Freedom in Decline and the Missing Metaphor
July 6th, 2011 // 9:40 am @ Oliver DeMille
One reason freedom is threatened with serious decline in our time is that metaphor is often missing among those who love liberty.
Our modern educational system has taught most of us to focus on the literal, to separate the fields of knowledge, to learn topics as if they are fundamentally detached from each other, and to build areas of expertise and career around disconnected specialties.
We are even encouraged to separate the various parts of our life—not only math class from English class or gym from history, but also school from family, work from private lives, spouse from child relationships, family from friend relationships, religion from politics, career from entertainment.
Most children and parents leave home in the morning to spend time at school, work and other separate activities—ultimately spending less time with each other than with people outside the family. Anything less than such separation of the various parts of our lives is considered unhealthy by many experts.
Thus it is not surprising that the use of metaphor is often missed in our modern world. We seem to be a nation of literalists now. We understand allegory, comparison, contrast, simile and even imagery, as long as the comparisons are patently apparent or clearly spelled out. Metaphor?—not so much.
There are many exceptions to this, of course, but such literalism is increasingly the norm. Symbol is and will always be important, but the artistic, understated, abstract and poetic is out of vogue in many circles that promote freedom.
Stay Out of Politics
Consider, for example, the way some conservative radio talk-show hosts rant against Hollywood actors or best-selling singers speaking out on political themes. The argument in such cases usually centers on the idea that actors/performers have no business opining on political topics—that, in fact, they know little about such things and should stick to their areas of expertise.
At one level, this assumes that the actors’ roles as citizens are trumped by their careers. Ironically, such talk-show hosts usually give great credence to the voices of regular citizens as part of their daily fare—as long as the citizens tend to agree with the host. Likewise, such hosts frequently seek credibility by bringing like-minded celebrities to their show. Note that this is a favorite tact of media in general—television as well as radio, liberal as well as conservative.
At another level, the idea that actors or other artists are simply entertainers rather than vitally important social commentators misses the deep reality of the historical role of art. Artists are as important to social-political-economic commentary as journalists, scientists, the professorate, clergymen, economists, the political parties or other public policy professionals.
Napoleon is sometimes credited with saying that if he could control the music or story-telling of the nation he would happily let the rest of the media print what it wanted: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” (Or more literally, “a good sketch is better than a long speech.”)
Those who think artists are, or should be, irrelevant to the Great Conversation might consider such artists as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nietzsche, Goya, Picasso, Goethe, Ayn Rand, C.S. Lewis or George Orwell. Can one really argue that Ronald Reagan, Charleston Heston, Tina Fey, Jon Stewart, Aaron Sorkin or the writers of Law and Order have had only a minor impact on society and government?
Artists should have a say on governance–first because all citizens should have a say, and second because the fundamental role of the artist is not to entertain (this is a secondary goal) but to use art to comment on society and seek to improve it where possible. The problem with celebrity, some would argue, is that many times the public gives more credence to artists than to others who really do understand an issue better. This is a legitimate argument, but it tends to support media types rather than the citizenry.
Early American Art
On an even deeper level, art is not just the arena of artists. Tocqueville found it interesting that in early America there were few celebrity artists– but that most of the citizens personally took part in artistic endeavors and tended to think artistically.
Another way to say this is that they thought metaphorically in the broad sense:
- They clearly saw the connections between fields of knowledge and the application of ideas in one arena to many others
- They understood the interrelations of disparate ideas without having to literally spell things out
- They immediately applied the stories and lessons of history, art and literature to current challenges
Another major characteristic Tocqueville noted in early American culture was its entrepreneurial spirit, initiative, ingenuity and widespread leadership—especially in the colonial North and West, but not nearly so much in the brutal, aristocratic, slave-culture South of the 1830s.
Freedom and entrepreneurialism are natural allies, as are creative, metaphorical thinking and effective initiative and wise risk-taking.
I’ve already written about the great on-going modern battle between innovation and conformity (“The Clash of Two Cultures”), which could be called metaphorical thinking versus rote literalism:
In far too many cases, we kill the human spirit with rules of bureaucratic conformity and then lament the lack of creativity, innovation, initiative and growth. We are angry with companies which take jobs abroad, but refuse to become the kind of employees that would guarantee their stay. We beg our political leaders to fix things, but don’t take initiative to build enough entrepreneurial solutions that are profitable and impactful.
The future belongs to those who buck these trends. These are the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the creators, what Chris Brady has called the Rascals. We need more of them. Of course, not every innovation works and not every entrepreneur succeeds, but without more of them our society will surely decline. Listening to some politicians in Washington, from both parties, it would appear we are on the verge of a new era of conformity: “Better regulations will fix everything,” they affirm.
The opposite is true. Unless we create and embrace a new era of innovation, we will watch American power decline along with numbers of people employed and the prosperity of our middle and lower classes. So next time your son, daughter, employee or colleague comes to you with an exciting idea or innovation, bite your tongue before you snap them back to conformity.
Innovation vs. Conformity
Metaphor gets to the root of this war between innovation and conformity. The habit of thinking in creative, new and imaginative ways is central to being inventive, resourceful and innovative.
Note that all of these words are synonyms of “productive” and ultimately of “progressive.” If we want progress, we must have innovation, and innovation requires imagination. Few things spark creativity, imagination or inspiration like metaphor.
If we want to see a significant increase in freedom in the long term, we’ll first need to witness a resurrection of metaphorical thinking. This is one reason the great classics are vital to the education of free people. The classics were mostly written by authors who read widely and thought deeply about many topics, and even more importantly most readers of classics study beyond narrow academic divisions of knowledge and apply ideas across the board.
In contrast, modern movie and television watchers, fantasy novel or technical manual readers, and internet surfers don’t tend to routinely correlate the messages of entertainment into their daily careers. There are certainly deep, profound, classic-worthy ideas in our contemporary movies, novels, and online. But only a few of the customers watch, read or surf in the classic way—consistently seeking lessons and wisdom to be applied to serious personal and world challenges.
Only a few moderns end each day’s activities with correspondence and debate about the movies, books and websites they’ve experienced with other deep-thinking readers who have “studied” the same sources. Facebook can be used in this way, but it seldom is.
Alvin Toffler called this the “Information Age” rather than the Wisdom Age for this reason—we have so much information at our fingertips, but too little wise discussion of applicable ideas. As Allan Bloom put it in The Closing of the American Mind, people don’t think together as much they used to. Even formal students in most classes engage less in open dialogue and debate than in passive note-taking and solitary memorizing.
Leadership Thinking
All of this is connected with the decline of metaphorical thinking. The point of education in the old Oxford model of learning (read great classics, discuss the great works with tutors who have read them many times and also with other students who are new to the books, show your proficiency in creative thinking in front of oral boards of questioners) was to teach deep, broad, effective metaphorical thinking.
Such skills could accurately be called leadership thinking, and generations of Americans followed the same model (until the late 1930s) of reading and deeply discussing the greatest works of mankind in all fields of knowledge. Note that thinking in metaphor naturally includes literal thinking– but not vice versa.
This style of learning centered on the student’s ability to see through the literal and understand all the potential hidden, deeper, abstract, correlated and metaphorical meanings in things. Such education trained people to think through—and see through—the promises, policies and proposals of their elected officials, expert economists, and other specialists, and to make the final decisions as a wise electorate not prone to fads, media spin or partisan propaganda.
A New Monument
As a society understands metaphor, it understands politics. This is a truism worth chiseling into marble. When the upper class understands metaphor while the masses require literality, freedom declines.
The surest way to understand metaphor is to read literature and history and think about it deeply, especially about how it applies to modern realities (which is why classrooms were once dedicated to discussion about important books, as mentioned above).
This is why the university phrase “I majored in literature, science, or history” is a middle-class expression while the upper class prefers to say, “I read literature, science, or history at X University.”
The differences here are striking: the upper class never believes it has actually “majored” a topic, while the middle class can seldom claim to have seriously “read” all the great works in any important academic field.
This fundamental difference in education remains a cause of the widening gap between upper and middle class. Indeed, education is a major determining factor of the contemporary (and historical) class divide. It is the ability to think metaphorically (to in fact consider everything both literally and metaphorically) and to automatically seek out and consider the various potential meanings of all things, that most separates the culture of the “haves” from the global “have-nots.”
The Ideology Barrier
In politics, the far left and far right—including, most notably right now, the environmental movement and the tea parties—significantly limit their own growth by staying too literal.
This comes across to most Americans as ineffectively rigid, intolerant, naïve, and even ideological.
The fact that most environmentalists and tea partiers are genuinely passionate and sincere is not a plus in the eyes of many people as long as such activists are seen to be humorless and even angry.
Such activists may not in fact be humorless and angry, but when they seem to be these things, they diminish their ability to build rapport with anyone that does not already understand their point of view.
Feminism once carried these same negatives, but recently gained more mainstream understanding once feminist thinkers moved past literality and used art and entertainment to gain positive support. The gay-lesbian community made the same transition in the past two decades, and environmentalism is starting to make this shift as well (witness the recent hubbub over Cars III).
Whether you agree or disagree with these political movements is not the point; they gain mainstream support by portraying themselves as relaxed, happy, caring and likeable people, and by sharing their principles by telling a story.
False Starts, or, Failed Expectations
President Bush attempted to effect such a change in the Republican Party with his emphasis on Compassionate Conservatism, but this theme disappeared after 9/11.
President Obama exuded this relaxed optimism through the 2008 campaign and several months into his presidency, becoming a symbol of change and leadership to America’s youth (who hadn’t had a real political hero since Ronald Reagan). The president’s cult-hero status disappeared when the Obama Administration’s literality (not liberality) was eventually interpreted as robotic, smug and even defensive.
The White House’s big-spending agenda in 2009-2010, coming on the heels of over seven years of Republican-led overspending, sparked a tea party revolt. It also drove most independents to the right, not because they supported right-wing policies but rather because independents tend to understand metaphor: they saw that the Obama agenda was primarily about bigger government and only secondarily about real change.
To put this as literally as possible, President Obama desired lasting change in Washington, but he cared even more about certain policies which required massive government spending.
There are true supporters of real freedom on all sides of the political table: Democratic, Republican, independent, blue, red, green, tea party, etc. They would all do well to spread deep, quality, creative, artistic and metaphorical thinking in our society.
As Lord Brougham taught:
“Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.”
He was speaking not of modern specialized job training but of reading the greatest books of mankind. Leaders are readers, and so are free nations.
Symbolism, Nuance and the Deficits of Literalism
As long as metaphor is missing in our dialogue—not to mention much in our prevailing educational offerings—the people will be continually frustrated by their political leaders.
Campaigns succeed through symbolism, especially metaphor, while daily governance naturally requires a major dose of literalism. Sometimes a significant crisis swings the nation into a period of metaphor, but this mood seldom lasts much longer than the crisis itself.
The most effective leaders (e.g. Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts and Reagan) are able to communicate a metaphor of American grand purpose even while they govern literally. For example, the Jeffersonian “era” lasted for decades beyond his term of office, building on the American mind captured by the metaphor of freedom; John Adams’ literalism hardly carried him through his one term.
While some of this is the responsibility of the leader, it is ultimately the duty of the people to think in metaphor and understand the big themes and hidden nuances behind government proposals and policies.
In this regard, groups such as environmentalists and tea parties seem to really understand the major trends and are courageously making their voice heard. Unfortunately for their goals, they have yet to effectively present their messages using metaphor. People tend to see them, as mentioned above, as humorless, angry and ideologically rigid.
The irony is rich, because most Americans actually support both a higher level of environmental consciousness and a major increase of government fiscal responsibility. In literal terms, many Americans agree with a large number of green and tea party proposals even as they say they dislike the “environmentalists” and the “tea parties.”
Again, the problem is that these groups tend to emphasize only the literal.
Such examples may be interesting, but the real problem for the future of American freedom is a populace that doesn’t naturally think through everything in a metaphorical way.
A free society only stays as free—and as prosperous—as its electorate allows.
When a nation has been educated to separate its thinking, it tends to be easily swayed by an upper class that understands and uses metaphor—in politics, economics, marketing, media, and numerous walks of life. It becomes subtly enslaved to experts, because, quite simply, it believes what the experts say.
Alternate Timeline of Literalism
If the American founding generation had so believed the experts, it would have stuck with Britain, would never have bothered reading the Federalist Papers, and would have left governance to the upper class.
The capitol would probably be New York City, and the middle class would have remained small. We would be a more aristocratic society, with an entirely different set of laws for the wealthy than the rest.
Such forays into theoretical history are hardly provable, but one thing is clear: American greatness is soundly based on a citizenry that thought independently, creatively, innovatively and metaphorically. The educational system encouraged such thinking, and adult discourse continued it throughout the citizen’s life.
Great education teaches one to listen to the experts, and to then take one’s own counsel on the important decisions.
Indeed, such education prepares the adult to weigh the words of experts and all other sources of knowledge and then to choose wisely.
Sit in chair; open book. Read.
Metaphor matters. Metaphorical thinking is vital to freedom. The classics are the richest vein of metaphorical and literal thinking.
Every nation that has maintained real freedom has been a nation of readers—readers of the great books. Freedom is in decline precisely because reading the great classics is in decline. Fortunately, every regular citizen can easily do something to fix this problem.
The books are on our shelves.
For more on this topic, listen to “The Freedom Crisis.”
Click here for details >>
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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the co-author of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Aristocracy &Arts &Blog &Culture &Current Events &Education &Featured &Generations &Information Age &Leadership &Liberty &Politics
A Big Problem
June 17th, 2011 // 11:11 am @ Oliver DeMille
Be Afraid
We have a problem. We have a big problem. Or, as the old quip put it, “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
As an optimist, I am usually skeptical of anything that sounds overly negative. However, I recently read a list of statistics in the Harper’s Index that I think is cause for serious concern.
Two items on the list have received a lot of press:
- Standard and Poor’s “revised its U.S. debt outlook to ‘negative’” on April 18, 2011.
- It has never before ranked the U.S. anything but ‘stable.’”
This should give us all pause. But this is a fixable situation, one which can be solved by a return to American entrepreneurialism, initiative and ingenuity.
The increase of unemployment once again in May 2011 can likewise be effectively overcome by government policy changes that incentivize private investment and spending. Many corporations are sitting on significant surpluses right now, but they are loathe to spend them without a real change in the way the U.S. government spends money and treats business.
In short, our current economic problems can be dealt with by the principles of freedom and free enterprise—if only Washington would give freedom a try. Note that neither Republican nor Democratic presidents have taken this approach for over two decades.
American vs. Chinese Views on the Free Market
But these aren’t the statistics that should worry us most. The figures which really concern me have gotten little media attention:
- Percentage of Americans in 2009 who believed the free market ‘is the best system on which to base the future of the world’: 74
- Percentage of Americans who believe so today: 59
- Percentage of Chinese who do: 67
If this trend continues, we’ll face drastically worsening major problems.
Unease about the growth of China’s power has been increasing in the U.S. for some time, but the concern has mostly centered on America’s economic decline versus the growth of China as a major totalitarian world power.
Add to this the knowledge that over two-thirds of Chinese believe free enterprise is the key to the future—at the same time that American belief in free enterprise is waning—and our sense of what the 21st Century will bring takes on a new direction.
In the United States, youth are widely taught that the key to life and career success is getting a good job, while in China an emphasis for the “best and brightest” in the rising generation is to engage meaningful entrepreneurship.
If this continues, the status and roles of these two nations will literally switch in the decades ahead: China as superpower, the U.S. as a second-rate nation with a stagnant and struggling economy. Many experts point out that China has a long way to go to “catch up” with the U.S. in military strength, but how long will this take if the U.S. economy continues to decline while China’s booms?
I have two main thoughts on this: First, good for the Chinese people! If they can consistently nudge their society and government in the direction of increased freedom, they will join or possibly even become the world’s most important leaders. The truth is that freedom works—in China as much as everywhere else. Second, and most importantly, America needs to give freedom a chance.
A majority of Americans believe in free enterprise, but many in Washington seem convinced that the government can do things better than the American people. The future of our freedom and prosperity depends on a flourishing environment of freedom.
Government can do us all a great service by altering its current policies and removing the numerous obstacles to free enterprise. This one significant shift is vital. The fact that many of our national leaders seem committed to avoiding such changes is a big problem. The longer this lasts, the bigger the problem becomes.
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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the co-author of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Culture &Current Events &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Foreign Affairs &Government &Producers &Prosperity
How to Win the 2012 Presidential Election
May 30th, 2011 // 1:11 pm @ Oliver DeMille
The Four Rules of Victory
For Both Sides
Rule 1. Get the Independent Vote. This one thing will determine the 2012 election. Most Republicans will vote Republican and most Democrats will vote for President Obama, but independents will determine the election. It is unclear how they will vote, but there are more independents now than either Democrats or Republicans. Independents overwhelmingly sided with Barack Obama in 2008 and with Republican candidates in 2010, but they are now unimpressed with the actions of both sides and their vote in 2012 remains to be seen.
For President Obama
Rule 2. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. We’ve seen some progress, but not enough. Independents overwhelmingly believe that small business success and economic growth, not government spending, is the way to boost employment rates and the economy for the long term. Independents keep waiting for President Obama to lead a major initiative that reduces regulatory red tape and encourages small business innovation and growth. So far he has seemed committed to doing the opposite.
It’s all about the economy. Many independents feel that President Obama gives lip service to helping small business and economic growth but that his heart doesn’t really seem to be in it. He has proven effective in leading major initiatives, such as the stimulus package and health care (which many independents dislike) and getting Osama bin Laden (which most independents admire), but he seems to be interested in almost anything rather than truly helping small business.
Many independents are beginning to worry that some of the conservative rhetoric is accurate, that perhaps the President really doesn’t care about small business, that he is in fact a big-government ideologue who arrogantly looks down on the free market and businesspeople. Independents don’t want a seemingly smug, entitled, or anti-business president. They want to see this genuinely change before the 2012 election.
For Republican Candidates
Rule 3. Stop focusing on issues that make independents angry at you, like personal attacks on the President, his citizenship, his past, and his friends. Independents dislike this. Most don’t support President Obama’s economic policies, and many would vote against him if they felt they had a real alternative. But Republican candidates who constantly attack the President on personal issues will drive many independents into the Obama camp. President Obama has shown leadership, courage, commitment and the ability to effectively push his agenda, so independents are frustrated with Republicans who continue to treat him with disrespect. He is a serious politician, however much some people may disagree with his politics.
Rule 4. Present a real candidate with a genuine plan to fix the economy, in a way that is respectful to leaders from both parties and to all Americans. Offer a candidate who convinces independents that he or she can be a real leader for the United States of America. The economy and the “leadership thing” are the keys to this election.
Summary
Right now Republicans have offered no candidate that independents feel they can support. Therefore, at this point Obama is far ahead in the 2012 election. There is, of course, a lot of time left in this race and the names and details will likely change many times before November 2012.
Barring major crisis on a huge scale, these four rules will remain the same throughout 2011, 2012 and right up to election night. Those who ignore these rules will find themselves on the losing end of the next presidential election.
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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the co-author of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Current Events &Independents &Politics
Obama’s Economy
April 25th, 2011 // 2:09 pm @ Oliver DeMille
For the last two years the story in Washington has been the same: “President Bush got the U.S. into the worst economic downturn since The Great Depression, and the Obama Administration has been hard at work pulling our economy back from the brink of another collapse.” This storyline has provided the background for President Obama’s numerous policy proposals, most notably the huge government stimulus bailouts, the health care law, and a chilly attitude in Washington toward business.
The plotline changed in the November election of 2010, though it took a while for everyone to realize the full significance of this shift. The White House has reluctantly followed the Republican script in refusing to raise taxes so far, and Republican proposals for balancing the budget and dealing effectively with the national debt have fueled rebound plans from leading Democrats—including from the Obama team.
During all this, a major alteration has occurred in the American psyche: Obama, not Bush, now “owns” the economy in the popular mind. If the slow recovery of jobs and growth turns into real recovery, President Obama will get the credit. Republicans will argue that it was their anti-tax-raising and pro-business work that got the economy flourishing again, but only Republicans will listen. Democrats and the majority of independents will see lasting economic recovery as an Obama victory.
If, on the other hand, the economy continues to sputter or dips again, if unemployment stagnates or rises, Obama will get the blame. Most Democrats will likely still see the policies of the Bush era as the problem, and most Republicans will find ways to blame President Obama regardless of what happens, but the majority of independents have moved past blaming Bush.
Right here, right now, as most independents see things, it is up to the Obama Administration to steer the economy in the right direction, and independents will hold him to this responsibility. They won’t blame Bush anymore, and they won’t blame the new Republican majority in the House. If the economy booms, they’ll reward Obama; if it contracts, they’ll blame Obama.
It’s now Obama’s economy. That’s Big Political Trend Number 1. Number 2, to be clear, is that independents now determine presidential elections. Big Political Trend Number 3 is that we are likely to see inflation ravage the economy in the months ahead.[i] In fact, this third trend has the most potential to significantly impact and hurt most Americans. A Fourth Big Trend is that China is losing faith in the U.S. dollar and is looking to diversify its portfolio—meaning that it will likely stop buying as many U.S. bonds as it has and this will drastically hurt our economy.[ii] All of this is exacerbated by rising oil prices and the downgrading of the S&P rating of U.S. securities from Stable to Negative.
This doesn’t mean that a down economy will necessarily drive Obama out of office, however. Such an outcome will depend on who the Republicans nominate for the presidency. When the general election arrives in November 2012, most Democrats will probably vote for Barack Obama and most Republicans will likely vote for the Republican candidate. Independents will vote for…well…it depends.
If the Republican nominee is mainly a social conservative, most independents may well vote for Obama regardless of how the economy is doing. Since many of the Republicans who left the party to become independents in the last decade are most interested in economic issues, the relative strength of the social conservatives in the GOP has grown and social conservatives may emphasize social issues in the primaries and at the national convention. The Democratic Party faces its own challenges due to losses to independents, but it is almost sure to nominate President Obama. In short, it is not unlikely that Republican Party loyalists will appoint a presidential nominee who won’t appeal to most independent voters.
If, on the other hand, Republicans nominate an economic powerhouse who appeals to independent views on economic issues and can compete with Barack Obama on the tricky ground sometimes referred to as “the leadership thing,” the election of 2012 could be a close race. A Republican could win, or President Obama could win.
It is unclear if any of the current Republican field could be such a powerhouse. There are several Republicans who might make the case to independents for leadership and economic wisdom, and let’s not forget that someone new could arise—at this point in the last presidential election cycle most people in America had never heard of Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton was expected to be the obvious Democratic candidate. To date, however, no potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate has caught on with independents—or seems poised to do so.
Regardless of what Republicans do, or don’t do—in the various policy debates of 2011 and 2012 and also in the 2012 election—a bad economy will probably convince most independents to lean away from voting for Obama. But only if the right kind of Republican is in the race. The larger point in all of this, a point which many Democrats and Republicans haven’t yet noticed, is that even in a bad economy most independents would still vote for Barack Obama over, say, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush.
Obama has lessened the gap between himself and Bush by basically following the Bush agenda in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. He has failed to implement his various campaign promises about these areas and he has significantly increased the number of troops in Afghanistan. “Bush or Obama? What’s the difference?” many are wondering.
In domestic policy, the differences are glaring—if you are a Republican or Democrat. Bush supported business and the free market, some conservatives argue, while liberals point out that Obama has significantly helped the most vulnerable and weak among us. Independents, however, are underwhelmed by either argument. In their view, Bush gave lip service to the free market while drastically increasing government spending above President Clinton’s levels, and all of Obama’s rhetoric about helping the “little guy” has led to more government spending on programs that arguably have done little to actually help the needy or anyone else. Both administrations, as seen from the independent view, have done much harm to our economy and nation.
The stimulus package and health care law are unpopular among independents, but not as unpopular as the corruption of Bush’s administration (from various “witch hunts” and investigations of political opponents to no WMDs in Iraq). Obama talks like a liberal, spends like a liberal, and leads like a liberal, according to the independent perspective, but Bush spoke like a conservative and then led and spent like a liberal. Independents are thus understandably skeptical of Republican candidates promising to be fiscally responsible. “At least with Obama, we know what to expect,” is a common independent refrain. A Republican nominee will have to convince independents that he or she will exhibit truly great leadership and economic wisdom, while President Obama must simply convince independents that the Republican candidate won’t do any better than a second-term Obama.
The common political wisdom is that with a bad economy the sitting president suffers in a national election. In 2012, a bad economy will be seen as “Obama’s bad economy.” But unless Republicans nominate a presidential candidate who can appeal widely to independents on both economic and leadership issues (especially in the battleground states), “Obama’s economy” will likely last until 2016.
[i] See, for example, “Let Them Eat iPads,” by Ken Kurson, Esquire, May 2011
[ii] See The Chris Matthews Show, April 24, 2011
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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the co-author of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Business &Current Events &Economics &Independents &Leadership &Politics
The Social Animal
April 20th, 2011 // 7:31 am @ Oliver DeMille
A review of the book The Social Animal: A Story of Love, Character and Achievement by David Brooks
There are at least three major types of writing. The first might be called Shakespeare’s method, which includes the telling of stories with deep symbolic and archetypal lessons. Many of the great world religious texts used this approach. The Greeks referred to this as poetry, though the meaning of “poetry” is much more limited in modern usage. In the contemporary world we often call this type of writing fiction, though this is a misnomer since the stories used are not actually untrue—they are, many of them, literally true, and nearly all of them are symbolically true. This could also be called the Inspirational style of writing.
A second kind of writing can be summarized as Tocqueville’s method, or the philosopher’s style. Called prose, non-fiction, or editorializing, this type of literature consists of the author sharing her views, thoughts, questions, analyses and conclusions. Writers in this style see no need to document or prove their points, but they do make a case for their ideas. This way of writing gave the world many of the great classics of human history—in many fields of thought spanning the arts, sciences, humanities and practical domains. This writing is Authoritative in style, meaning that the author is interested mostly in ideas (rather than proof or credibility) and writes as her own authority on what she is thinking.
The third sort of writing, what I’ll call Einstein’s method, attempts to prove its conclusions using professional language and appealing to reason, experts or other authority. Most scientific works, textbooks, and research-based books on a host of topics apply this method. The basis of such writing is to clearly show the reader the sources of assumptions, the progress of the author’s thinking, and the basis behind each conclusion. Following the scientific method, this modern “Objective” style of writing emphasizes the credibility of the conclusions—based on the duplicable nature of the research and the rigorous analysis and deduction. There are few leaps of logic in this kind of prose.
Each type of writing has its masters, and all offer valuable contributions to the great works of human literature. This is so obvious that it hardly needs to be said, but we live in a world where the third, Objective, style of writing is the norm and anything else is often considered inferior. Such a conclusion, ironically, is not a scientifically proven fact. Indeed, how can science prove that anything open to individual preference and taste is truly “best?” For example, such greats as Churchill, Solzhenitsyn and Allan Bloom (author of The Closing of the American Mind) have shown that “Tocqueville’s” style is still of great value in modern times—as do daily op eds in our leading newspapers and blogs. Likewise, our greatest plays, movies and television programs demonstrate that the Shakespearean method still has great power in our world.
That said, David Brooks’ new book The Social Animal: A Story of Love, Character and Achievement manages to combine all three styles in one truly moving work. I have long considered Brooks one of my favorite authors. I assigned his book Bobos in Paradaise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There as an undergraduate and graduate college text for several years, and I have recommended his book On Paradise Drive to many students and executives who wanted to understand American and modern culture. In one of the best descriptions of our society ever written, he outlined the new realities experienced by the “average” American citizen, who he called “Patio Man.” I have also enjoyed many of his editorials in The New York Times—and the ongoing, albeit unofficial and indirect, “debate” between his columns and those of Thomas L. Friedman, Paul Krugman, George Will and, occasionally, Peggy Noonan.
The Social Animal is, in my opinion, his best work to date. In fact, it is downright brilliant. I am not suggesting that it approaches Shakespeare, of course. But who does? Still, the stories in The Social Animal flow like Isaac Asimov meets Ayn Rand. It doesn’t boast deep scientific technical writing, as Brooks himself notes. Indeed, Brooks doesn’t even attempt to produce a great Shakespearean or scientific classic. But he does effectively weave the three great styles of writing together, and in the realm of philosophical writing this book is similar to Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. The content of the book, in fact, is as close as we may ever see to a 21st century update to Tocqeville (1830s) and Bryce (1910s).
I know this is high praise, and in our modern era with its love of objective analysis, such strong language is suspect in “educated” circles. But my words are not hyperbole. This is an important book. It is one of the most important books we’ve seen in years—probably since Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World or Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind. This book is in the same class as Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations, Strauss and Howe’s The Fourth Turning, or Philip Bobbitt’s The Shield of Achilles. It is as significant as any article in Foreign Affairs since Richard Gardner’s writings. It reads like Steven Pinker channelling Alexis de Tocqueville. The language is, well, beautiful, but beautiful in the modern sense, like the writings of Laura Munson or Sandra Tsing Loh.
The book also manages to bridge political views—I think liberals will find it moving and conservatives will find it convincing. It is not exactly Centrist, but neither is it patently Right nor Left. It will appeal to independents and people from all political perspectives. If it has a political leaning, it is the party of Common Sense—backed by meticulous research.
Moreover, The Social Animal clouds typical publishing stereotypes. I’m not sure where big bookstores will shelve it. It is a book on culture, politics, education, and career. It is a book about entertainment, marriage and language. It is about the upper, middle and lower classes in modern American society, how they interrelate and what challenges are ahead as they clash. It is about current events and future challenges. It is, above all, a book about success. It goes well beyond books on Habits or The Secret or even “Acres of Diamonds.”
As Brooks himself put it:
“Over the centuries, zillions of books have been written about how to succeed. But these tales are usually told on the surface level of life. They describe the colleges people get into, the professional skills they acquire, the conscious decisions they make, and the tips and techniques they adopt to build connections and get ahead. These books often focus on an outer definition of success, having to do with IQ, wealth, prestige, and worldly accomplishments.
“This story [The Social Animal] is told one level down. This success story emphasizes the role of the inner mind—the unconscious realm of emotions, intuitions, biases, longings….
“…we are not primarily the products of our conscious thinking. We are primarily the products of thinking that happens below the level of awareness.”
Brooks argues:
“The research being done today reminds us of the relative importance of emotion over pure reason, social connections over individual choice, character over IQ, emergent, organic systems over linear, mechanistic ones, and the idea that we have multiple selves over the idea that we have a single self.”
The book deals with such intriguing topics as:
- Modern dating and courtship
- Today’s marriages and what makes them succeed—or not
- The scientific versus popular views of child development
- Cultural trends such as global-warming awareness assemblies in high schools
- The scientific foundations of violence
- The kind of decision-making that leads to success versus mediocrity and failure
- A veritable manual for success in college
- The powerful leadership techniques of priming, anchoring, framing, limerance, fractals, metis and multiparadigm teams, among others (it is worth reading the book just for this)
- How to “ace” job interviews
- The new phases of life progression
- Effectively starting a new business—the steps, techniques, values and needed character traits
- Leadership in the modern corporation
- How to win a revolution by only making a call for small reforms
- The effectiveness of a talent for oversimplification
- The supreme power of a life’s viewpoint
The Social Animal struck a personal note with me because it brilliantly describes the true process of great mentoring that more of our teachers need to adopt and that I wrote about with Tiffany Earl in our book The Student Whisperer. I have seldom seen truly great teaching described better.
This book is primarily about success—specifically success in our complex modern world—but at a deeper level it is about happiness. Brooks writes:
We still have admissions committees that judge people by IQ measures and not by practical literacy. We still have academic fields that often treat human beings as rational utility-maximizing individuals. Modern society has created a giant apparatus for the cultivation of the hard skills, while failing to develop the moral and emotional faculties down below. Children are coached on how to jump through a thousand scholastic hoops. Yet by far the most important decisions they will make are about whom to marry and whom to befriend, what to love and what to despise, and how to control impulses. On these matters, they are almost entirely on their own. We are good at talking about material incentives, but bad about talking about emotions and intuitions. We are good at teaching technical skills, but when it comes to the most important things, like character, we have almost nothing to say.
The book, like any true “classic” (and I am convinced this will be one), is deep and broad. It includes such gems as:
- “The food at their lunch was terrible, but the meal was wonderous.”
- “For example, six-month-old babies can spot the different facial features of different monkeys, even though, to adults, they all look the same.”
- In his high school, “…life was dominated by a universal struggle for admiration.”
- “The students divided into the inevitable cliques, and each clique had its own individual pattern of behavior.”
- “Fear of exclusion was his primary source of anxiety.”
- “Erica decided that in these neighborhoods you could never show weakness. You could never back down or compromise.”
- “In middle class country, children were raised to go to college. In poverty country they were not.”
- Jim Collins “…found that many of the best CEOs were not flamboyant visionaries. They were humble, self-effacing, diligent, and resolute souls who found one thing they were really good at and did it over and over again. They did not spend a lot of time on internal motivational campaigns. They demanded discipline and efficiency.”
- “Then a quiet voice could be heard from the other end of the table. ‘Leave her alone.’ It was her mother. The picnic table went silent.”
- “Erica resolved that she would always try to stand at the junction between two mental spaces. In organizations, she would try to stand at the junction of two departments, or fill in the gaps between departments.”
- “School asks students to be good at a range of subjects, but life asks people to find one passion that they will do forever.”
- “His missions had been clearly marked: get good grades, make the starting team, make adults happy. Ms. Taylor had introduced a new wrinkle into his life—a love of big ideas.”
- “…if Steve Jobs had come out with an iWife, they would have been married on launch day.”
- “Epistemological modesty is the knowledge of how little we know and can know.”
There are so many more gems of wisdom. For example, Brooks notes that in current culture there is a new phase of life. Most of today’s parents and grandparents grew up in a world with four life phases, including “childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age.” Today’s young will experience at least six phases, Brooks suggests: childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement, and old age.
While many parents expect their 18- and 19-year-old children to go directly from adolescence to the adult life of leaving home and pursuing their own independent life and a marriage relationship, their children are surprising (and confusing) them by embracing their odyssey years: living at home, then wandering, then back home for a time, taking a long time to “play around” with their education before getting serious about preparing for a career, and in general enjoying their youthful freedom. Most parents are convinced they’re kids are wasting their lives when in fact this is the new normal.
The odyssey years actually make a lot of sense. The young “…want the security and stability adulthood brings, but they don’t want to settle into a daily grind. They don’t want to limit their spontaneity or put limits on their dreams.” Parents can support this slower pace with two thoughts: 1) the kids usually turn out better because they don’t force themselves to grow up too fast like earlier generations did, and 2) the parents get to enjoy a similar kind of relaxed state in the “active retirement phase.”
Most odysseys pursue life in what Brooks calls The Group—a small team of friends who help each other through this transition. Members of a Group talk a lot, play together, frequently engage entrepreneurial or work ventures with each other, and fill the role of traditional families during this time of transition. Even odysseys who live at home for a time usually spend much of their time with their Group.
This book is full of numerous other ideas, stories, studies, and commentaries. It is the kind of reading that you simply have to mark up with a highlighter on literally every page.
Whether you agree or disagree with the ideas in this book—or, hopefully, both—it is a great read. Not a good read, but a great one. Some social conservatives may dislike certain things such as the language used by some characters or the easy sexuality of some college students, and some liberals may question the realistic way characters refuse to accept every politically-correct viewpoint in society—but both are accurate portrayals of many people in our current culture.
The Social Animal may not remain on the classics list as long as Democracy in America, but it could. At the very least, it is as good a portrayal of modern society as Rousseau’s Emile was in its time. It provides a telling, accurate and profound snapshot of American life at the beginning of the 21st Century. Reading it will help modern Americans know themselves at a much deeper level.
This is a book about many things, including success and happiness as mentioned above. But it is also a classic book on freedom, and on how our society defines freedom in our time. As such, it is an invaluable source to any who care about the future of freedom. Read this book to see where we are, where we are headed, and how we need to change. The Social Animal is required reading for leaders in all sectors and for people from all political persuasions who want to see freedom flourish in the 21st century.
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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the co-author of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
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