O Canada: Lessons From Our Northern Neighbor
October 28th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
Two words that haven’t shown up together very much since the 2008 economic meltdown are “austerity” and “Canada.”
That’s quite an accomplishment for our neighbor to the North. Austerity has been paired with Greece, Portugal, Spain, Great Britain and France in just the past 18 months.
Austerity means having your economy controlled and run by international regulators, and right now the idea of austerity for the United States is growing.
Not only is the federal government in financial trouble, but so are many of the individual states. In addition to struggles in 2008, 2009 and 2010, 31 states project major budgetary shortfalls in 2011.
Prospects are getting worse in many states, rather than improving.
Unemployment numbers are knocking on double digits (which is to say that in some places they already exceed 10 percent), and the U.S. deficit and debt promise to be major issues in the 2010 election — to say nothing of their impact on America’s future for years and perhaps decades to come.
Canada’s Example
But Canada faces a much smaller challenge.
Ironically, for decades U.S. conservatives have pointed to Canada’s health care system as the example of what not to do — often referring to it as a failed icon of “socialized medicine.”
Many liberals have idealized the nations of Western Europe, looking past Canada and preferring Britain, France and Germany as examples.
The Great Recession has changed all this — mainly because Canada avoided the worst of the global financial meltdown.
As Ken Kurson put it:
“When the worldwide system collapsed…Canada didn’t have a single bank poisoned by toxic assets and not a penny of public money was used to bail out its financial institutions.”
Of course, many businesses and individuals suffered, but it would have been much worse if Canadian banks followed more European-U.S. policies.
Israel, India and China all fared pretty well in the meltdown — as did Canada — while the U.S. and Britain were hit very hard. Canada’s traditional liberalism and conservatism helped shield it from the worse financial collapse other nations faced.
Modern liberalism and conservatism are mostly focused on winning office and promoting partisan agendas, whereas the traditional strains of both conservatism and liberalism are more interested in ideas, values and ideals.
Traditional liberals in Canada used government to put caps and controls on the nation’s financial institutions, keeping them from simultaneously posing as both lending institutions and speculators in the Japanese style that most European and U.S. banks have adopted.
And traditional conservatism kept banks and business from leveraging their resources at the high levels which brought down so many institutions in other nations.
One can argue with either the underlying Canadian liberalism or conservatism, but the results were a traditional kind of system that is too often seen in many advanced (and broke) nations as outmoded, quaint and passé.
For example, most U.S. mortgages were intended for sale while nearly all mortgages in Canada are still held by the banks where they originated.
In other words, Canadian bankers only made loans to people they intended to have as long-term customers; the happy result is that when the housing bubble burst such banks remained solvent.
Of course, all nations were hurt by the global economic downturn. Certainly, Canada, Israel, and other nations have their share of problems, but simple financial frugality and common sense are never old-fashioned.
What We Can Learn
There are at least two important lessons America should learn from this.
First, the traditional models of either liberalism or conservatism seem better for America than the modern, partisan styles of liberals and conservatives.
The commonsensical use of government combined with a free and flourishing private sector is vital to the future of freedom and prosperity. And the ideal is found in earlier American history rather than modern Canada, India or China.
Still, when China incentives free enterprise more effectively than the United States, the results are predictable. Freedom works, and when America ignores its own legacy it loses its strength and economic resiliency.
Second, technology doesn’t trump wisdom.
We live in a world where checks can be deposited through cell phone cameras, current events are taught better on QRANK than the nightly news, and mobile phone applications like Avoidr “allow Foursquare users to select the ‘friends’ they want to avoid” (and their phones keep them abreast of where their friends are at any given moment).
Amazon sells more books on Kindle than in hardback, and online media is causing many newspapers and now book publishers to disappear.
On a macro level, nanotechnology makes surveillance, theoretically, ubiquitous — it is becoming ever-present, everywhere, always.
As Graeme Wood wrote in The Atlantic:
“If the past several years in the shadow of a war against terrorism have taught us anything, it is that, once available, surveillance technologies rarely go unused, or un-abused.”
And governments are pursuing increasingly deeper rings of secrecy even though technology makes transparency possible.
All of these are ultimately the tools of human values and decisions. Indeed, the more powerful the technology, the greater the need for wisdom, limits, checks and balances.
It matters whether we learn these lessons or not. When the global economy broke down in 2008-2009, many businesses, industries and even states were bailed out by the federal government.
But the next round of major decline could easily force Washington to follow the majority of non-industrialized nations and even European countries like Greece, Spain, Portugal, and France in turning to international lenders for bailouts.
If this comes before 2012 or even 2020, as it certainly could, we will have to borrow from those who have money to lend — meaning banks in nations such as China, Israel or Canada.
Of all the possible candidates, we will most likely go hat in hand to Canada.
Revisionist History
The other option is simply to adopt fiscal responsibility on our own. A little common sense — both the conservative and liberal kinds — can go a long way.
Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be gaining momentum. After the end of the Cold War in 1989, the common wisdom seemed to be that capitalistic nations had overcome their communistic rivals.
But for many, the Great Recession has revised this conclusion. Now the theme seems to be that Soviet-style communism and Americanized capitalism are just the age-old battle between power and greed.
The emerging winner appears to be government-run industry, what The Economist called “Leviathan Inc.: The State Goes Back Into Business.” Indeed, these are the models followed by nations like China, Israel, Brazil, India and Canada that fared better than most in the recession.
Some leaders in Washington are taking note:
“[F]rom Berlin to Brussels, demand for industrial policy is back. Japan’s new government is responding to what it sees as the increasingly aggressive policies of foreign competitors by deepening the links between business and the state.
In America Barack Obama, the effective owner of General Motors and a chunk of Wall Street, has turned his back on the laissez-faire approach of the past: a strategic-industries initiative is under way.”
Unfortunately, the politicians are ignoring the rest of this report:
“Yet the overwhelming reason for China’s miracle is that the state released its stifling grip and opened the country to private enterprise and to the world…
India’s wildly successful software and business-process-outsourcing industries blossomed not because of help from the government, but precisely because its [government] did not understand these nascent fields well enough to choke them off…
In the rich world, meanwhile, the record shows, again and again, that industrial policy doesn’t work.”
The Real Need
I’ll take traditional liberalism or conservatism – either one – over the current modern Democratic or Republican models.
Commonsensical uses of government spurring a free economy, or a truly free-enterprise system with a limited government effectively taking care of the basics—either would be much better than the current reality.
Canada, Greece, Israel, China, Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, Germany, many other nations, and the United States — all could use a free-enterprise upgrade.
A constitutional, free enterprising, federal democratic republic which believes in freedom and applies its principles sounds like a utopian dream.
Or, it could just be a nation run by a truly educated, wise and active citizenry.
Without citizens who are effective overseers of the government, freedom doesn’t last anywhere. Because of this, even those nations which were less hurt by the Great Recession face difficult futures.
It remains to be seen what nation (or will it be a tribe, or something else?) in the world will become the new standard of freedom.
Such leadership will naturally flow to the society whose common citizens become a new generation of great citizens—like the American founding generations.
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd..
He is the 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 : Current Events &Economics &Foreign Affairs &Government &Leadership &Politics &Technology
Is Government Broken?
October 26th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
Is our government broken?
More and more people think so. The current presidential administration makes periodic claims that we are in an economic recovery, but at the same time growth is still slowing and unemployment figures stay around ten percent.
With more American deaths in Afghanistan during the last week of July than any week to date, things seem to be deteriorating at home and abroad.
To make matters worse, few people believe that the opposing Republican Party has much more to offer than the Democrats.
With neither side poised to really fix things, few Americans have a lot of hope for the future of government leadership. Here a few of the issues vexing citizens.
A Missing Recovery
First, even though many politicians have been claiming that we are experiencing an economic recovery, it doesn’t feel like it to most Americans.
The Obama White House doesn’t seem very friendly to small business.
Most of the entrepreneurs and businesses who do hold cash aren’t about to hire or expand in an environment where their taxes and regulatory burden could be increased at any point by an unfriendly Administration.
Ironically, Washington is responding by promising to increase taxes and regulations. Understandably, those who hire are skittish.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Giethner said in July that we’ve reached a point where private hiring—rather than government spending—is the answer to economic growth.
But until the government starts supporting small business, and as long as it refuses to incentivize free enterprise, the economy will struggle.
Author Arthur Brooks argues that the nation is 70% in favor of free enterprise and about 30% opposed, but that the 30% are in charge.
The 30% has gained much influence over citizens by convincing them that it was private business that caused the recession in the first place.
Somehow, this view has successfully convinced much of the public that the Bush Administration, big banks, Wall Street and all small businesses are the same group.
Those who read the fine print, however, are clear that policies from the Clinton and Bush Administrations led to the mortgage crisis.
Moreover, big government and big business together caused the recession. In the meantime, both ignored small business and continue to do so.
As a result, the 70% is confused and unable to keep the 30% in check. So more government policies hurt the economy and make it unwise or unfeasible for small businesses to hire and grow.
In the meantime, much of the Right is busy labeling Democrats as “socialists” rather than helping incentivize growth and prosperity.
Both sides seem to mean well, but one has unbounded faith in government and the other is preoccupied attacking that faith.
While the two sides posture, the plight of small business is sometimes discussed but remains unaided.
What the Citizens Want
Second, this problem is deeper than most people realize.
Since World War II, the United States has promoted a mixture of free enterprise and big government. In history, societies typically emphasized one or the other.
When big government ruled, enterprise was highly regulated and taxed; where free enterprise was the focus, taxes were small, regulations were minimal, and governments were limited in size, scope and budget.
But in modern America, no politician from any party can claim success unless he/she has “done something in office.”
And to nearly all Americans, “doing something” means increasing government action to benefit the pet cause or regional constituency.
If President Obama doesn’t pass much of his agenda, his political friends and competitors alike will label him ineffective.
Americans in general want their politicians to do a lot and are disappointed when officials fail in this.
The irony of the American voter is that “doing a lot” immediately earns most politicians a place on the voters’ list of officials to vote out.
Americans today want the impossible: low taxes and lots of government programs.
The Economist summarized it this way:
In the end, the question of whether a country is governable turns on how much government you think it needs. America’s founders injected suspicion of government not only into the constitution but also into the political DNA of its people. And even in the teeth of today’s economic woes, at least as many Americans seem to think that what ails them is too much government, not too little.
“But there is a catch. However much Americans say they want a small government, they seem wedded to the expensive benefits of the big one they actually have…With deficits running at $1 trillion a year, and in order to stay solvent, they will have at some point to cut spending, pay more taxes, or both….To balance the books, politicians have sometimes to do things the people themselves oppose—even in America. That will be the true test of whether the country is governable.”
Americans must either choose big government and be willing to pay for and submit to it, or they must move toward smaller, less intrusive government and be willing to enjoy fewer government programs.
When voters want the prosperity of freedom along with the bread and circuses of massive government, every election is a referendum on incumbents.
Eventually, though (and the day of reckoning appears to be close on the horizon), something will have to give.
Unfortunately, few societies make such hard choices until they are forced upon them by war, depression, pandemic or other major crises.
Sadly, few nations have the leadership or the fortitude to adopt the simple solution of spurring major growth and prosperity by de-regulating, de-taxing and freeing up the economy.
Freedom works, but few in history have been willing to adopt it.
Lost Leaders
We are unable to overcome these and many of our deepest challenges because of the way we distribute leadership in our society.
The American founders envisioned a truly great educational system, built around schools in every locale, to train their youth in the great ideas of mankind’s history, as well as the latest practical arts and sciences.
They built the early American schools to train empowered citizens who would protect freedom, foster prosperity, leadership, and character in all walks of American life.
They wanted an educational system that prepared their youth to become effective in their families, communities, and careers.
This vision helped create a nation that by 1946 produced over half of the world’s goods and services with only 6% of the globe’s population.
Freedom works, and the success of the American constitutional-free-enterprise model was spectacular. In the process, this system over time addressed, and — in some cases, even began to resolve its biggest negatives, including slavery and other inequities.
Unfortunately, by the late 1930s, the citizens and leaders who built this great model of success, freedom, and prosperity sent their children and grandchildren to schools which rejected this system, and instead adopted a new style of education focused mostly on career training.
Sadly, these American schools established by the our founders were replaced after World War II by the German model which was based on socio-economic class divisions.
In the “new” system, the elites still received leadership education (like all citizens had before 1939) while the middle and lower classes were educated only for jobs.
As this system grew, a Germanic-style grading system reinforced class-society advancements among the youth.
The maladies of credentialism, class divisions, and reliance on experts made their way into mainstream American culture. From 1939 to 1979, these contagions grew and infected the Founders’ classless and “free American” vision.
In such a system, the motto was: “A students work for B students.” The concept of “The Company Man” spread and Americans became addicted to big institutions.
Freedom and entrepreneurial values gave way to competing for executive positions and benefits packages. The goal of employeeship replaced the American dream.
Career became the purpose of schooling in almost everyone’s mind, and ownership and leadership values begin to literally disappear.
Eventually big institutions became truly massive, and anything except employeeship was considered inferior and backward.
In this environment, young people with a sense of leadership, idealism and ambitions to make a great impact on society split between the Left and the Right.
Those coming from traditionally conservative families tended toward majors and careers in business, while youth from more liberal backgrounds leaned towards the media and legal professions.
Most of today’s national leaders were part of this split.
The Reagan era ushered in a revolution of support for and promotion of free enterprise ideas and values.
Numerous non-traditional business models (like multi-level and network marketing) put individuals at the center of building a personal business rather than working as an employee, and eventually non-traditional educational options (from private and charter to home and online opportunities) grew in popularity.
Employeeship was still the dominant view, but a rising minority embraced the freedoms and prosperity of entrepreneurship. The dot.com boom and Roaring 90’s soon followed, and the entrepreneurial sector slowly grew.
Today a new culture of education and business is evolving out of the Great Recession and all that led up to it. A new maxim seems to be much more complex than in past generations:
- B students work for C students
- A students teach or work in government
- Those who cared little for grades and a lot about learning are building small businesses
Note that “those who cared little for grades and a lot about learning” often come from non-traditional private, charter, home and online learners, as well as from immigrants who are leading in entrepreneurial successes. And more than a few come from the traditional schools.
Since small business accounts for 80% of America’s economic growth, this is a significant development. Unfortunately, the number of people in the entrepreneurial sector is still very small.
Whether purposely or as a side effect, we are still training the overwhelming majority of our youth to believe that being A students means getting a good job and that employeeship is the greatest goal for education and even lifestyle.
Satirist P.J. O’Rourke addressed the problem this way:
America has made the mistake of letting the A student run things. It was A students who briefly took over the business world during the period of derivatives, credit swaps, and collateralized debt obligations. We’re still reeling from the effects…
“It was a bunch of A students at the Defense Department who planned the syllabus for the Iraq War….The U.S. tax code was written by A students….Now there’s health care reform—just the kind of thing that would earn an A on a term paper from that twerp of a grad student who teaches Econ 101…
“A students must do what teachers and textbooks want and do it the way the teachers and texts want it done….Such brisk apple-polishing happens to be an all-too-good preparation for politics. This is because a student’s success at education and a politician’s success at politics are measured mostly by input rather than outcome.”
Perhaps even more disturbing is that most of our Idealistic youth with ambitions to improve the world are still going after jobs in big business or big government.
The thing is, working for a big corporation or in a government job are unlikely places to really make a positive difference in the world.
We are distributing leadership in the way aristocratic and socialistic societies always have, and the future will unfold accordingly unless something changes.
We desperately need a rebirth of the entrepreneurial ideal.
The New Religion: Employeeship
Unfortunately, it’s not just the schools and universities that are continuing this outdated focus on jobs as the end-all of education and life.
Movies and television often demonize entrepreneurs while dedicating most of their time to stories about employees.
Full-time sports channels seem to dedicate as much time to the business side of athletes as to the entertainment, making sports role models as valued for their lucrative contracts as for their abilities on the playing field.
Even elected officials more typically refer to their role as a job than as public service.
Recent administrations and the media have referred to the constitutionally-titled commander in chief as the nation’s CEO. There are many other examples.
Because the “job-is-life” view is so prevalent, it has even become normal for successful entrepreneurs to see their work as done as soon as they can live comfortably.
In earlier generations (those that built and maintained American freedom), such successful entrepreneurs considered it their duty to spend the second half of their life helping society greatly improve.
Perhaps only parents and community leaders can effectively counter this trend and help more youth who want to help improve the world seek a true leadership education and seriously consider engaging in entrepreneurial careers.
Repairing the Break
So, to answer our question, yes, government is broken. The break is repairable, but it will take some major work and effort on the part of this generation.
When freedom is decreasing through constantly increasing regulations, government is broken. When the free enterprise system is under attack from our own government, government is broken.
When a tenth of our working society can’t get a job, and when the government responds by increasing taxes and regulations on those who could provide the jobs if they were free to do so, government is broken.
When two parties hold a monopoly on government, and where both increase spending and regulation no matter who is in office, government is broken.
But all of this misses the real point.
When most of society seeks employeeship above all else and every facet of life revolves around employeeship, much more than government is going to be broken.
Employeeship certainly has a place in effective nations, but it should be prioritized behind things like family leadership, citizenship, and private ownership.
Another name for these is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (or alternatively, as Jefferson originally wrote, “life, liberty and property”).
A successful society is made up of at least the following things:
- Effective parents, grandparents and other family leaders who help raise good, wise and industrious adults to take their place
- Citizens who are well-educated in freedom and leadership and who keep government, business and other officials in check so the society can remain free and prosperous
- Owners who improve the prosperity of society, in a free enterprise system where all can be owners
- A constitutionally guaranteed freedom where all are treated equally before the law and all are protected in their inalienable rights
How the President Can Repair the Economy
In the 2008 election President Obama was supported by the Left (who loved his promises of economic liberalism), but he was elected by independents who saw in him a possible end to the corruption of the Bush years and a potentially great leader for the United States.
The “Leadership Thing” swept him into office. Now, the Obama Administration could greatly boost the economy by deeply promoting entrepreneurship—both symbolically and in reduced taxes and regulations.
Such incentives would spur more hiring, investment and expansion, and a recovery would follow that Americans could really believe in.
In fact, the President could probably accomplish this without changing any policy at all, simply by warming to small business and genuinely becoming friendly to entrepreneurs.
As a friend, a member of a minority, told me about President Carter:
“I didn’t agree with his politics or policies, but I just feel that he loved me and my people and cared about us. I never felt that from Reagan or Bush, and so I voted Democratic even though I was more aligned with the politics of the Republicans.”
An old advertising proverb says that people make choices emotionally and then use logic to defend it.
No matter what Washington says, and no matter what the economic numbers show, most entrepreneurs are unlikely to increase jobs and boost the economy through investments as long as they think the man in the White House basically dislikes and mistrusts them.
Even liberal-leaning businessmen are worried that the President isn’t supportive.
The White House could drastically help the recovery simply by changing its bias against small business. If this is just a perceived dislike of business, not a real one, they can simply change their message.
If, on the other hand, the Administration really does mistrust or dislike small business, it should reconsider. After all, unlike Wall Street, big banks and big corporations, small business simply cannot be blamed for America’s economic challenges.
It has been the victim of the mistakes made by both big business and past government. Yet it keeps plugging along, keeping the recession from being much worse.
And small business certainly is the group most likely to overcome high unemployment.
Indeed, when the economy does make a serious comeback, entrepreneurs will be leading the way. Hopefully, the Obama Administration will extend its “Yes, We Can” philosophy to those who have the most potential to drastically grow our economy.
Conclusion
It is time for all Americans—from the White House to our individual living rooms—to pour out a deep, genuine and heartfelt admiration and “thank you” to those who run small businesses.
Whatever the politicians of any party do, the greatest need is for parents, grandparents and all of us to rekindle an excitement for entrepreneurship in the youth.
The future of America’s freedom and prosperity may well depend on it. As long as free enterprise isn’t flourishing, our government will be broken.
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is the founderof the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the 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 : Business &Constitution &Culture &Current Events &Economics &Education &Entrepreneurship &Generations &Government &History &Leadership &Liberty &Politics
The Marriage Plot, New Feminism, & the End of Men
October 13th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
AT THE CENTER OF ALL SOCIETIES sits the family, and when family culture drastically and irreversibly changes, the whole civilization is impacted.
Our politics, economy, relationships and character are going to be different based on the major family shift now occurring.
What could cause such an all-encompassing change? What exactly is happening right now that is altering our societal future?
The answer is: The shift to a matriarchal society.
And whether this actually happens in full or we are simply witnessing a slight move in this direction, the consequences are momentous.
In short, this boils down to four major trends that are remaking our society:
- The rise of matriarchal society
- The decreasing popularity of marriage
- The growing confusion about manhood
- The opportunity for masculine nurture
The Rise of Matriarchal Society
The Great Recession is touted by many as having brought the end of male dominance in our culture, and of ushering in a new era of matriarchal supremacy.
As Don Peck writes in The Atlantic:
“The Great Recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably just beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults….It could cripple marriage as an institution in many communities….Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture and the character of our society for years come…
“[J]oblessness corrodes marriages, and makes divorce much more likely down the road. According to W. Bradford Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, the gender imbalance of the job losses in this recession is particularly noteworthy, and—combined with the depth and duration of the job crisis—poses ‘a profound challenge to marriage’…
“‘We could be headed in a direction where, among elites, marriage and family are conventional, but for substantial portions of society, life is more matriarchal,’ says Wilcox. The marginalization of working-class men in family life has far-reaching consequences.
“Marriage plays an important role in civilizing men. They work harder, longer, more strategically. They spend less time in bars and more time in church, less with friends and more with kin. And they’re happier and healthier.”
Women are now the majority of the paid workforce for the first time in history, the majority of managers are now women, and significantly more women than men now get degrees.
“For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women?”
As Hanna Rosin outlined in a an article on “the unprecedented role reversal now under way—and its vast cultural consequences,” couples at fertility clinics are now requesting more girls than boys, three quarters of the jobs lost in the Great Recession were lost by men, many college women now assume that they will earn the paycheck while their husbands stay home and mind the kids, and women now earn 60 percent of all bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Ask Rosin:
“What if the economics of the new era are better suited to women? Once you open your eyes to this possibility, the evidence is all around you….Indeed, the U.S. economy is in some ways becoming a kind of traveling sisterhood: upper-class women leave home and enter the workforce, creating domestic jobs for other women to fill.
“The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominately male….
“The economic and cultural power shift from men to women would be hugely significant even if it never extended beyond working-class America. But women are also starting to dominate middle management, and a surprising number of professional careers as well.”
Of the top 15 careers projected to grow in the decade ahead, says Rosin, only two—janitor and computer engineer—are filled by a male majority. And the trend is not limited to the United States: both China and India boast similar indicators.
College statistics show “with absolute clarity that in the coming decades the middle class will be dominated by women.”
The Decreasing Popularity of Marriage
At the same time, and certainly not unrelated, many women are finding marriage less attractive.
Sandra Tsing Loh writes that:
“for women, obsession with real estate is replacing obsession with love and marriage….Whatever the emotional need, we women can engineer the solution. But such continual resculpting may be irksome if the vessel of our current and future happiness is an actual male….
“So what if, in comparison with Jane Austen’s time, when the heroine’s journey was necessarily Girl Meets Boy, Girl Marries Boy, Girl Gets Pemberley, 200 years later our plots are Woman Buys Pemberley, Pemberley Needs Remodeling, Woman Hires Handsome, Soulful, Single Architect to Find Perfect Farmhouse Sink but After Whirlwind Affair Boots Him Out Anyway Because She Hates His Choice of Carpeting…?
“Whether you wish to chant ‘Our houses, our selves’ or ‘We have houses, hear us roar,’ for us women, home is where the heart is.”
Loh suggests that “middle-aged female readers’ tastes,” at least, “are shifting away from the marriage plot.”
She cites such current female classics as Committed by woman’s icon Elizabeth Gilbert, Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House by Meghan Daum, and Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity From a Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes.
About The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine (which the New York Times Book Review called “an update of Sense and Sensibility”), Loh said that it is
“less about who ends up with the men than who ends up with the real estate….
“As the years grind on, Sheldon [‘bald and in bow ties’] will only continue to physically collapse, as opposed to a house, whose luster just improves with age. A 100-year-old farm house? Make it 200! Even 300! Original hardware! Wide-plank floors! And what’s more fun than falling madly in love with a piece of real estate?”
Quoting Meghan Daum:
“Moving, like chocolate and sunshine, stirs up many of the same chemicals you ostensibly produce when you’re in love. At least it does for me. Like a new lover, a new house opens a floodgate of anticipation and trepidation and terrifying expectations fused with dreamy distractions. It’s all encompassing and crazy making. You can’t concentrate at work…”
And about Hayes’s book:
“I am raptly studying the New York Times piece on lefty stay-at-home mothers in Berkeley who raise their own chickens. In a house with no cable…the only entertainment we have is reading….Evenings go by so slowly, I’m already halfway through my every-four-years read of Anna Karenina…
“I’m intrigued by the stay-at-home-mom chicken-slaughtering because on my rickety nightstand (flea market—$8!) is my new bible, Shanon Hayes’s Radical Homemakers. Sure, it has some of the usual tropes one would expect from a crunchy-granola rebel seeking to live off the land: Hayes’s daughters have lyrically daunting names like Saoirse and Ula; there is copious homeschooling; there are hushed-voice, enigmatic, and unironic biographical descriptions like ‘She raises and forages most of her food in the heart of the city’ (Chicago). More timid souls might balk at maybe limiting their diet to venison, figs, and prickly pear cactus; melting beef tallow for soap….And yet, I find myself dog-earing page after page, exclaiming ‘Aha!’ and circling passages….
“What a heady brand of feminism—self reliance in the home is a path to more authentic macro-freedom; freedom from government, freedom from corporations, freedom from a soul-diminishing economy! Like early American rebels who freed themselves from dependence on the British by pairing turkey not with imported jam but with locally grown cranberry sauce, we, too, can start a revolution in the kitchen!”
A much more direct new feminism, according to Rosin, comes from leaders like Iceland’s female Prime Minister who campaigned by promising to put an end to “the age of testosterone.”
And many women are simply foregoing marriage. Says Rosin:
“In 1970, 84 percent of women ages 33 to 44 were married; now 60 percent are….[T]he most compelling theory is that marriage has disappeared because women are setting the terms—and setting them too high for the men around them to reach.”
In all of this, men are often seen as dull, stulted, unimaginative and unable to cope with change, while women are seen as naturally innovative, able, creative, adaptive and ready to deal with and overcome anything.
When challenges come, men are expected to mope, but the women assess the situation, develop solutions, and then muster resources and support to turn challenges into triumphs.
In this new worldview, the stereotypes are significant: men are naturally needy and dependent while women are bright, engaged and full of initiative.
Why would women even want to marry in such an environment? Many college women, according to Rosin, see men as “the new ball and chain.”
Growing Confusion about Manhood
President Obama said in his 2008 Father’s Day Speech that fathers are critical to the foundations of the family:
“They are teachers and coaches. They are mentors and role models. They are examples of success and men who constantly push us toward it.”
Kids who are raised without fathers are five times more likely to commit crime or live in poverty and nine times as likely to drop out of school. But these statistics are all in debate, and no clear conclusions are accepted by the researchers.
In fact, as the author of Parenting, Inc., Pamela Paul, put it,
“The bad news for Dad is that despite common perception, there’s nothing objectively essential about his contribution. The good news is, we’ve gotten used to him.”
Such tepid support for the role of fathers is becoming the norm. As Don Peck wrote:
“In Identity Economics, the economists George Akerloff and Rachel Kranton find that among married couples, men who aren’t working at all, despite their free time, do only 37 percent of the housework, on average. And some men, apparently in an effort to guard their masculinity, actually do less housework after becoming unemployed.
“Many working women struggle with the idea of partners who aren’t breadwinners. ‘We’ve got this image of Archie Bunker sitting at home, grumbling and acting out,’ says Kathryn Edin, a professor of public policy at Harvard, and an expert on family life….It may sound harsh, but in general, [Wilcox] says, ‘if men can’t make a contribution financially, they don’t have much to offer.’
“Two-thirds of all divorces are legally initiated by women. Wilcox believes that over the next few years, we may see a long wave of divorces, washing no small number of discarded and dispirited men back into single adulthood.
“Among couples without college degrees, says Edin, marriage has become an ‘increasingly fragile’ institution. In many low-income communities, she fears it is being supplanted as a social norm by single motherhood and revolving-door relationships. As a rule, fewer people marry during recession, and this one has been no exception.”
More people are putting off marriage and just deciding not to marry.
One result of all this is that more communities are filled with unmarried, unemployed, underemployed, increasingly less educated, frustrated and unproductive males.
Even among educated men who are married and employed, there is increasing confusion about the ideal and proper role of men.
Few men are willing to voice a strong opinion about the roles of men and women any more, though it is a frequent topic among women.
Even those men who do share an opinion most often begin or end, or both, with a disclaimer along the lines of, “but what do I know? I’m just a man, after all.”
We are at an interesting place in gender relations in America. Hanna Rosin wrote:
“Throughout the ‘90s, various authors and researchers agonized over why boys seemed to be failing at every level of education, from elementary school on up, and identified various culprits: a misguided feminism that treated normal boys as incipient harassers (Christina Hoff Sommers); different brain chemistry (Michael Gurian); a demanding, verbally focused curriculum that ignored boy’s interests (Richard Whitmire).
“But again, it’s not all that clear that boys have become more dysfunctional—or have changed in any way. What’s clear is that schools, like the economy, now value the self-control, focus, and verbal aptitude that seem to come more easily to young girls.”
I have suggested for many years that girls are a couple of years ahead of boys and that we do much harm by pushing boys into academics too early.
In fact, until they have a love of learning (which comes early) and then a love of studying (which usually comes to boys shortly after puberty), requiring them to do a lot of typical school work is often very destructive to their long-term education.
By establishing grade levels by age, rather than as phases that come to different children at their own pace, society often labels boys as “dumb,” “not smart,” “less gifted,” and “behind,” when in fact they just aren’t yet ready to meet some arbitrary standard called a grade level.
Some boys, and some girls, may develop more slowly than the “established norm,” but they are still fully capable of superb performance when they are allowed to move at their own pace.
Unfortunately, this flies in the face of the “expert” wisdom and is largely discounted by most.
One suggested solution by those currently dealing with this trend of “underperforming” boys is to create gender-oriented tests instead of standard exams. This strikes me as sad and frustrating, since I have been promoting personalized, oral exams instead of standardized tests for years.
Another proposal is to allow boys to walk around during class in order to get out their nervous attention and allow them to concentrate like girls or older students.
Again, I have taught for nearly two decades that younger children aren’t quite ready for the academic environment we have forced them to endure.
Some experts want to establish all-boys classrooms and even all-boys school, and to focus on the needs of boys instead of requiring them to fit into standard classrooms.
I agree with Rosin:
“It is fabulous to see girls and young women poised for success in the years ahead. But allowing generations of boys to grow up feeling rootless and obsolete is not a recipe for a peaceful future.”
Unfortunately, the pro-men and pro-boy movements that are now happening are either discounted by many as too religious, too extreme, or too angry and anti-women.
In short, the only thing which really seems to work in raising boys toward ideal manhood, regardless of what the experts are saying, is the intimate and ongoing example of fathers, grandfathers, uncles and other key male role models.
Solutions
This reality, in fact, is one of those amazing coincidences that can only be called either inspiration or serendipity.
The current crisis is offering an opportunity for men to develop their nurturing side.
Before you discount this, consider that men are as naturally prone to nurture as they are to provide.
Thousands of years of the Nomadic, Agrarian and Industrial Ages have conditioned hundreds of generations of men to find success through work.
And the long era of comparative peace and prosperity since 1945 have tended to make them feel entitled to plentiful jobs, extra cash, vacations, and leisure time, and numerous other opportunities—often with minimal effort.
The Great Recession has challenged these assumptions, requiring a new type of individual with two sets of character traits and skills:
- First, extremely high levels of initiative, resiliency, ingenuity, and tenacity.
- Second, much higher than traditional levels of cooperation, communication, unselfishness about who gets rewards and credit, and teamwork.
Today’s generation of men and women are capable of the first list of needed traits and changes, but many men struggle to compete with women on the second list.
Indeed, for much of history it was man’s lack of these very “weaknesses” that made him independent, self-assured, bold, assertive, ambitious, and what has been called simply, “manly,” “Roman,” and “tough.”
When boys are taught, “be a man,” “don’t cry like a sissy,” and men are told to “cowboy up,” it often means precisely not to be the cooperative, communicative, depend-on-others types.
“Stop talking and just do it.” “Who cares what others say or do, just do what you want.”
Men still laugh at Tim Allen’s grunts as the essence of male communication, and even in team athletics boys are taught to stand out and rise above the crowd.
What used to be the unwritten rules of “male dominance” are now actually seen as inability to excel in the vital second list of characteristics (communication, cooperation, unselfishness).
While of course this generalization is overcome by a number of individuals, it remains a reality for many.
Wise fathers, grandfathers and role models will help teach boys and men that there is much more to manhood than the wartime and gang-related values.
Indeed, the lessons taught from fathers to sons by generations of hunters, farmers and entrepreneurs differ greatly from those idealized by warriors, politicians and corporate raiders.
The first group idealizes cooperation, communication, and progress whereas the second prefers competition, dominance and victory.
In the Industrial Age, the “Organization Man” became the ideal for males—detached, admired, cash-carrying, benefitting from a lot of leisure time, and considered in charge of his family and its members.
The Industrial Man was the provider and the boss. At work he was an employee, a servant, but at home he was the center of the universe. He too often tended to treat his wife and children like employees and act like the boss he resented at work.
With a life experience built on succeeding as an employee, he didn’t know another way of acting.
His wife was either an employee, the boss, or perhaps a fellow worker in competition for advancement, attention and rewards.
His marriage was most often seen as a contract, where both sides were expected to perform their agreed upon roles, rather than a covenant where he would give his all in sacrifice and longsuffering regardless of what the other side did.
His relationships with neighbors and his nation took on this same contractual perspective.
He voted like an employee, for what he wanted—rather than for what the nation truly needed like a farmer or owner protecting the land or the organization he raised from scratch.
Today some men are lamenting (often quietly) the loss of this concept, while at the same time the need for a new male ideal is vital.
Before the Industrial Revolution, the masculine ideal was often the best nurturer. It takes nurturing, not detached management, to grow a farm, build a business from the ground up, and raise children into adults.
The necessary attention to detail is legendary. Indeed, in the Agrarian Age the iconic man’s occupation and business was Husbandry.
Providing was part of their role, but it was a secondary natural outgrowth of nurturing children like a small business in its infancy, encouraging and husbanding plants and coaxing them to grow and flourish into a farm in full bloom.
As Wendell Berry put it:
“…a man who is in the traditional sense a good farmer is husbandman and husband, the begetter and conserver of the earth’s bounty, but he is also midwife and motherer. He is a nurturer of life. His work is domestic. He is bound to the household.
“But let ‘progress’ take such a man and transform him…sever him from the household, make…‘uneconomical’ his impulse to conserve and to nurture…’ and not only will much of his incentive to be a good husband end, but his attachment to the land, to his nation, and to his wife and children, who are, after all, not particularly economical.
“Then, send his children away to school during the day, thus severing the wife from both husband and children, and she will naturally follow him to work looking for connection and meaning.
“Our homes are left abandoned and barren across the nation—father, mother and children are all elsewhere, seeking love and acceptance and nurturing.”
New Opportunities
Then the economy tanks, the era of the male provider-warrior ends, and man stands wondering if he has any importance.
As women take more than half of the new jobs in the market, they too begin to wonder if man is needed.
Here comes the miracle.
Like a wildfire burning a forest and opening the seeds for the growth of new trees and vast swaths of new woodlands, men look around, try to see any value in their lives, and find, hopefully, inevitably, their inner nurturer.
If this sounds effeminate, you still don’t realize how much the world has changed.
This transition is not simple, and we fight it with the zeal of the government battling the most threatening forest fires.
The experts and activists may call it “A New Era of Matriarchy,” “The End of Men,” “The Failed Marriage Plot,” “The Victory of Feminism,” or “a Matriarchal Society,” but all of these miss the most central point.
After generations of an economy driving men further and further away from their nurturing selves, of making them more and more the provider-manager-disconnected-careerist or confused-noncommittal-freewheeler-playboy, something drastic is required to reawaken a generation of husbandmen.
A generation of husbandmen could improve the world like perhaps nothing else. Indeed this is the highest ideal of manhood promoted by feminism and its opponents alike.
And if unemployment and economic struggles are what it takes to bring about this change, it is certainly worth it.
Of course, making this change will be neither immediate, easy nor sure. There will be ups and downs, and individuals may reject the whole thing.
But the change is here, women and men are empowered, and our society is poised to take a great step toward an ideal world.
Speaking as a man, I am both overwhelmed and intrigued by the prospects.
This is about much more than just seeing the proverbial silver lining in economic struggles. We literally have the chance to become better as men, women, and people.
The debate about gender that has raged my entire life can finally be answered. We don’t need to worry so much about what men or women should be or who is ahead.
We have reached a point where all the incentive is simply for men to be better men. If each of us, male and female, see things this way and simply set out to be better, just imagine the potential.
I am so glad my daughters live in a world of such opportunity—both in and out of the home. And I am equally thrilled that my sons will build their lives in a world where the whole man—nurturer as well as provider—is emerging as the ideal.
I am more enthused than ever about the potential for all our children to be equally yoked and fully happy in their marriages.
I don’t believe that the era of marriage, family happiness, or the high point for men or women is over. In contrast, I have never been more optimistic about the future of family.
If we are entering an era where both women and men more broadly improve themselves, the future of the home is indeed bright—and the impact on the rest of the world is inevitable.
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the 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 : Culture &Current Events &Economics &Family &Featured &History &Mini-Factories
How Information Grows
October 12th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
Information grows differently than industry or agriculture.
Thus hundreds of years of understanding about how to grow Industrial-Age businesses doesn’t really apply to many Information Age endeavors.
Indeed, some of the lessons of how to grow a farm in the Agricultural Age didn’t necessarily translate to Industrial Age corporate growth, although some did.
The key is to think in a new context and apply lessons within the contemporary environment.
Information, and by extension Information-Age organizations and ideas, grow in a certain way.
Instead of the Industrial model of building a foundation, then adding walls, buttresses and finally a roof, informational models grow like waves.
Imagine the ripples caused when a pebble falls into a lake. The waves repeat many times, spreading out and impacting the world around them. Eventually they dissipate and disappear, leaving the world altered, if only a little. Additional pebbles are needed to repeat the process.
And unlike the Industrial Age penchant for building institutions that last forever, information impacts the world and then moves on to something else when enough ripples have accomplished the goal.
The Industrial modus operandi was to build an institution to achieve a goal, and then to focus on the survival and growth of the institution — even if this required abandoning the original purpose for which the institution was established.
In contrast, information sets out to inform, keeps going until this is accomplished, and then moves on to other agendas.
Likewise, where Industrial institutions attempt to control how their work is perceived and utilized, information shares, informs, and leaves (and trusts) those who receive the information to use it as needed and to pass it on.
Good information is naturally improved by various applications, and it is perpetuated by those who receive and utilize it.
There are eight levels of informational waves:
1: At first, information simply is. It exists.
It is in the state and process of being. This is the most important level of informational ideas, institutions and thinkers.
The quality, breadth, depth and wisdom of information matters. Getting it right (right from the beginning) is vital.
Even more important is sharing information for the right reason. If information is shared for the wrong reasons, for example, the information itself is tainted and changed by this fact.
In the Industrial Age, things were considered good information if they were true, but information has a higher standard. Unless informational ideas are shared for the right reasons, the information isn’t reliable.
In short, the first level of information is purity.
Any item of information is a thing, and it has a purpose. In sharing information or building informational institutions or relationships, pure reasons are essential. Without them, the information itself is unreliable.
Note that pure information is one of the most powerful things in the world. It has been called “the power of the word,” “the power of an idea whose time has come,” “resonance,” and a number of other things.
When information is shared by the right person at the right time for the right reasons, it has great and lasting power.
2: Good information that is promoted and shared for the right reasons becomes an interactive wave.
This greatly increases the impact and influence of the information, spreading it to those who need it.
Of course, bad information passed on for the wrong reasons is also interactive and therefore very destructive. Anybody who has ever started a rumor, for example, has probably witnessed how quickly it spreads and how much pain and hurt it can cause.
In the long term, however, tainted information has no lasting power. Information promoters do best when they send out ideas far and wide, openly sharing and personally applying the “new” information they have learned.
3: Next comes the communicative wave.
This occurs where people purposely set out to communicate information to set groups or to everyone.
This wave can be marketed, spun, or twisted for the benefit of various groups and people, but the pure information will shine through and those seeking wisdom will see through the shades of spin and opinion and resonate with what they need to learn.
They will then naturally pass on their contributions and lessons learned and the value of the information will increase.
Synergy kicks in at this point and the value of the information spirals out to many who are seeking it.
4: A linear wave captures much of the information at this level and translates it to specific uses, fields, disciplines, written or spoken or digitized venues and delivers its essence in numerous formats.
Information institutions or thinkers frequently introduce their views to the world in this format. Of course, it existed before they composed, organized or created their specific work, but their creation adds value, quality and even wisdom to the information.
By its nature, information spreads, and those who add to its value without trying to enslave its essence help it spread and increase its ability to serve.
Those who try to control it, in contrast, find that their creation is devalued, their creativity stifled, and their flow of additional information violated.
Unlike land or capital in the Agrarian and Industrial eras, respectively, information is not meant to be owned. The wave of open source programs and wiki media applications harnesses this abundant and cooperative mentality.
Note that I am not arguing here for uncompensated use of copyrighted software, technology, artistic or other proprietary creations.
I believe that original inventions, innovations and creations should benefit those who risked, invested, worked and created. And organizations and governments have every right to keep certain things secret or proprietary.
But pure information in ideas, principles and the flow of wisdom is not the same as one’s proprietary creation–nobody can (or should) lock up or control the flow of pure information.
As long as individuals and institutions own their creation, but without trying to control thought and inspiration, it can benefit them and many others.
5: Eventually information is captured in numerous linear waves which together form a multimedia wave.
In other words, at a certain point pure information is simultaneously delivered in many forms and from numerous sources which reinforce the messages, lessons and value of the original information.
Leaders can help spread this wave by delivering the information multiple times and in manifold ways.
6: The next step occurs when information comes alive.
This happens were the essence of the information is felt.
When I hear a story and it spurs an emotional response, for example, all the earlier waves combine and impact how I receive the information.
In a similar way, waves far from where the pebble dropped are bigger and carry a lot more water than those right where the pebble fell.
A similar level in Industrial institutions was branding–where a given brand, name or logo carried a repeating emotional charge. In the informational world, however, each additional interaction communicates new information value.
7: Psychological waves come next, and are produced by the transfer of information from one mind to another.
Since all such transfers partake of all the earlier levels of waves (e.g. the person shares his feelings, pure or tainted reasons, multimedia use of voice along with facial expressions and nonverbal cues, etc.), learning from others is an advanced way to receive information.
Because of this, the level of advancement of the person delivering the message has some impact on how the information is delivered.
Still, the condition of the receiver is the most important factor in determining the quality of the reception when the information or signal is pure.
In Industrial marketing this was often dominated by testimonials or infomonials, but informational leaders simply open up and share.
The most powerful of this information often comes from word of mouth, personal stories, and genuine interest in helping others.
Any who truly care about others and share ideas, thoughts or anything else as attempts to help others are partners with information in this process.
The true language of this wave is love, which is why true change most often comes when we feel love or loved.
8: At the highest level, the symbolic wave conveys a packet of information that is amazingly multi-layered and teeming with depth, breadth, context, connections and possibilities.
Shakespeare spoke of being bounded in a nutshell of infinite space and science teaches that the DNA code of an entire organism is found in each cell.
The symbolic wave could be called a mustard seed, a small token carrying the potential and key to so much more.
Also, at this highest level, the receiver can often break the information into smaller pieces, analyze each of the waves alone or together, and consider each facet of the idea–from its essence to all its potential consequences.
The possibilities are exponential. The information at this level is only limited by the abilities of the user to consider, discover or imagine.
Those seeking such information are on a quest for inspiration–be it limited to one question, or as broad as a life of searching.
Because the symbolic wave of information is so powerful, those who ask shall receive; the universe is friendly, and when the student is ready the teacher will appear.
(That last paragraph makes me want to be sure everyone knows how important it is to read Free the Beagle by Roy Williams. It’s a fun read, not homework.)
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the 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 : Current Events &Economics &Education &Information Age &Leadership
How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America
October 11th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
Every once in a while a truly great article comes along that needs to be read by everyone who cares about freedom.
Past examples include “The Clash of Civilizations” by Samuel Huntington and “A Separate Peace” by Peggy Noonan. Both of these are still incredibly valuable reading.
Today, when many politicians are trying to convince the American people that the recession is really over, there are still very few people who believe an economic boom is just ahead.
A significant number of people feel that things may well get much worse, and most Americans seem to expect the economy to sputter for the foreseeable future.
Even if growth does increase, it appears that major economic challenges are far from over.
More importantly even than financial impact of hard economic times is the significantly negative impact on the family.
Because of this, today I want to recommend that everyone read a truly important article written by Don Peck in The Atlantic: “How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America.”.
I have read and re-read this article a number of times since I first saw it in March, and I am learning something more each time. I urge you to take time to read it thoroughly.
While you read it, consider at least four themes:
- The challenges of fixing the economy, and the great need to re-incentivize innovation and entrepreneurs.
- Why are we choosing to increase taxes and regulations on small business instead of opening the economy and giving them a chance to put American initiative to work?
- The impact of high unemployment on the family, including the restriction of the roles of husbands, fathers, wives and mothers.
- The impact on youth.
Finally, I am still trying to figure out the ramifications of one major point in the article, that the economic downturn is altering our culture into a “matriarchal society.”
I’m all for equality, but is a matriarchal society a good thing or a bad thing? What exactly is it, and what will it look like? I think this is a vital trend that we all need to think about and discuss.
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the 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 : Culture &Current Events &Economics &Family
