Dan Erwin

Failing Your Way to Success

Walter Russell Mead, an astute historian and commentator on American history and current events, recently wrote an article on our American history of failing our way to success. His first paragraph is a fun mind game.

As Americans struggle to make sense of a series of uncomfortable economic changes and disturbing political developments, a worrying picture emerges of ineffective politicians, frequent scandals, racial backsliding, polarized and irresponsible news media, populists spouting quack economic remedies, growing suspicion of elites and experts, frightening outbreaks of violence, major job losses, high-profile terrorist attacks, anti-immigrant agitations, declining social mobility, etc. etc. etc.

Sound familiar? Really? Actually, it’s a description of the American Democracy in the years between 1865 and 1900.

Mead then reverts to our world. He’s aware that it will a very long time before it becomes clear what a fully mature information economy might look like. He points out that if people and the 1860s and 1870s had been told that only two percent of the population would earn a living on the farm in the twentieth century, they could never imagine what jobs the displaced farmers could find. The full consequences of the knowledge economy and the information age will only come into view on a very slow time table. The implication, however, is that getting caught in the grip of profound pessimism and giving up on government, business and the nation is highly unrealistic.

But he draws some interesting conclusions about...

How Trustworthy Is Our Self-Awareness?

There’s no question but what we develop our identity based partially on our self-perception. But can we really trust our own self-perception? Do we accurately know what we did and said? I love telling stories to my grandkids about our family. More than often than not, at least one of my daughters will very quickly say, “that’s not how it happened. I was there.”

That brings a lot of laughter, especially from me. My general attitude to my kids is that if they’re not intelligent enough to poke fun at me, they’re not my kids. But it’s still a very important question. Do we really know what we said and did in a past experience. The police say never to trust an observer’s narrative. There are a number of reasons for that. We usually see what we want to see, we look but often don’t see, we wear rose-colored glasses, or sometimes we connect dots that really don’t connect.

One study goes for the jugular on this question: do people know how they behave?   

Do You Remember My Lai?

Since my typical readers are under age 35, I assume the answer to the question is negative unless you happen to be a Vietnam buff. Are there such people under the age of 35? Seymour Hersh published the story of the My Lai massacre in Harper’s, 1970. At least 109 civilians were killed by an American soldier, Bill Calley. That number may be smaller than the actual number killed. And a lot more soldiers were probably involved.

So why am I bringing this up now? 

What Really Makes Work Meaningful--or Meaningless?

It was Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, shortly after it was published in 1959 that first put that question in my gray matter. Actually, it was a conversation in a theology class by an esteemed professor that first intrigued me about the subject. And here I am still writing and thinking about it in 2018. Funny how some ideas are always intriguing. And this one was intriguing enough to impact my behavior ever since...