my room and board as a resident advisor (my dad, who grew up with the Dean of Students, made that possible) and earned pocket money directing church choirs.

Plenty of smart kids gain their first two years of liberal arts requirements from the local community college. But annual costs...

Six Degrees to Conversation

Now why would any business person want to know this? If you’re like me, the better you understand something, the better you can deal with it. Besides, my success—and yours, too—is liable to be determined by our ability to manage and contribute to these conversations. Furthermore, since conversation is the real business of business in today’s world, and since my long-term consulting tells me that the majority of people ain’t very good at most of these conversations, understanding these conversations just might...

Is There Such a Thing as Self-Motivation?

The short answer to that question is a single two letter word: NO! But before you reject this conclusion, think with me for just a few minutes. Begin with the fact that one of the major themes running through contemporary rhetoric, communication and linguistics as well as in anthropology and psychology is that growth takes place through relationships.

In other words growth and motivation are intersubjective. Intriguing term, meaning that they are not a subjective individual matter, but that life, making sense and motivation are formed and changed through dialog with others. Furthermore, except perhaps for the insane or autistic, making sense is always understanding through your historical and present-day social filters.

Anthropologists and psychologists talk a lot about a person's needs to develop as an individual and how it happens. Doesn't each person have to take an active part in life and not just sit around? Doesn't the individual have to be self-propelled or self-determined? And self-motivated?

Developmental connections
The answer to that question is that each person becomes a more developed and a lot more active individual only as...