How Do You Think U.S. Leaders Are Handling This Crisis?
Leaders facing a crisis get too much credit. Why do we think they can handle things? Do we really think they know what they're doing? Why? Is there any evidence in history to justify our faith in their better judgment?
If you haven't asked these questions, you should. Just look at the evidence right before your eyes. The European debt crisis - the current headline grabber - goes on and on. Leaders pronounce that it's under control one week. The next week, we're back in crisis mode. Well, at least it's keeping the U.S. out of the spotlight - for now.
On the other hand, if you haven't turned a critical eye on what's going on, you're in good company. Some pretty smart people I read continue to believe that government leaders - both here and in Europe - will "do the right thing"...at least they will one of these days. When pushed, you find their thinking turns on the idea that, while our leaders are all kicking the can down the road now, they'll soon come to their senses.
But why should we believe that?
I've been reading historian Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly. It was published in 1984. Ms. Tuchman spends a good 400 pages showing us how often leaders throughout history, in the face of all available evidence, engage in "folly" rather than make smart, efffective decisions. Not only do they not make smart and effective decisions, they don't even make decisions that are clearly in their own interest - never mind the interest of the people they lead.
The book covers various events in history such as the Protestant Reformation and the American Revolution. In the case of the Reformation, the author explores the way the Catholic Popes ineffectively reacted to the Reformers. For the American Revolution, we watch the British Crown and Parliament engage in folly that ultimately pushes their subjects in America to revolt. She ends up with the U.S. War in Vietnam. Ms. Tuchman evaluates U.S. leadership of that unfortunate war. Some brief excerpts (my emphasis):
American refusal to take the enemy's grim will and capacity into account has been explained by those responsible on the ground of ignorance of Vietnam's history...Not ignorance, but refusal to credit the evidence and, more fundamentally, refusal to grant stature and fixed purpose to a "fourth-rate" Asiatic country were the determining factors, much as in the case of the British attitude toward the American colonies...
A last folly was the absence of reflective thought about the nature of what we were doing, about effectiveness in relation to the object sought, about balance of possible gain as against loss and against harm both to the ally and the United States. Absence of intelligent thinking in rulership is another of the universals, and raises question whether in modern states there is something about political and bureaucratic life that subdues the functioning of intellect in favor of "working the levers' without regard to rational expectations...
Remember that Ms. Tuchman is discussing a country at war, where tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers were killed, many more wounded and hundreds of thousands - perhaps more than a million - of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed. And in such a serious situation, Tuchman points to:
"...refusal to credit the evidence...absence of reflective thought about the nature of what we were doing, about effectiveness in relation to the object sought, about balance of possible gain as against loss..."
Think about this and compare to our current economic and financial crisis.
More strikingly, is her comment about the sort of leaders and their administrative support who run the modern state:
"Absence of intelligent thinking in rulership is another of the universals, and raises question whether in modern states there is something about political and bureaucratic life that subdues the functioning of intellect in favor of "working the levers' without regard to rational expectations..."
If you're still waiting for intelligent and effective solutions to come from Washington, Brussels, or Beijing for that matter, I highly recommend you read "The March of Folly." You don't have to be a cynic to be skeptical about the ability of our leaders to either assert the will, or exercise good judgment, or, frankly, to be endowed with the intelligence to make good decisions now.
After reading The March of Folly, you may come to something like the conclusion I reached: we're in the soup and all that our leaders are doing is mixing that soup. As far as what ingredients they put in the soup, whether it tastes any good, or when it might eventually be ready to eat, they have no clue.
Would you eat in restaurant with chefs who cooked like that? In restaurants, we vote with our pocketbooks. When it comes to our government, we vote with...well, our votes. Oh, right, isn't there an election coming up?
If you haven't asked these questions, you should. Just look at the evidence right before your eyes. The European debt crisis - the current headline grabber - goes on and on. Leaders pronounce that it's under control one week. The next week, we're back in crisis mode. Well, at least it's keeping the U.S. out of the spotlight - for now.
On the other hand, if you haven't turned a critical eye on what's going on, you're in good company. Some pretty smart people I read continue to believe that government leaders - both here and in Europe - will "do the right thing"...at least they will one of these days. When pushed, you find their thinking turns on the idea that, while our leaders are all kicking the can down the road now, they'll soon come to their senses.
But why should we believe that?
I've been reading historian Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly. It was published in 1984. Ms. Tuchman spends a good 400 pages showing us how often leaders throughout history, in the face of all available evidence, engage in "folly" rather than make smart, efffective decisions. Not only do they not make smart and effective decisions, they don't even make decisions that are clearly in their own interest - never mind the interest of the people they lead.
The book covers various events in history such as the Protestant Reformation and the American Revolution. In the case of the Reformation, the author explores the way the Catholic Popes ineffectively reacted to the Reformers. For the American Revolution, we watch the British Crown and Parliament engage in folly that ultimately pushes their subjects in America to revolt. She ends up with the U.S. War in Vietnam. Ms. Tuchman evaluates U.S. leadership of that unfortunate war. Some brief excerpts (my emphasis):
American refusal to take the enemy's grim will and capacity into account has been explained by those responsible on the ground of ignorance of Vietnam's history...Not ignorance, but refusal to credit the evidence and, more fundamentally, refusal to grant stature and fixed purpose to a "fourth-rate" Asiatic country were the determining factors, much as in the case of the British attitude toward the American colonies...
A last folly was the absence of reflective thought about the nature of what we were doing, about effectiveness in relation to the object sought, about balance of possible gain as against loss and against harm both to the ally and the United States. Absence of intelligent thinking in rulership is another of the universals, and raises question whether in modern states there is something about political and bureaucratic life that subdues the functioning of intellect in favor of "working the levers' without regard to rational expectations...
Remember that Ms. Tuchman is discussing a country at war, where tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers were killed, many more wounded and hundreds of thousands - perhaps more than a million - of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed. And in such a serious situation, Tuchman points to:
"...refusal to credit the evidence...absence of reflective thought about the nature of what we were doing, about effectiveness in relation to the object sought, about balance of possible gain as against loss..."
Think about this and compare to our current economic and financial crisis.
More strikingly, is her comment about the sort of leaders and their administrative support who run the modern state:
"Absence of intelligent thinking in rulership is another of the universals, and raises question whether in modern states there is something about political and bureaucratic life that subdues the functioning of intellect in favor of "working the levers' without regard to rational expectations..."
If you're still waiting for intelligent and effective solutions to come from Washington, Brussels, or Beijing for that matter, I highly recommend you read "The March of Folly." You don't have to be a cynic to be skeptical about the ability of our leaders to either assert the will, or exercise good judgment, or, frankly, to be endowed with the intelligence to make good decisions now.
After reading The March of Folly, you may come to something like the conclusion I reached: we're in the soup and all that our leaders are doing is mixing that soup. As far as what ingredients they put in the soup, whether it tastes any good, or when it might eventually be ready to eat, they have no clue.
Would you eat in restaurant with chefs who cooked like that? In restaurants, we vote with our pocketbooks. When it comes to our government, we vote with...well, our votes. Oh, right, isn't there an election coming up?
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