Family

World Stats

August 5th, 2011 // 9:57 am @ Oliver DeMille

Sometimes a few statistics and quotes tell us a lot more than any commentary. Consider the following:

“…married couples, for the first time, now make up less than half (45%) of all households.”
(“For Richer, Smarter: The Decline of Marriage,” The Economist, June 25^th, 2011)

“Percentage by which a couple is likelier to divorce if one partner has a commute greater than 45 minutes: 40” (Harper’s, August 2011)

16,000 children starve every day. (Spirituality & Health, July/August 2011)

“Traditional marriage has evolved from a near universal rite to a luxury for the educated and affluent. There was barely a marriage gap in 1960: only four percentage points separated the wedded ways of college and high school graduates (76% versus 72%). The gap has since widened to 16 percentage points…” (“For Richer, Smarter: The Decline of Marriage,” The Economist, June 25^th, 2011)

“Estimated percentage of the U.S. college class of 2011 who are moving back home after graduation: 85” (Harper’s, August 2011)

The average 2011 college graduate has $22,000 in student loan debt, even though jobs are especially scarce for this group. (The Huffington Post, July 2011)

“On any given day, 1.6 million of us are blogging, 27 million are tweeting, and 1.5 billion are posting on Facebook. We’re emailing during meetings, texting during lectures, and talking on our cell phones as we tackle rush hour traffic.” (Spirituality & Health, July/August 2011)

“Last year China became the world’s biggest manufacturer, displacing America from a position it held for more than a century.” (“Rising Power, Anxious State,” The Economist, June 25^th, 2011)

Americans were asked in a poll who is the most trusted political journalist. The number one answer was, “Don’t Know,” and number two was, “None.” (Harper’s, August 2011)

“The fraction of the population now working (58.2%) is near a 25-year-low—lower than it was when the recession officially ended in June 2009.” (Robert Reich, The Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2011)

More than half of Americans do not know the recession is over. (Harper’s, August 2011) Part of this is rooted in the way economists define growth and recession. It takes 2.5% growth in the economy just to keep up with the natural growth of the working population, and we haven’t seen 2.5% economic growth for some time. So even though we haven’t technically been in “recession” for over a year, we are still falling further and further behind.

“By 2010, [federal entitlement] payments to individuals were 66% of the federal budget, up from 28% in 1965. We now spend $2.1 trillion a year on these redistribution programs, and the 75 million baby boomers are only starting to retire.” (Wall Street Journal editorial, July 29, 2001; cited on Meet the Press, July 31, 2011.)

The real unemployment rate in July 2011 is over 20%, including those unemployed and underemployed. (The Huffington Post, July 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 &Citizenship &Community &Culture &Economics &Family &Featured &Leadership

A New Definition of Success

August 3rd, 2011 // 10:46 am @ Oliver DeMille

The Religion of Prosperity

The lasting legacy of the twentieth century may be its materialistic definition of success.

Indeed, the “religion” of prosperity has grown to dominate politics, philosophy, religious debate, family and community culture and even education (people sent their children to school with patently career/financial goals).

Even the enemies of prosperity have learned to argue in blatantly materialistic language: Marx believed in a world dominated by conflict between poor and wealthy classes, Hitler argued for economic supremacy of one nation (based on his horrific view of racist supremacy), and Stalin, Mao and a host of dictators amassed power and wealth to themselves and those who served them.

Altruistic movements from various religions and important philosophies (such as feminism, tolerance, environmentalism, etc.) struggled to gain support until they learned to make their case in terms of profitability.

The typical approach to materialism by intellectuals has usually been either to denigrate mankind’s natural materialism and its excesses as “unfettered greed,” or, less frequently, to side with the “virtue of prosperity” perspective.

This debate between the so-called “virtuous poor” and the “virtuous wealthy” made its rounds through politics, academia, media, religion and art.

Science tried to arrive at conclusions based on various studies of socio-economic behavior.

Economists even got into the mix—for example, John Maynard Keynes said that as societies become more and more prosperous, they begin to seek success in things beyond financial increase.

A New Consensus

In the twenty-first century, it appears that a new consensus is emerging—and it’s not what you might think.

In fact, like the earlier materialistic debate (Success 1.0), there are two main perspectives on the new definition of success (Success 2.0).

The first is the “meaning” view, which has become well-known through our modern entertainment.

In this worldview, depression and poverty are bad, financial prosperity is good, and financial prosperity along with a life of real meaning is success.

Steve Jobs popularized this view when he told a graduating class that we should all spend our work lives doing things we really care about and enjoy.

Popular courses at Harvard, Stanford and other prestigious schools on Happiness in Life, or How to Be Happy, have received a great deal of media coverage—and more students than typical science, history or even finance classes.

And why not?

After all, happiness is a concrete feeling that brings its own rewards.

Positive Psychology

A whole new academic field, Positive Psychology, has risen in just the past two decades with a focus on happiness as the real measure of success.

The findings of Positive Psychology are interesting: people typically have more power over their immediate happiness than their immediate wealth or attractiveness, our thoughts have great impact on our happiness, and focusing effectively on happiness brings instant results that are often more pleasant than the noticeable rewards of food, alcohol, sex or even exercise, for example.

Moreover, the growing Success 2.0 movement has adopted some of the assumptions from both sides of the twentieth century debate on materialism: it argues that some material success is needed to maintain long-term happiness and also that at some point enough is enough and people will find more happiness by enjoying family, fun and giving to those in need than by seeking more money.

This view rejects the extremes of both the “unfettered greed” and “virtuous poor” arguments, while adopting the moderate views of both: meaningful work and a liberal flow of money helps one’s happiness, as does working to live (rather than living to work), spending time with family and friends, and giving needed service and monetary donations to help others.

In short, the new definition of success argues that financial prosperity is good and that those who attain it will find more happiness by seeking lives and work with real meaning including service to others.

As a review of Martin Seligman’s book Flourish put it:

“These days, we are hungry for a new definition of the ‘good life.’ Fractured relationships, crumbling economies, environmental crises, and a continuous state of war all have played their part in chipping away at what was once thought to be the basis for happiness…

“Dr. Seligman introduces the ‘New Prosperity,’ a concept based in optimism, and he shows how it affects everything from the health of a marriage, to recovery from illness, to the fluctuations of the stock market. Rather than focusing on gross domestic product, his new vision of prosperity, combines wealth with well-being…” (Spirituality & Health, July-August 2011).

But not everyone is buying the new definition of success.

For example, while men are three times more likely to find a happy woman more attractive than a proud woman, women are five times more likely to find a proud man more attractive than a happy one (Harper’s, August 2011).

And as the Tiger Mom debate shows, a lot of parents are still convinced that success for their children means prosperity through an Ivy League degree and a highly-compensated profession.

The fact that such a life is likely to be less about leadership or deep meaning than “high class drone work” is usually ignored by proponents of old-style success (Sandra Tsing Loh, “My Chinese American Problem—and Ours,” The Atlantic, April 2011).

Likewise, there is a second, darker, side of the Success 2.0 movement.

The Glory Years

Instead of a moderate combination of the following mantras 1) “work hard to build financial success,” and 2) “don’t lose your life in work, but use work as a support to a great life with family, friends and meaningful service,” some are taking the de-emphasis on career success as permission to avoid work and accomplishment altogether.

“Have fun, hang out with friends, party, live with your parents to avoid expenses, and forget about anything that takes hard work,” is gaining popularity.

This view is not lost on marketers who see college as the “glory years” of partying rather than the hard work of study to obtain an excellent education or prepare for one’s career.

For example, I recently purchased notebooks and pens at Wal-Mart’s “Back to School” sale.

A number of shelves were dedicated to supplies parents, kids and teachers will need for school—calculators, binders, pencils, backpacks, filler paper, markers, and more.

On an adjacent display, several large signs announced: “Back to College Sale!”

Interested, I walked over to see what the college sale had to offer different from the elementary/high school displays.

Imagine my surprise when the entire “Back to Colllege” sale, which took up a lot of floor and shelf space, consisted of toothpaste, deodorant, mouthwash and shampoo.

I suppose these are important for college students as much as anyone else, but why was there absolutely nothing related to academics?

I think this is rather poignant.

The tools of college “success,” at least for the Wal-Mart marketers (and I think they have a pretty good sense about the views of their target audience), centered around social acceptability and having fun.

CAKE!

Of course, any university campus probably includes students seeking a fun social life, a quality education, and preparation for a meaningful and rewarding career.

The point is that in the twenty-first century students are more likely to want all three, while last century these three groups were more frequently divided into distinct cliques.

Even where past students combined two of these goals (e.g. a fun social life and career preparation), they tended to clearly prioritize one over the other. Most of today’s students seem to want all three—at the same level of priority.

In short, the old formula of Success = Financial Prosperity is being replaced with a new view that Success = Real Happiness (Financial Prosperity + Meaningful Work + Flourishing Relationships + Significant Service).

With this new math, keeping score may be more complex and more accurate.

Daniel Pink pointed out that the theme of people giving up relationships for their work has been replaced in Hollywood and television productions with people putting relationships above career but finding ways to make them both work.

They want to have their cake and eat it too—or, on the “dark” side, to just enjoy cake.

There is probably little need to worry about those who have decided, for now, to loaf through life.

It almost certainly won’t last.

Success, both the 1.0 and 2.0 varieties, is a kind of widespread de-facto American religion.

As one author wrote of Americans:

“What a curious people. Their mania for self-improvement encompassed everything that touched them, and they resented the cost of every change. They were proudly self-reliant and quick to assign blame to others for their disappointments.

“They were certain theirs was the most enlightened and envied society on earth, that human history was mostly a chronicle of their achievements, and were convinced, too, that their country was constantly in need of repair. Everything they had was better than what any other people had, including their form of government, and nothing was good enough. They believed in themselves…

“For all its power and influence, its abundance and enterprise, [America] was still an immature society: impatient, demanding, not comfortable with introspection, frivolous and audacious” (O, anonymous).

But when it comes time to do the big things, America has repeatedly risen to the occasion.

It has sometimes taken crisis to bring Americans to the table, but once they come they sway everything in their path.

I am convinced that the current generation will do the same.

Churchill quipped that Americans can be counted on to do the right thing after they have exhausted the other possibilities.

Seligman suggests that there are ways to do important things that are not rooted in crisis.

For example, he “presents a rather startling idea, given the current state of affairs: that if history were to repeat itself, such a focus might result in a new Renaissance, appropriate for the twenty-first century but similar to the one that occurred when mid-fifteenth century Florence—rich, well-fed, and at peace—decided to invest its wealth in beauty rather than in conquest” (Spirituality & Health, July/August 2011).

We need to overcome a few challenges before we fully engage the idealism we are capable of.

An estimated 85% of 2011 college graduates are moving back home after graduation (Harper’s, August 2011), an alarming reality for their Boomer generation (born 1946-64) parents.

Likewise, the X generation (born 1965-1985) has reluctantly avoided taking on the responsibilities of past generations.

Up and At It

But when the times require, these generations will grow up and lead out.

Like Shakespeare’s Henry V, generations X and Y (born 1985-2005) grew up being told that world crisis was ahead and that they would have to sacrifice and lead to improve the world.

They subsequently attempted to prolong and enjoy their youth as long as they could.

But like young Henry, when they are called upon by world events, they will be up to the task.

Many members of Gen X and Gen Y worried that 9/11 was such a call, then relaxed as things seemed to normalize.

They worried that the Great Recession was their call, and they are still keeping one eye on this possibility, even while they cling to disappearing hopes for lives of perpetual youth.

Despite their fears, history makes it clear that their time will come, and current trends indicate that they will approach it with a new view of what success means.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a lot of people wanted to “get rich and get out.”

Today, many Americans are restructuring their careers or engaging entrepreneurial and other non-traditional enterprises specifically to combine their hard work with more money, more time with family and hobbies, and more service and charitable contributions.

Success 2.0 is a good change for America, and it broadens the opportunity for everyone in a free society to truly succeed.

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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

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 &Citizenship &Culture &Economics &Education &Entrepreneurship &Family &Featured &Generations &Leadership

Family Roles

July 9th, 2011 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille

Nothing will have more impact on the future of the world than the future of families.

This truism is sobering as we watch the decline of the family.

As we consider the industrialized world, it is disturbing to note that even amongst those who espouse, promote and live a strong family lifestyle, some of the most basic roles have been lost.

For example, consider the following from an editorial by John Rosemond:

“A journalist recently asked me to name the number one problem facing today’s family. I think she expected me to address education, the economy, or some other “hot” topic. To her surprise, I said, ‘A confusion of roles.’

“In today’s parenting universe, married women with children think of themselves first and foremost as mothers. This is confusion. If you are married with children, you are first and foremost a wife or a husband. In your wedding vows, you did not say, “I take you to be my (husband, wife) until children do us part.” Those vows, many generations old, read the way they do for a reason.

“I’ve been telling recent audiences that parenting has become bad for the mental health of women. Today’s all-too typical mother believes that whether her child experiences success or failure in whatever realm is completely up to her. If she is sufficiently attentive to her child’s needs and sufficiently proactive in his life, he will succeed. If not, he will have problems. The natural consequence of this state of over-focus is anxiety, self-doubt, and guilt.”

Marriage is the central relationship of society, and in society, no roles are more important than husband and wife.

As I talk to young people about their plans for life, career is usually the first thing they mention.

Once in a while, a young man will mention that his main goal is to be a good father, and a little more frequently a young woman will say that she really wants to be a great mother.

But I’ve never heard the following: “I want to be a great wife,” or “my most important goal is to be a great husband.”

This is a concern. In a way, feminism has had moved society by persuading our generation to focus on parenthood even more than marriage.

I’m convinced that most people who say they want to be great parents just assume marriage as part of it. But that’s the problem. Just assuming marriage isn’t enough. It reflects a lack of emphasis on our primary roles.

The future of the world certainly depends on the quality of fathering and mothering in the twenty-first century.

The quality of marriages is even more important. The state of the world ten, twenty, even seventy years from now will be determined by the depth and quality of our marriage relationships. Parenting will largely be determined by the level of success our marriages attain.

The recent politicization of the institution of marriage raises concerns in the minds of virtually everyone, no matter where they stand on the issue.

Of most concern to me is that 64% of married women and 82% of married men responded to a survey in the early 2000’s that they had been unfaithful to their marriage vows.

I see no greater threat to the institution of marriage than the tepid level of commitment of the spouses, and the way they characterize and fulfill their roles.

Marriage is hard work, worthy work–the work of a lifetime. If there is one thing we should teach our youth, it is the value of building a great marriage.

More precisely, we need to teach—by precept and example whenever possible—that “wife” and “husband” are vital roles to society, requiring preparation, consideration, emphasis and great effort.

Once married, these must always be the primary roles of each individual—not secondary to career, social endeavors, or even parenthood.

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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

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 &Community &Culture &Current Events &Family &Featured &Generations

Property and Freedom

June 23rd, 2011 // 11:38 am @ Oliver DeMille

We can learn a lot about freedom by understanding how Marx wanted to establish communism. One of his ten planks of establishing communism was this:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes…

Take away property and you take away freedom. If a man or woman cannot own land, a house, his or her own things, freedom is gone.

Note that there is more than one way to abolish property and ownership. One is to make it illegal, to not allow ownership. This is extreme, of course.

But there are other ways that are less obvious.

For example, what if it is legal to own property but only those who can afford a license, taxes, filings and attorneys to implement these things can actually own land.

This is an “abolishment,” but it is of the right rather than the left. To the person who can’t own the house, the land, or the car, however, the reality is the same.

Another way to abolish land or house ownership is simply to establish a legal-economic system where the majority cannot afford such ownership without advanced education and/or the careers which require such education.

Another is to disallow immigration so that the poor of other nations have no change to come to your nation and benefit from a system that allows ownership.

The left can abolish property ownership simply by taxing at rates that keep those with money from investing in real estate development and keep those with little money from seeking ownership.

There are many other ways to in effect abolish property ownership. Any of them hurt freedom.

Whatever your politics, it is important to evaluate each policy to ensure that you are not unknowingly supporting a Marxian reduction of freedom.

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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

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 &Economics &Family &Featured &Prosperity

The Clash of Two Cultures

April 26th, 2011 // 8:30 am @ Oliver DeMille

America is in the midst of a major clash of two cultures. Most of the rich world, and the developing world as well, are experiencing the same challenge.

This contest is seldom cooperative, often violent, and increasingly heated. It has the passion of the age-old class debate between the rich and the middle classes, the political angst of Republican versus Democrat, or the intensity of Cold War America versus the Soviet Union. It is much more obsessive than raging sports rivalries which so many Americans have experienced.

This conflict is intellectual in nature, though its results are physical, economic and substantive. There have been such intellectual battles before, such as conservatism versus liberalism. But, given human nature, the conservative-progressive debate seldom gained the zeal or ardor of Democratic fights with Republicans. Somehow having professionals who make their living promoting each opposing side drastically intensifies the natural belligerence of skirmishing viewpoints. In fact, it has been intellectual wars that caused the greatest conflicts of history—from strife between religions to capitalism versus communism.

The sides of this new war are conformity and innovation. This may at first sound less hostile than some struggles, but it would be a mistake to underestimate this issue. It is remaking the world as we know it.

Of course, those who support conformity have been around for a long time. And innovation has always been a rowdy, if lucrative, minority movement. Ironically, the leaders of conformity have typically come from the upper classes—nearly all of whose wealth, family legacy, and status was created by one or more ancestral innovator(s). Innovation breeds growth, wealth, success and status. The old parable of the tree house, as told to me by a partner of a major Los Angeles law firm, is applicable: build the tree house, then kick out the ladder so only those you personally select can ever come up.

Of course, the extreme of either side is—as extremes tend to be—worse than the moderate of either. Pure innovation with no regard for the lessons of history is just as bad as dogmatic conformity without openness, toleration or creativity. When I speak here of Innovation I mean a bent toward innovation within the proven rules of happiness and wisdom, and by Conformity I mean a focus on fitting in but with some open-mindedness in times of challenge. Note that even these two moderate styles are almost polar opposites.

Nearly all of our schools have a hidden, compulsory curriculum of training for conformity, and innovative teachers or institutions are pressured to become like the rest or face widespread official rebuke. The classic movie Dead Poet’s Society portrays this well.

Our universities follow this pattern more often than not, as do most institutions in our society. Entrepreneurship, for example, which is the catalyst of nearly all great business growth, is considered “lesser” by most business students and MBA programs. Many great companies were founded and built by individuals whose resumes would not get past the first glance in personnel departments of those same corporations today. And, indeed, the company’s biggest competitors are likely to be led by innovative thinkers and leaders who likewise wouldn’t get a job at the company (too many Ivy League MBA’s to compete with).

A quick read of the bestselling Rich Dad, Poor Dad shows how these two mindsets sometimes present themselves in families. But these two cultures are found at all social levels and in every geographical setting. Blue-collar working fathers are as likely to spout conforming rules as silver-spoon fathers: “This is just how things are; so you better get used to it!” “But, dad…” “Don’t contradict me. The world is what the world is! I’m telling you how things are!”

Such rigid thinking is a symptom of the widespread doctrine of conformity. It rules in many families, communities, businesses, schools, churches, nations, associations—indeed, almost everywhere. It is, in fact, on the throne in nearly every setting and society. It has the benefit of learning from the best lessons of the past, but it seems to chronically ignore the lesson that innovation is both advantageous and desired.

Futurist Alvin Toffler argued that our schools will not be competitive in the world economy unless we replace rote memorization, fitting in, and getting the “right” answer with things like independent thinking, leadership practice, creativity and entrepreneurialism. Several of Harvard’s educational scholars and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have made the same point—repeatedly.

But our schools are run on conformity, and until we promote innovators to educational leadership such changes will be rare. And when we do put innovators in charge, the attacks from entrenched powers are incessant.

Likewise, our economic experts are those who conform to the “accepted” analyses—economists with divergent, and often more accurate, predictions based on innovative models are given little press by the conformist economics, academic and media professions.

I have long suggested that the way to fix American education is to get truly great teachers in more of our classrooms. But innovative teachers often don’t fit in the bureaucratic school systems. Many of the best teachers leave schools simply because they can’t innovate in a conformist system.

An article by Tim Kane in The Atlantic noted:

“Why are so many of the most talented officers now abandoning military life for the private sector? An exclusive survey of West Point graduates shows that it’s not just money. Increasingly, the military is creating a command structure that rewards conformism and ignores merit. As a result, it’s losing its vaunted ability to cultivate entrepreneurs in uniform.”

This seems indicative of our entire culture right now. Conformity is winning far too often. Companies and organizations which elect to encourage the innovative side of the debate are seeing huge success, but this is taking many of the “best and brightest” away from academia, the public sector and the United States to more entrepreneurial-minded environments in private companies and international firms.

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 that take their 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 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.

The future of our freedom and prosperity depends on innovative thinking, and the innovation we need may be in the mind of your fifteen-year-old son or your husband, wife or employee. This battle will ultimately be fought in families, where youth get their fundamental cultural leaning—toward either conformity, seeking popularity and impressing others or, in contrast, creativity, initiative, and innovation.

Thomas Jefferson Education is naturally pointed toward innovation, but it is up to parents, mentors and teachers to implement this leadership skill. I invite all to join this battle, and to join it firmly committed to the side of innovation. Do whatever you can to encourage innovation and be skeptical of rote conformity. That’s a change that could literally change everything.

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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

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 &Culture &Education &Family &Government &Independents &Leadership