May 2009 Archives
In a column that came out yesterday in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof explored some of the emotional "hot buttons" that separate the thinking of "liberals" and "conservatives." (The column was a follow-up to an earlier column he wrote about how people tend to use the internet to seek news and information that reinforces already-held positions.) Part of the reason the two groups have difficulty engaging in meaningful discussion, Kristof said, was that the two camps don't just think differently. They feel differently. They react strongly, and in different ways, to different scenarios and cues.
No big news flash there. What any of us hold as core values ... emotional or otherwise ... informs our worldview, and influences how we interpret information or events.
More interesting to me was Kristof's take on a solution to the impasse. "How do we discipline our brains to be more open-minded, more honest, more empirical?" Kristof asked. How, indeed?
A prerequisite for any progress, he acknowledged, is an admission that the "other" side of an argument has at least some legitimate concerns. But Kristof also quoted University of Virginia psychology professor Jonathan Haidt, who said that "our minds were not designed by evolution to discover the truth; they were designed to play social games." Therefore, according to Haidt, "the best way to open the mind is through the heart." Kristof expanded on this to suggest finding moderates on the "other" side and eating meals with them to build emotional bonds that allow a differing point of view to make it through to the other side.
I'm not sure I agree with Haidt about our minds being designed solely (if, in fact, he meant that) for social games. Our ability to reason is as legendary as our ability to manipulate. By the same token, the number of people who like me very much but won't for two seconds entertain a discussion point that challenges a position they hold is legion. Which means ... what?
Well, for one thing, it means that I'm not sure lunches or emotional bonds alone ... while certainly helpful additions to the equation ... are enough to tip the balance, or create suddenly-improved communication between opposing camps.
In my experience, there are two factors that seem to make the biggest difference as to whether or not two people can have a meaningful and productive discussion from different points of view (assuming both are fairly self-assured and reasonable beings):
1. The first factor is whether the people involved see the world in black-and-white terms, or in more complex shades of gray. For those who see the world in absolute terms of black and white (on the left or the right), the only choice of movement is all the way to the other side. Which is an awfully long distance to move an opinion. People who are more inclined to see the world in nuanced shades of gray, on the other hand, can consider a slightly different shade without feeling their basic values threatened. The options for movement, and therefore their potential willingness to consider another perspective, are far greater.
2. The second factor is how skilled, practiced, and comfortable both participants are in the art of critical thinking. The website criticalthinking.org offers more definitions of what critical thinking consists of than anyone probably needs. But at its most exemplary, the site says, critical thinking is based on "clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness." Critical thinkers "avoid thinking simplisitcally about complicated issues and strive to appropriately consider the rights and needs of relevant others." And "they realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers ... they will at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest."
Which is to say, people skilled in the art of critical thinking make a practice of questioning everything. Even their own opinions. They don't necessarily sit in the middle ground of any debate, but they understand the potential fallibility of sources, and acknowledge the legitimate existence of other points of view ... subject to examination, along with their own. Meaningful exploration and discussion of issues, therefore, becomes possible. Even productive.
In theory, this is the strength and purpose of a liberal arts education (one intended to provide general knowledge and foster intellectual capabilities and reasoned, rational thought). And to the degree that this teaching happens, I think it is a strong and important argument for a liberal arts education.
But here's the bad news. How many of us actually put our "gut" opinions or the information that comes at us daily through the rigorous filters of a critical thinker? I don't have the answer to that, but the results of a 1995 study done by the Center for Critical Thinking aren't encouraging. In a study of 140 professors at 66 public and private universities in California, the researchers found that while an overwhelming majority (89%) claimed that critical thinking was a primary objective of their instruction, only a small percentage (19%) could give a clear explanation of what critical thinking was. And from the respondents' answers, the researchers concluded that only 9% were teaching with a view toward critical thinking on a typical day in class. And that's professors tasked with teaching the subject. How must the rest of us fare?
Granted, that's only one study. And clearly, there's a lot more to the subject than one column or post can cover. Like so many issues in the world, it's complex. But developing the ability to step back a step and question where opinions come from; objectively consider and dissect an argument for its strengths and flaws, look at what the source of any information is and through what biases, values, assumptions, or lenses we or others are filtering that information, consider what other information might exist to counter or support any given "fact" ... and, yes, consider that we, too, might have to adjust our views or thinking in the end ... is central to upgrading both the level and of productivity of discourse in this country.
Critical thinking acumen doesn't get mentioned as often as the other skills we test for or examine in education debates. But it's essential if we want to "discipline our brains to be more open-minded, more honest, more empirical." And it's every bit as important as math, science, reading or writing in terms of being an informed, discerning citizen in an increasingly complex world.
05/27/09 10:00 AM
The Irony of Social Networking Technology
There were two back-to-back articles in yesterday's Science Times that provided ... probably unintentionally ... bookend perspectives on the pros and cons of social networking technology. In the first, anthropologist Pauline Wiessner discusses how strong social networks, particularly with distant relatives and tribal members, helped the !Kung tribespeople in South Africa's Kalahari Desert survive hard times. When food got scarce, the !Kung would start to tell fond stories of their distant relatives. Basking in the memories of those stories, they'd craft presents for their distant friends and relatives. And then, if things didn't improve, they'd deliver those presents--in person--and stay with their distant friends until times got better.
Wiessner believes that those networks didn't just allow tribes to survive. She thinks it may account for how humans were able to move out of Africa into Eurasia and Australia so quickly, 45,000 years ago ... a move that researchers think transpired over a mere 5,000 years. (Five thousand years may not sound very quick, but in the overall scheme of things, it was a pretty zippy pace.) Much as explorers, mountain climbers, or advancing armies rely on supply trains and camps to support their forays into new territory, Wiessner believes the Africans relied on ties with an evolving string of communities behind them to enable their new explorations north and eastward.
So how does this relate to new social networking technology? Two ways.
First, Wiessner notes, the !Kung are now far more limited in their ability to move around to survive hard times. But she tells of how some of them figured out how to use a satellite phone to contact Wiessner in Utah to ask her to buy sneakers another westerner had promised them, and bring them with her on her next trip to Africa. Wiessner points to the story as an example of how modern technology has helped an ancient people adapt an age-old concept to assist their survival in the modern world. "By accessing this satellite phone and devising the complex strategy to get the shoes, they'd extended the range of their support network from 200 to 15,000 kiometers," she explains.
But Wiessner also points to Facebook as a modern-day version of those old !Kung social networks. "People who use it way it keeps memories of distant friends alive, and it sometimes brings long-lost relationships back home," she says. "The videos and snapshots that people post echo the exchange gifts of the !Kung." And, she notes, "one constantly hears stories of people finding jobs and business opportunities through these sites."
So on the one hand ... satellite phones, wireless technology, and internet social networking sites not only help us to survive hard times, but also can even help ancient tribes adapt to a changing modern world. Terrific!
But on the other side of that same page in the Science section was an article headlined, "Texting May Be Taking a Toll." In this second article, Katie Hafner looks at the potential medical and developmental problems teens may suffer as a result of over-texting. (Sending and receiving hundreds of texts a day is apparently not uncommon for many teenagers.)
Potential problems range from injured thumbs to decreased autonomy, sleep deprivation, and interference in a teenager's ability to develop complex thoughts or figure out who they want to be. But what intrigued me most was a teenager's complaint that she was being scolded for being addicted to texting by a mother who was equally addicted to cell phone use. "Teenagers," the article notes, "still need their parents' undivided attention." And cell phones--on both ends--get in the way.
So. What do we make of that? Is all this technology helpful? Or hurtful?
Answer: Yes.
In his book American Genesis, Thomas Hughes talks about technology expressing "long-held human values and aspirations" and being both a shaper of, and shaped by, values. We clearly value social networks; they may even have been the supply chain that enabled our species' rapid expansion across the continents. As a result, we create technology and systems to enhance those networks. The trick, as in the tale of the sorcerer's apprentice, is to keep the magic broom from getting out of control.
It's not a new problem. Technology often creates new problems, even as it solves old ones. The advent of computerized flight management systems in airline cockpits, for example, was supposed to relieve the workload and improve safety. While the new technology achieved that goal overall, having to program the systems created a new problem of pilots being "heads down and locked" -- or, concentrating on programming the computer to the detriment of overall safety awareness. (see: American Airlines' 1995 crash in Cali, Columbia). As a result, new training and procedures had to be developed to counter the safety problems the new technology had unintentionally spawned.
Unfortunately, it's harder to train humans how to use cell phones and internet-based social networks for all the advantages they offer without letting the technology get in the way of the very thing it was supposed to assist. Balanced use is a challenge with any new technology, and we don't always do such a terrific job of achieving it.
No easy answers to that one. Just an interesting and ... ironically enough, unintended ... juxtaposition of both sides of a technological sword.
(Image by Flickr user MarkKelley)
05/25/09 2:06 PM
Being in the Moment
In response to my earlier post on the virtues and value of silence, a reader wrote:
"Your point about recording an event rather than experiencing the event reminds me of when I was in Hawaii and took one of those touristy half-day tours, and one of the stops was this man diving off a waterfall somewhere deep in a forest. There were probably about 30 of us, and we met the diver, and he told us what he was going to do. We watched him climb the waterfall, and then the announcer told everyone to get their cameras ready. I didn't bring a camera (that was back in the film days, not like now, when you can easily email a picture easily), but I realized that I was the only one watching the diver with my eyes ... everyone else was watching it through a viewfinder.
I've often thought about how many vacation photos are thrown away. I've dumped a whole lot when I couldn't determine one beach from another. Really, who wants to see a trip to the Bahamas from 1974? What's funny, though, is that my memory is not of the instant of the diver taking the plunge, but of this herd of people all holding their cameras with held breath."
Food for thought, as we head into summer vacation/photo season.
At the height of the initial swine flu scare at the end of April, NPR posted an opinion piece on its website arguing that Twitter had exacerbated panic about the outbreak. The gist of the piece was that a limit of 140 characters gives no room for context or solid information. All it allows is the venting of fear, which creates even more--and usually more misinformed--anxiety and panic.
All that is probably true. And an important and valid concern. But what concerns me as much or more about incessant connection through Twitter, texting, Facebook, Crackberrys, and yes, even 24/7 instant news ... is that all those technologies enhance an already bad inclination humans (and especially Americans) have. And that is: an overweening desire to be distracted from being alone in silence ... or having to come to terms with whatever we might find there, if we slowed down enough to let it catch us.
Twitter, Facebook and cell phones didn't create this desire or problem. I've known people all my life who turned the television on as soon as they woke up in the morning and left it on until they went to bed at night, just to insure there was never complete silence in the house. All that the new connectivity, on-line virtual game options, and instant messaging do is make it easier to avoid the awful specter of silent, alone time. And yet ... just try to imagine Henry David Thoreau writing his masterpiece about Walden Pond while twittering, texting, and watching CNN.
We have a far more instantaneous culture, these days. "Downtime eliminators," as a friend of mine calls internet-capable cell phones, and all the communication sites and methods they enable, mean that even on weekends, instant replies are expected. And it's not just replies. Less than three minutes after an event, we expect a world of talking heads to pronounce judgement on the meaning of what's transpired. Patience has become not only a virtue, but an endangered species.
I can't change any of that. But among the many things that life has taught me over the years is that my first thought isn't always my best thought. And that truly understanding anything ... an issue, an event, or even the emotions swirling around within myself ... requires not just time, but enough space, solitude, and silence to allow some clear tones to emerge from the noise.
On one level, people have understood the power and importance of silence for a long time. It's why we go to the woods, or the ocean, or up on mountainsides to renew ourselves. And why we take up meditation, or spend time in quiet cathedrals. But even the most majestic mountainside loses a large piece of its power to inspire if it has to compete with a cell phone, text reply, or other efforts to stay connected elsewhere at the same time. Or even to record the moment, instead of simply being in it.
At home or in the course of daily life, the challenge is even greater. Once, all it took to get a little silence and space was turning off the radio. A decade or two later, it took turning off the TV and phonograph, as well. Today, our distractions are much more mobile, and we have more devices to turn off. We also have an ingrained habit of constant connection that makes disconnecting more difficult. And potentially more painful.
Where there's a will there's a way, of course. Which is what makes me suspect that at least part of the constant connectivity movement and technology stems from an inherent desire, within many of us, to have all that distraction. We are not, as a species, hard-wired for solitude. We're social animals, made to exist in tribes and packs.
And yet ... there's a unique kind of strength that comes from simply sitting in companionship with yourself and listening for what your heart or the world might tell you. Or allowing thoughts or events to percolate slowly against counter-thoughts, opinions, or trends. My best ideas don't occur to me when I'm feverishly involved in churning out words. They come when I give my mind permission to listen instead of talk. To just be for a while. Undistracted. Undisturbed. And sometimes not even consciously focused on the problem at hand.
That kind of space and silence may be a challenge to find in today's world. But below is something that helps. Not just the view out my window, but my favorite place to sit and think. Where thoughts, questions, answers, perspective ... and even the occasional hummingbird ... have a way of finding me, once I turn off all the gadgets and the noise.
Palo Alto, CA 2:00 pm
Two stories worth listening to, this Memorial Day:
The first comes from Friday's "Morning Edition" on NPR: The story of Allen Hoe, whose son Nainoa was killed in Iraq in 2005. On a trip to the Vietnam Memorial to honor his son, Hoe meets ... in a one-in-a-million chance encounter ... the Army trauma nurse who was with his son when he died. If your eyes stay dry while listening to this short clip, you're a tougher soul than I am. (A transcript of Hoe's words is also available at the above link. But do yourself a favor. Listen to the clip itself.)
The second, also courtesy of NPR, is last Wednesday's rebroadcast of a 1998 "Fresh Air" interview with AIDS activist Rodger McFarlane, who died May 15th at the age of 54. McFarlane was a military veteran. He spent four years in the Navy, on submarine duty, as a nuclear reactor technician. But not all enemies carry weapons. And the battles for which McFarlane is best known were those he fought against an enemy called AIDS ... fighting the spread of it, and working to help care for those it brought down. The first national AIDS hotline, in the summer of 1982, was McFarlane's home telephone. The Gay Men's Health Crisis, which provided client services to people suffering from AIDS, evolved from that hotline, as did numerous other AIDS service organizations.
In 1998, McFarlane folded his years of experience helping seriously ill and dying people through the health care maze, and through the end-of-life experience, into a book called The Complete Bedside Companion: No-Nonsense Advice on Caring for the Seriously Ill.
In the NPR interview, McFarlane talked about not only his AIDS work, but about his growing awareness of the universal elements in coping with any terminal illness. "What we have in common interests me so much more than what separates us," he said. Indeed, one of the things that struck me most, listening to the clip, was the powerful sense of humanity McFarlane seemed to possess. Even when faced with life's unvarnished, difficult moments. Which, for McFarlane, included caring for his own ailing father, despite the lingering anger he felt because of his father's failure to protect him and his brothers from their mother's abuse.
He got involved in AIDS work, McFarlane said undramatically, "because I had to. Those were our friends and our lovers, and they were not being cared for." They're the kind of words you hear from most people who perform extraordinary feats of valor. Simple. As if there were no other choice.
But there were no simple or happy endings in McFarlane's world ... not even for himself. Once an impressive athlete and explorer, McFarlane broke his back in 2002 and was facing increasing back and heart trouble. And despite saying in the NPR interview that most people, even when they were ill, "still wanted one more day," he took his own life, in the end. Yet listening to him talk about life, death, and the burdens we all struggle with ... I got the sense that McFarlane had found ... if not peace, exactly, then at least a measure of grace in it all.
In 1999, in Interlaken, Switzerland, 21 adventure tourists on a guided canyoning trip (a sport (see above) that combines rock climbing and white-water rafting ... sans the raft) died when they were caught by an unexpected flash flood. A paper analyzing the causes of the tragedy for the Australian adventure tourism industry found, among other things, that numerous factors can influence whether we under- or over-estimate the risks of any given event or venture.
The authors quote sources that say, as I would expect, that one factor is "one's perceived control of the event." We overestimate the risks of things we feel as if we don't control. But the authors note an important exception to that: we tend to underestimate the risks of activities that we undertake as part of a group--especially when we're tempted to "abandon responsibility to another in a group":
"For example, Pitz (1992) cites research indicating that the difference in perceived risk in automobile driving and flying is due directly to one's perceived control of the event. In terms of mood, a happy individual is likely to underestimate the chances of a negative event while an unhappy person is likely to overestimate the chances of such an event (Salovey & Birnbaum, 1989). Wildavsky and Dake (1990) have shown that an enduring personality trait influences whether individuals perceive events as being of high or low risk. Additionally, individuals may perceive relatively lower risk in a group situation than if they were alone. This risky-shift phenomenon can lead individuals to abandon responsibility to another in the group, or to be influenced by bolder group members (Haddock, 1993; Noe, McDonald, & Hammitt, 1983). In summary, individuals often tend to perceive less risk in behaviour that is voluntary, under personal control or undertaken as part of a group."
All this is particularly relevant to the burgeoning adventure tourism industry because, as the authors point out, "Adventure tourists typically undertake activities voluntarily and as part of a group. ... Where participant perceptions of risk are flawed, biased, or if critical information is absent," they conclude, "the individual may not be be prepared for the risks they encounter."
More food for thought.
In 1980, futurist Alvin Toffler's book The Third Wave predicted a soon-to-be-realized work revolution, made possible by new technology, that largely eliminated offices and city traffic. He wasn't alone. Repeatedly, as the Internet has evolved and communication technologies have improved, the obituary of the traditional office has been written, and rewritten. And yet, anyone who's tried to navigate rush hour traffic in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco .. or any other American city ... can attest to the fact that quite a few people, actually, are still traveling to and from offices at approximately the same time each day.
Why is that? Surely, with email, audio and video conferencing, Blackberries, iPhones, and file sharing, we can communicate perfectly adequately with our co-workers, without having to be in the same physical place or space.
Maybe not. This 2003 eve-of-census review by the InnoVisions Canada (a telework consulting organization) concluded, among other things, that one of the reason the oft-predicted "home work revolution" hadn't panned out as expected was that companies still prefer "face time." Telecommuting and flex time were being used--just not in "the way the more sensational headlines foretold," explained the head of the Canadian Telework Association.
Is Canada so much different than the U.S.? Are most employers Luddites who are behind the time, but will soon see the light? Or has so much changed, in the past 6 years ... or will so much change in the coming 6 years ... that the revolution will finally come to pass?
Somehow ... although Lord knows, I could be wrong ... I don't think so. For starters, not everyone is well-suited to working at home. Having worked from home for 19 years, I can attest to the downsides, as well as the advantages. Among other challenges, it requires a lot of self-discipline to stay focused on work, and not get distracted by everything else waiting to be done. And employers know this.
But even more importantly ... there's just no substitute for face to face contact with people. No matter how much new technology we develop.
Three reasons for that:
First ... Email/text/phone conversations do not convey anywhere near as much information as an in-person meeting. Ask anyone who's ever done computer dating. And that additional information still matters, even in a business context. My strongest business contacts are always those people I've spent time with in person. Why? Because physical proximity opens doors to a fuller connection with people. You get a far better sense of who they are, and you're also far more likely to talk about non-business topics. Their family life. Their history. The terrible vacation disaster they had last month. And that translates into both a stronger connection and a stronger working relationship.
Second ... While one could argue that the above connections could be made in sporadic meetings, not requiring an office, remote communication doesn't nurture the same level and quality of "hey, what do you think about this idea" casual, quick collaboration that physical proximity allows. It's far tougher to be creative in a vacuum ... or even within the constraints of separate locations. Convenience, access, and physical energy and synergy all matter.
Third ... while audio and teleconferencing are terrific resources, they're still the next best thing to being there. It's tough to get high-quality discussions with time delays and uncertainty about who is talking, when. And ... raise your hand if you've never done other tasks during a group teleconference. Employers know this, too.
In short, I think all the new technologies are more likely to expand, enhance and modify, rather than completely revolutionize, the basic structure and operation of tomorrow's cities and offices. As James McCarten put it in the InnoVisions piece ... "the laws of the office are about as hard to change as the laws of physics." And in all its ads celebrating the telephone as "the next best thing to being there," the detail Ma Bell left out was just how big the gap was between the "next best thing" ... and the real thing.
In an earlier post on how to cope with uncertain times and changes, I noted that sometimes, alternate routes or destinations can turn out to be way better than the original goal or place you expected or set out to reach.
Case in point: this piece by Micah Toub in the Globe and Mail about attempting to navigate Los Angeles by bicycle, instead of by car. Following the advice of urban bicycling experts who've learned how to navigate safely around LA's legendary car traffic--and traffic jams---he ends up exploring back roads he normally wouldn't travel ... and finding treasures and colors in the city he never noticed before. Even if it takes him a little bit longer to get from point "A" to point "B." Worth a look.
Time magazine's cover story this week is a predictive look at how "the way Americans work" is going to change over the next 10 years. "Throw away the briefcase: you're not going to the office," it proclaims. "There's no longer a ladder, and you may never get to retire, but there's a world of opportunity if you figure out a new path." One essay within the piece even uses the virtual world online game "World of Warcraft" as a model for how intensely competitive company work teams will operate, 10 years from now.
First. Any time I read or hear anybody saying "this is how future events are going to play out," I instinctively backpeddle. Remember the new economy that wasn't ever going to end? Or the new world order of peace that was in ascendance ... right up until September 11, 2001, when suddenly it wasn't, anymore? Budget surpluses? Housing as a great and booming investment?
A few weeks ago, I found an old, hardcover book in an antique store in Foster, Rhode Island. It's a science book called Astronomy, published as part of the "Whitman World Library" in 1963, and I intend to keep it on my shelf as an entertaining, cautionary tale for anyone who's tempted to be too absolute about how the future will unfold. In a quick flip-read of the book, I found such predictive gems as: "the first man-made objects to explore the Moon will undoubtedly be automated tanks, radio-controlled from Earth or from an intermediate space station," and "rocket experts believe that [space] stations will orbit Earth in great numbers in a few years." The illustrations are a hoot.
By 1963, mind you, NASA had been in business for 5 years, and the Agency's Mercury/Geminii/Apollo program had been underway for at least two. We would actually land a man on the Moon a mere 6 years later. So these predictions weren't made years ahead of the fact, or in an informational vacuum.
And, to be fair, the astronomy book didn't get everything wrong. Eventually, we did send little robot "tanks" to explore another planetary body. It just wasn't the moon, and it wasn't until 1996. But "postal rockets" to provide communication between multiple space stations and Earth?" Yikes.
The point is, enthusiastic futurists and technology evangelists have been predicting revolutionary changes in our lives for the better part of the past century. And without question, our lives have changed. But rarely as quickly, or completely, or exactly in the ways, the predictions envisioned.
At this year's TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference, Tim Berners-Lee, who's credited with inventing the World Wide Web, recounted that, when he first sent his boss a memo on his idea (which his boss had reluctantly agreed to let him pursue in his spare time), his boss's comment, in the margin, was a casual, "vague but exciting." And even Berners-Lee admitted, "The things that happened with the web were much more than we originally imagined."
Which is to say, even technology wizards don't always foresee which innovations are going to be the truly disruptive or transformational ones ... or how that technology will actually play out in life and the world.
Predictions are always interesting to read. And useful, in terms of considering general trends or movements that are influencing, or at least pushing against, life as we know it. But reading them, I'm always reminded of a game I used to play as a kid, when I'd try to predict which way a trickle of water from the hose was going to go through the garden dirt. One way or another, the water headed downhill. There's no stopping change or progress. But even when I tried to influence the outcome, by nudging dirt one way or another, or got excitedly sure about which way the stream was going to go ... it often surprised me, by finding some unexpected weak spot in the dirt and jumping sideways along a new course.
Will more people work in independent jobs and from home, over the next 10 years? Quite possibly. Will company benefit structures change? Probably... but also, probably, in some companies more than others. Will health care coverage and insurance systems change? Almost assuredly, now. But will the changes in how we live and work be as sweeping as revolutionary as the Time article predicts? I'm skeptical. There are other forces, and truths, that work against revolutionary and sweeping change in the world. Just ask anyone who's ever tried to change it. And that's true for the business world, as well (more on this later). But in any event ... the future of how we work will almost assuredly evolve in defiance of any firm prediction. And in ways, and in reaction to events, that we don't, or can't, foresee.
Personally, I'm okay with that.
Eve Ensler, the author of The Vagina Monologues, gave impassioned testimony last week to the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs about the violent war against women being waged, still, in eastern Congo. Testimony reinforced yesterday by Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times, in a column titled, simply, "After Wars, Mass Rapes Persist."
No sane person in the world would argue against the notion that a terrible travesty is being conducted against women in not only the Congo, but Liberia, Sudan, and other African conflict areas. Eastern Congo has the highest rate of violence against women in the world, at the moment. As many as 70% of the women and girls there have been sexually assaulted or mutilated, according to some estimates. The numbers boggle the mind.
We should do something, Ensler says. I agree. Wholeheartedly. Hear one woman's tale of brutal mutilation, and you want to throw up. Realize that behind the eyes of most of the women you encounter lies a similar, horrifying tale, and something inside you twists, screams, and goes strangely numb. There's simply no way to even absorb it. But having spent a little time in conflict areas in Africa, I also agree with Kristof that the problems are so complex that solutions are difficult to see, or even imagine, clearly. Especially by people on the outside.
In 2001, I spent a little time flying relief supplies into Sudan, in the 18th year of civil war there. The airlift into Sudan involved a bizarre mix of missionaries and mercenaries, and both authorized and unauthorized flight missions. The U.N. planes could only fly into areas authorized by the Sudanese government. But seeing as the conflict was a civil war, there were whole areas the government didn't want aid to reach. Hence the unauthorized flights by non-U.N. aid organizations ... like the one I was flying with.
On one flight, we dodged a couple of Northern-occupied towns and did a "quick turn" at a little dirt airstrip in the village of Akot, Southern Sudan, where there was a hospital and a school. We were on the ground less than 10 minutes because that's when we were at our most vulnerable. Not long before that, a Red Cross plane had been bombed by the Northern Sudanese on that very strip. Such are the hazards of war, of course.
Six years later, I went back to Southern Sudan ... in large part because I wanted to see what had changed since the 2005 Peace Accord had been signed. Unquestionably, progress had been made. Villages that had been decimated were being rebuilt, and people were returning home after years in refugee camps. Mine fields had been cleared and turned into outdoor markets.
But all was not idyllic. Southern Sudan's charismatic leader, John Garang, had died in a helicopter accident right after the peace accord had been signed, leaving behind feuding tribal factions and corrupt officials. In village after village, men told me that if the North didn't agree to independence for Southern Sudan, they would simply get their guns and return to their rebel hiding places. In one village, when I asked a group of teenage boys what they wanted, now that the war was over, one wordlessly took my pen, wrote the word "independent" on his hand, and held it out for me to see. There was no smile on his face, or in his eyes.
Two days later, I was flying with the same pilot I'd flown with six years earlier, when we got a radio distress call. There'd been an uprising at a local hospital, and hostages had been taken. The Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) had moved in, captured the kidnappers, and freed the hostages. But the conflict involved tribal rivalry, people were armed, and tensions in the area were running high. Could we fly in and take the hostages to safety?
We got security updates every 10 minutes on the way there, stayed high, and did a maximum performance descent to the dirt airstrip, to keep our exposure to any potential ground fire to a minimum. We taxied to the end of the strip, where our human cargo awaited us, and shut down the engine only long enough to load up. Four minutes later, we were airborne again, in a steep climb. As we reached a safe altitude, and my heart rate returned to something closer to normal, I realized with a sad shock that I'd been to that strip before. Six years earlier. And then, too, we'd had to do a quick turn to avoid violence on the ground. Because then, the nation had been at war.
All of that is to say ... the sobering truth of Africa--or, perhaps, anywhere--is that an absence of war does not equate to peace. And violence is a very hard habit to break.
Is there any hope? A little. Kristof points to progress being made in Liberia, where the Carter Center is working to prosecute rapists and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has sent strong signals that rape will not be tolerated. He also quotes a young girl there who, despite being brutally raped and mutilated, has determined that when she grows up, she wants to build shelters for abused girls ... and become President of Liberia.
Farfetched? Well, consider: in 1994 Rwanda suffered one of the most brutal, genocidal civil wars in memory. But in the vacuum that the chaos left, the surviving women had to start taking on roles they never had before. (At one point, 70% of the country's population was female.) In 2003, a country that only nine years earlier had nurtured a highly repressive culture toward women; a culture in which women were not allowed to inherit property or own their own businesses ... elected a parliament in which a full 49% of the representatives were women. Which gave Rwanda a greater percentage of women in its national government than any other country in the world.
How did that happen? In part because of international efforts to help Rwanda draft a new national constitution and electoral process. And in part because of the Rwandan women themselves. Can that happen in Congo? I don't know. But Ensler's right about Congolese women being resilient. In September 2007, as UN tanks rolled down the streets of Goma to try to repel an attack by rebel leader Laurent Nkunda a few kilometers to the southwest, I watched women in town continuing with their standard Saturday morning town clean-up. They were singing as they worked.
A few weeks ago, I spoke with a man who makes his living selling new and used business jets. Which is to say, a man with the economic prospects of someone selling flood insurance in a drought. Business jets are not exactly a booming business at the moment. I asked how bad things were. "Bad," he admitted. "But you know how 50 is the new 40 and pink is the new black? Well, I think 'enough' is the new 'plenty.' And I'm just thrilled to be doing 'enough.'"
It's a thought that would resonate with quite a few people, these days. But there's good as well as bad news on that front. The bad news is, many of us are having to adapt to a new standard of plenty. The good news is ... we're far better at adapting, and adapting to less, than we often fear.
There's no lack of academic research on this topic. Adaptation is central to a species' survival, after all. And anyone who's lived with an unfinished house project knows all too well how easy it is to adapt to everything from a missing stair railing or unfinished shower to huge holes in the walls or ceilings. After a while, you hardly even see them anymore. (Your guests, of course, are another matter.)
We adapt remarkably well, when we have to. Or, perhaps more accurately, when there truly isn't any other choice. A couple of years ago, I spent a month flying relief supplies into Sudan, Chad, and the eastern region of the (DRC) Congo. All kinds of things we take for granted here, from fresh coffee, hot water, and electricity to infrastructure, social order and an absence of AK-47-toting soldiers everywhere, disappeared abruptly from my daily routine. And yet, I adapted almost disturbingly well to the "new normal"--including the presence of AK-47s and military weaponry everywhere. If things simply aren't available, or are an inescapable part of daily life, we quickly learn to adjust our expectations accordingly.
The challenge comes from trying to scale back or deny yourself while all those comforts and niceties are still right there in front of you. If all the restaurants in the country suddenly disappeared, we'd soon learn to live without them. But trying to cut back on how many times we eat at restaurants that are all still appealingly and tantalizingly nearby and open ... that feels painful.
Counterintuitive as it sounds, we actually cope better with drastic changes than incremental adjustments. (For more evidence on this, check out Alan Deutschman's fascinating book Change or Die.) Not that I'm suggesting moving to Africa just to make coping with the recession easier.
But during my time in Africa, I spent some time in a couple of Darfur refugee camps, in the eastern region of Chad. When the refugees first arrived in the camps, said a Norwegian aid worker who'd also worked in Rwanda, Bosnia and the Congo, the Darfur refugees were the most emotionally and physically decimated group of humans he'd ever encountered. But three and four years later, the women I talked to there ... dressed in colorful fabrics, open to a visitor's questions, smiling, and playing with new babies ... were clearly going on with the daily business of living. Did they miss their destroyed villages? I asked. Of course, they answered. They dreamed of them day and night. Did they want to return home? A pause. Evidently a complex question. Well, yes. But not if it wasn't safe. Here, they said, we're safe. We have food. We have ... a shrug of the shoulders ...
Enough.
Disturbing, on one level, how little can constitute "enough" for a human being. On the other hand... it's a powerful truth to learn, the concept of "enough." Wherever you are.
In yesterday's NY Times Op Ed section, Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert wrote:
"Our national gloom ... isn't a matter of insufficient funds. It's a matter of insufficient certainty ... An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait."
If that's true, humans have been walking around gloomy and unhappy since the dawn of time. We forget, sometimes, that problems--often far greater problems--predated whatever crisis we're facing at the moment. "Why is it," a friend asked me once, "that we never recognize the good old days when we're in the middle of them?" Indeed. Today, it's the economy that's gone shaky. But epidemics, war, natural disasters, accidents and the fickle fates have been throwing humans curveballs for ... well, as long as there have been humans.
And without question, there have been some humans, also undoubtedly since the dawn of time, who've spent their lives worrying about all that uncertainty to the point of great unhappiness. But I wouldn't recommend them as role models.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous declaration that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself wasn't a blithe dismissal of the monetary, violent, or uncertain challenges in life. It was a caution that it's fear, not concrete challenges, that paralyzes us, and brings out the worst in us, as opposed to, as Lincoln said, "the better angles of our nature."
I agree with Gilbert that uncertainty is scary. I just disagree with his conclusion that it leaves us with nothing to do but wait. (There's an interesting essay that reinforces this point here -- by an entrepreneur named Phil Terry who founded an informal organization called "Fun Not Fear" this spring as a counterpoint to all the worry.)
But also ... there are any number of activities and professions--flying, mountain climbing, exploring, and being an entrepreneur, to name just a few--that are non-stop exercises in uncertainty. There's no clear path to follow; no predictable gauge on how events are going to unfold. All plans are subject to change, at all times, with very little notice. And yet, talk to the people involved in those activities, and most of them are passionately enthusiastic about the life they're leading.
Why is that? Clearly, some of us have a higher tolerance for uncertainty, and put a higher value on the new discoveries and possibilities a less-proscribed path offers, than others. But it's also because people involved in endeavors fraught with inherent uncertainty have to learn to cope with it if they're going to survive.
In the course of the past 20 years, I've flown small aircraft on five continents. I've been stranded alone on a glacier in shorts and tennis shoes. I've found myself in the middle of rapidly destabilizing situations in African countries. And I've started two businesses and navigated a career that, more often than not, has lacked a stable paycheck. Do I love all the uncertainty that comes with that? No. But I've learned how to survive it, and even embrace the possibilities it offers. (I've even written a book on the subject.) Not every lesson translates to surviving uncertainty in everyday life, but a surprising number do. A few big ones:
1. Don't panic. Self-explanatory. Panic and fear never helped anyone think their way clearly out of a tight spot.
But how do you control panic and fear?
2. Focus on the present. Fear is almost always related to something we're afraid will or might happen in the future, not what's actually happening in the present. In the present, we get busy with the business of coping. It's our fears of amorphous monster threats down the road ... realistic or not ... that tend to paralyze us. Ask yourself, "Am I okay right now?" If the answer is yes, take a deep breath and relax a little bit. You can figure the rest out as you go.
3. Keep perspective. Ask yourself, "what's the worst thing that happens here? Does anybody die?" Sometimes, in an adventure setting, the answer to that is yes. But that's rarely true in everyday life. And keeping that fact in perspective helps ratchet the fear and worry down a notch or two. As long as you're alive, you can regroup to fight another day.
4. Separate what you can't control from what you can, and then focus on taking action on those items you can control. In an airplane, I can't control whether the weather is going to deteriorate or something mechanical is going to break. But I can make sure I at least have enough fuel to look for a second airport, a flashlight in the cockpit in case the electrical system goes out, and a plan of what I'm going to do next if Plan A doesn't work out.
5. Learn to prioritize what's essential, and loadshed everything else.
6. Stay flexible. Be open to innovative options that pop up unexpectedly, or aren't along the path you initially planned to follow. Sometimes those out-of-the-way places you end up diverting to end up way better than your original destination.
7. Remember to look at and enjoy the scenery, even when things get challenging. Few experiences are without any moments of beauty or grace. And these days ... "good old" or otherwise ... will pass all too quickly. You may have more money or safety down the road, but you'll never be this young again.
Stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait? Only if we choose to be.
Just one more note on the subject of risk (discussed previously here) ...
As mentioned in that previous post, most people underestimate the risks associated with driving, in large part because it's a familiar activity and we feel some measure of control in the process (whether or not that's really true). At the same time, most people overestimate the risks associated with flying on airliners, because it's not a familiar activity, and they don't feel as if they're in control.
Thought I should add ... ironically, pilots (I'm specifically talking general aviation pilots, here) often have the same trouble accurately estimating the risks associated with flying that most drivers have estimating the risks of driving. And for the very same reasons. We all tend to underestimate the risks of activities that are familiar, and where we feel as if we're in control. And when it comes to flying, the pilots are in control. Or, at least, it feels that way. Especially because the risk of a collision, high on roads, is very low in the air.
In recognition of this fact, the general aviation industry (general aviation meaning smaller, non-airline aircraft) has begun putting much more emphasis on risk assessment and risk management skills in private pilot training, in recent years. Can risk management training overcome our innate human tendencies? Not entirely. But if we gave the same kind of training to drivers on the road, my guess is that it would at least reduce the number of accidents ... the same goal trainers are trying to achieve in the small airplane world, as well.
Illustrator Christoph Niemann's exhibit "Over the Wall," posted on the New York Times website this week, is a simple piece of work. In a captioned series of woven paper sculpture images, Niemann--who says the Berlin Wall was only an abstract notion when he was growing up in southwest Germany--describes his recent move back to Berlin. Living in the Bernauer Strasse neighborhood, which awoke on August 13, 1961 to a new national boundary running down the middle of the street, Niemann says the Wall has now become far more real to him, even though it's been gone for almost two decades.
I understand. For one thing, history almost always becomes more personal, and real, in the places it unfolded. But I also remember the Berlin Wall. I was an exchange student in Germany in 1978, and I remember the ghost stations Niemann talks about ... populated by soldiers, guns, and dogs, but no waiting passengers. I remember the eerily cemented windows along the mined and fortified border zone, and the memorials to people who had died trying to get across. I remember, after spending time on the eastern side of the Wall, my relief at seeing the checkpoint back to the western side. And my discomfort, even at the time, at recognizing how undeservedly lucky I was, to be able to pass easily through a barrier that no one else around me could.
As Niemann is discovering, a place like that, where so much anguish was spilled, bleeds its pain into the air long after any physical structures of its past are dismantled. Even now, Germans struggle with the Wall's legacy. Some western residents resent having to pay to rebuild the east. Some eastern residents still feel like second-class citizens. In 2006, I spent time again in the eastern part of Germany, and found some residents who even said that, while they liked the free access to consumer goods, they missed the security of the Russian state.
On some level, the impact of the Wall will probably continue to be felt in Germany until everyone who lived with it, and remembers it, has died. But while that day and shift will undoubtedly be a good thing for Germany's collective citizenry, it will represent a loss, as well. For there is something important, and powerful, in the remembered stories of the people whose lives were affected by the Wall ... a point Niemann clearly feels and understands.
Niemann talks about a couple of those individuals in his captions ... a woman who became the first to die while attempting to jump over the wall from an apartment window, and an East German soldier whose successful leap to freedom over the barbed wire, when the border was first closed, has become an iconic image from that day.
That photo, which has been widely acclaimed, is a terrific action shot, to be sure. And it reinforces all our most cherished notions of victory and a burning desire for freedom, even in the soldiers paid to oppose us. But for my money, the attention should have been given to another photo taken that day--one far less available and known in the world, but arguably far more powerful. (I came across it in Berlin, in 1978, but I couldn't even find a copy of it on the internet to link to here.) It's a photo of another East German soldier along the barbed wire barricades. But instead of leaping to his own freedom, he's reaching down to help a small boy over the wire. A boy who'd gotten left behind in the chaos of people fleeing and families caught on different sides of the border. The soldier is young, and his eyes, looking warily over his shoulder, are full of fear. And yet, he persisted.
The boy escaped. The soldier did not. He was seen helping the boy and, moments later, was taken away. And, at least as of 1978, nobody had ever been able to find out what happened to him.
The stories all matter. But of all the stories that I, like Christoph Niemann, found in the lingering shadows of the Berlin Wall, that's the one that's stayed with me. Because risking your life for your own freedom is one thing. Risking it, or sacrificing it, for the sake of someone you don't even know--someone you have orders to kill--speaks to something far more profound. Which is why even today, almost 50 years after his probably death, and 20 years after the Wall came down ... that soldier gives me hope.
On Tuesday, Mt. Everest claimed yet another victim. Wu Wenhong was 40 years old ... an amateur climber from China who summited successfully, but succumbed to altitude sickness and/or exhaustion on the descent.
Over the years, more and more people have attempted Everest ... especially with the advent of professional guiding operations. And the death rate has stayed brutally consistent: for every 10 who make the peak, one dies.
May is the best month of the year to attempt the Everest summit, so it's generally the time when most of the deaths occur. It was 13 years ago this month that the disaster chronicled by Jon Krakauer in Into Thin Air claimed 8 lives in a single day. By wild coincidence, I was hiking in the shadow of Mt. Everest just before that tragedy occurred; friends and I even spent a day with two climbers who, just two weeks later, would be caught up in the drama.
My friends and I harbored far less grand ambitions. We weren't trying to summit Everest, snowboard down Lhotse, or do a solo climb of a 24,000-foot peak without oxygen. We contented ourselves with making it to the top of an 18,000-foot peak in the shadow of the Nuptse-Lhotse ridge, right in front of Everest. It wasn't a technical climb ... the biggest challenge was, as my experienced climber friend Rick very accurately predicted ... "every step above 16,000 feet is going to hurt."
Making that peak, ego-leveling as it was to get that high and still be two miles below the peaks towering over you, was every bit as difficult and painful as Rick predicted. But as I struggled up the last steps on the snow-covered ridge to the top and the world fell away, revealing a fantastical, other-worldly landscape of snow lords and ice kingdoms ... it was also one of the most breathtaking, beautiful, and powerful moments I've ever experienced. So on one level, I get the appeal for those who want to see the world from the top. But I've also never had any desire to climb more hazardous slopes, or into the more lethal zones above 20,000 feet.
So what goes on in the minds of people who make a different choice? Who keep throwing themselves at Everest (and other high-altitude, high-risk peaks) despite the risks, discomfort, and danger?
Ambition, for sure. Competitive drive is legendary among Everest aspirants, to the point of callous disregard, at times, for fellow climbers. But that's not all there is to the equation. George Mallory, of course, is known for his famous "because it is there" answer. But far more telling of his thoughts is what he told a reporter earlier, in 1922, about his reasons for attempting Everest.
"What we get from this adventure," he said, "is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means, and what life is for."
Reading his quote, I suspect that, two years and two expeditions later, Mallory simply got tired of trying to explain the unexplainable to the press and resorted to the frustrated sound bite for which he's remembered.
Undoubtedly, many mountain climbers would agree with Mallory's explanation. David Roberts, a dedicated and experienced climber who founded Hampshire College's Outdoor Program (and taught Jon Krakauer how to climb and write), used similar words in his memoir, On the Ridge Between Life and Death, to describe climbing's appeal:
"For me, climbing was always about transcendence. In that spell that risk and fear, barely tamed by skill and nerve, cast over me, I found a blissful escape from the petty pace of normal life."
Roberts also says that he's exceedingly proud of his accomplishments, and notes that in the course of some of his climbs, he "tasted some of the most piercing moments of joy I would ever be granted."
But what makes Roberts' book unusual is that he also looks at the price those moments exacted ... not only for himself, but for family members left behind worrying, or left behind forever when things went amiss on a mountainside. His account reveals a complex and flawed person, as we all are. But he offers a touch of surprisingly mature honesty, as well. Is it worth it? The risk, the chance of dying? Perhaps, he says, that's a question that can only be answered in terms of oneself. Because "there's no way you can ever rationalize the cost to others."
Yes, there was joy. But unlike Mallory ... who, to be fair, died at 37 ... the 60-something Roberts, who's lost untold friends in climbing accidents, concludes soberly, "in the human heart ... there are nobler feelings than pride. And there are more important things in life than joy."
A book well worth reading, for a glimpse inside a complex question and mind.
Another note on our attitudes about risk ...
Jane Brody wrote an excellent column in the Science Times yesterday about the "slippery slope from fear to panic." She quotes two British researchers, whose recently-published book Panicology looks at how ridiculously irrational we humans are when it comes to the risks we fear.
We panicked about bird flu, for example, even though the 2005/2006 bird flu "epidemic" killed fewer than 300 people worldwide ... while ignoring the fact that normal, everyday flu kills 30,000 Americans every year. We're terrified of the risks of airline travel, even though every statistic out there shows it's about the safest form of transport there is. Seven times safer than driving your car. Far safer than taking a shower in your bathtub. (Unintentionally underlining the article's point was a separate column, right next to it on the printed page (an argument for the value of a printed newspaper), about how many people a day end up in emergency rooms because of accidents with their pets. Answer: 235 ... or five times the number injured by accidental gunshots.)
This irrationality undoubtedly also helps explain the wide coverage the crash investigation of the Dash-8 regional airliner that went down in Buffalo, NY in February received last week. Fifty people died in that accident. That's a terrible tragedy. And as a pilot and writer who's covered aviation for 20 years, I'm intimately aware of the risk factors, and even the training issues, that exist in both private and commercial aviation. So not to discount any of that.
But we all pass horrible car accidents, every day, without obsessing about driver training, even though the very next car hit could be ours. And consider: there have only been 5 airline accidents--regional or major--involving any passenger fatalities in the past 7 years. In those accidents, a total of 140 passengers died. This despite the fact that, according to an NTSB report, the airlines carried a total of 743 million passengers a total of 8.2 billion miles in 2005 alone. Roughly speaking, that puts a person's chance of being in a fatal accident aboard a regional or major airline at somewhere between .000019 and .000027 percent. (Check it out for yourself here)
Which is to say, while improvements can always be made, and there are certainly important issues that need to be addressed in our pilot training system ... in terms of the risk to the general public, we're talking about improving the final 1% of risk in a field that's already pretty darn reliable. Compare that to any other form of transportation, including the high-risk activity of crossing the street, and it pales. But you'd never know that from the vast amount of print and television coverage given to the Buffalo crash and investigation. (As for the risk of being killed on the ground by an airplane (9/11 attacks aside) ... the average number of fatalities in that category ranges somewhere from 2 to 5 a year.)
So why is it that we devote so much time, media coverage, and worry to airplane crashes, but, as Brody points out, still continue to drive or cross streets while talking on our cell phones--an activity far more likely to get us injured or killed?
In short, according to Panicology (and this piece, quoted before, by security expert Bruce Schneier), because we're irrational. Not to mention control freaks, with an amazing ability to delude ourselves about risk if we really want something (e.g. cigarettes or an overabundance of fried foods), while obsessing about risks that: a) we feel we can't control, b) are remote or exotic, or c) we don't really understand.
We probably can't change our basic inclinations in these areas. But knowing how irrational our fears can be might help us maintain some important perspective on the subject. As one of Panicology's authors points out, "there are serious emotional, social, and economic costs to panic." And, as Brody adds, "worry itself is a risk."
Back in February, I heard David Sanger, Washington correspondent for the New York Times, speak at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Sanger's book The Inheritance, a fascinating read about the myriad of daunting challenges facing the new Obama administration, had just come out, and he was discussing some of the thornier issues on that list.
While most of his talk concerned foreign policy issues, Sanger made the comment that one danger facing the U.S. was that "we could become a risk-averse nation. The entire mood of the country has swung from taking wild risks to taking no risk," he observed. "And that could be bad for the country." Sanger was talking about the economy--he asked, at one point, what would have happened if Google had had to go before a government committee to get funding for the concept--but his point is relevant beyond the tall towers of Wall Street or the rolling hills of Silicon Valley.
On Monday afternoon, the Atlantis astronauts made their final spacewalk to repair and update the Hubble Telescope. In an earlier post, I talked about the Hubble's importance ... and the questionable importance of human spaceflight going forward, beyond the Hubble missions. But I didn't get into another whole aspect of the mission--which is the fact that it almost didn't happen, because in 2004, the then-NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe considered the risks too high.
The Hubble is in an orbit littered with a lot of space debris (we could have another whole discussion on on how that came about), and too low for a damaged Shuttle to reach the International Space Station. Of course, these factors were also true of earlier Hubble missions, but they didn't figure as prominently into the equation until the shuttle Columbia was destroyed in re-entry because of debris damage sustained earlier in the mission.
To be fair, NASA's in a bit of a tough place, when it comes to the risks it takes with astronauts, because the failures are so public. The Agency is excoriated publicly, 24 hours a day, for weeks, months, and years. 50,000 people die on our highways every 12 months, and we don't shut down our highway system. But lose seven astronauts, and you can endanger the entire space program.
And yet, without risk, there is no accomplishment ... a fact understood by every single astronaut and test pilot I've ever interviewed. Every single one of them has chafed at being held back because of Agency or external concern about the risks involved. "I fully expected to die in one of the planes I was flying," the famous X-15 test pilot Scott Crossfield once told me. "They were putting this five million dollar escape system into the plane, and I told them I'd fly it sitting on a tomato can if they'd give me the money instead."
Not every NASA explorer is as colorful as the legendary Crossfield, of course. But Dr. John M. Grunsfeld, who performed the last spacewalk on the Hubble on Monday, has said more than once that he considered the telescope "worth risking my life for." The pilots, astronauts and shuttle commanders I've interviewed all say they know the risks. The astronauts know, as one put it to me, that a Shuttle flight is a one-way ticket, with a chance of a return trip. And they're okay with that. It's the rest of us that don't seem to be.
There needs to be balance, of course. Reckless risk is bad for everyone (see: credit default swaps). NASA managers speak of a balancing act called "risk versus reach." Too little reach, and you discover nothing significantly new. Too much risk, and you lose the craft and people you need to do the exploring, and you discover nothing at all.
But consider this: not only would Google have trouble convincing a public, risk-averse financial safety board that they were a risk worth taking, but the Wright Brothers would never have left the ground. Aviation itself could never have evolved, if nobody was allowed to be at risk in the course of its development. In his classic memoir Fate is the Hunter, Ernest Gann--one of the early airline pilots, and a brilliant writer--has a section dedicated to colleagues killed in the line of duty, whose "wings are forever folded." The list, single spaced and double-columned, goes on for several pages. And that's just working airline pilots, who discovered the hard way the weaknesses in airliners, weather, and navigation systems. There were hundreds, even thousands, of others who gave their lives in the process of the technology's maturation.
Exploration, innovation, and entrepreneurship are all risky endeavors. If the risks taken are going to bring down an entire financial system for the rest of us, that's one thing. But if an informed explorer is willing to put their own life, fortune ... or even, to quote a memorable document, their sacred honor ... on the line for a cause, technology, or chance they think is worth it ... perhaps we should rethink our knee-jerk reflex to keep them safer than they wish to keep themselves.
After I finished my last post defending a liberal arts education--especially in terms of an entrepreneur's willingness to challenge convention--a friend pointed me to this column by David Brooks. Titled "What Life Asks of Us," the column quotes a Harvard report as saying the purpose of a liberal education is to teach individuals to "think for themselves ... break free from the way they were raised, examine life from the outside and discover their own values."
While not dismissing the value of that entirely, Brooks argues for the worth of alternative approach to life; one based on "Institutional Thinking" ... or, living our lives with a respectful eye toward the longer-lasting values and institutions that create the enduring fabric of our society.
Clearly, there is a tension between the entrepreneur's zest for newer, better, faster and the traditionalist's understanding of things worth preserving. I, for one, would welcome a little of the "good old days" personal customer service we used to enjoy before automated phone menus and "cost-efficient" international call centers became the norm and fashion. And living in Silicon Valley, I am reminded daily of what a world run by entrepreneurial 27-year-olds would look like: exciting and trendy, to be sure ... but lacking in some steadiness and with a far-too-prevalent tendency to throw some valuable babies out with the bathwater.
So I agree with Brooks' belief in the importance of respect. And of learning the old way, and why the old way exists, before questioning whether or not it ought to be changed.
But a good liberal arts education shouldn't be in conflict with that idea. As part of my Semiotics studies, I had to take a rigorous writing course, with a professor who was absolutely fanatical about punctuation and grammar rules. On our weekly assignments, one error gave you an automatic "C." Two, and you flunked the paper and had to redo it, in addition to the next assignment, the following week. I was not fond of that professor. But make no mistake about it ... every single one of us learned the rules of punctuation and grammar that semester.
Twelve years later, I went before a NASA review committee to get approval on a book manuscript I'd just completed. The same kind of review committee that okays flight tests and shuttle launches. Five engineers faced me down, across the table. Most of the questions related to facts and conclusions I'd made regarding NASA research. But one panel member took exception to my writing style and punctuation. Didn't I know the rules of grammar, she asked? I went through each of her questions, citing each relevant grammar rule, and noting, if I had broken it, why I'd broken it. "I know the rules," I explained to her at the end. "Sometimes I choose to break them."
In that example, I think, is the key to how a liberal arts education ... or any education, for that matter ... should work. First, it should teach the conventional wisdom and rules. Then it should teach that it's okay to question, bend, or even break them, if there's a good reason to. Because if life asks anything of us, I think it's to be both entrepreneur and traditionalist, all wrapped up in one; learning what we should change, what we shouldn't change, and enough wisdom to know the difference between the two.
We're entering commencement time, which means all kinds of notable people (the President and First Lady included) will be giving well-crafted speeches about the importance of education and a college degree. But is one kind of degree better than another? Much has been said about the importance of science and technology degrees in terms of keeping the U.S. competitive with the rest of the world. And as the economy has worsened, and fears of joblessness have risen, the voices advocating pursuit of more "practical" degrees have grown in both number and volume.
A recent New York Times article noted that Humanities now account for only 8% of all college degrees, and that proponents are having to work harder than ever to justify the worth of a humanities, or liberal arts, course of study. The article quotes Anthony T. Kronman, a Yale law professor, as saying, reluctantly, that the essence of a humanities education may become "a great luxury that many cannot afford."
I passionately disagree. (Full disclosure: I graduated from an Ivy League university with a liberal arts degree in Semiotics, which most people would consider a highly frivolous subject. Although I have to say, the degree did turn out to be useful in getting me job interviews in all kinds of fields, simply because nobody knew what the word meant.)
However. Three points worth considering in the debate:
First ... I figured out the true value of a college degree not in the lofty halls of Brown University, but in a corrugated cardboard factory in New Zealand. I'd taken a "leave of absence" as they call it, after my sophomore year, to figure out if I really wanted to pay all that money learn things that seemed, well ... a tad non-essential, at best. I packed a backpack and took off for the romantic frontier-land of New Zealand with nothing but $500 and a working visa in my pocket. The six months I spent there were a far cry from what I thought the adventure would be, but it was educational. Culminating in my job at the cardboard factory--where I was surrounded by people who hated their jobs but had no other viable option.
In a flash, I grasped the true value of a college degree. It didn't matter what I majored in. It didn't even matter all that much what my grades were. What mattered was that I got that rectangular piece of paper that said, "Lane Wallace never has to work in a corrugated cardboard factory again." A piece of paper that was proof to any potential future employer that I could stick with a project and complete it successfully, even if parts of it weren't all that much fun. A piece of paper that said I had learned how to process an overload of information, prioritize, sort through it intelligently, and distill all that into a coherent end product ... all while coping with stress and deadlines without imploding.
I also realized that I'd do far better at all that if I studied what I was most passionate about learning, practicality be damned. Hence my switch to Semiotics (which, for anyone wondering, is a four-dollar word for communication). If you want to be an engineer or physicist, you'd better major in the subject. But only if that's what you truly want to study and do. Pro forma dedication is discernible from 100 paces away.
Second ... In an increasingly global economy and world, more than just technical skill is required. Far more challenging is the ability to work with a multitude of viewpoints and cultures. And the liberal arts are particularly good at teaching how different arguments on the same point can be equally valid, depending on what presumptions or values you bring to the subject. The liberal arts canvas is painted not in reassuring black-and-white tones, but in maddening shades of gray.
What's the "right" solution to the conflict in Sudan? What was Shakespeare's most important work and why? Was John Locke right in his arguments about personal property? Get comfortable with the ambiguities inherent in a liberal arts education, and you're far better equipped to face the ambiguities and differing viewpoints in a complex, global world. (The late David Foster Wallace expanded on this point in his acclaimed 2005 Kenyon College commencement address, which, if you missed it at the time, is worth taking the time to read.)
Third ... Yes, the U.S. needs technical expertise to keep pace, economically and technologically. But we also need innovators and entrepreneurs creating break-through concepts and businesses. And while knowledge in an area is important, I'd argue that the most important trait a pioneering entrepreneur needs is the confidence to buck convention; to believe he or she is right, despite what all the experts say.
Last year, I interviewed Alan Klapmeier, founder and CEO of the Cirrus Design Corporation, which revolutionized the piston-airplane manufacturing industry with its composite Cirrus aircraft (discussed at length by James Fallows both here at The Atlantic, and in his book Free Flight. I asked Klapmeier what gave him the idea, back in the mid-1980s, that he could take on an industry as conservative and entrenched as general aviation. His answer:
"I think it was my college education. I went to Ripon College, which was a liberal arts school. And that kind of school teaches you how to think for yourself. My professors didn't tell you you were wrong. They convinced you you were wrong. And if they couldn't, you might end up changing their minds on something. Figuring out for yourself what right and wrong is builds a huge bit of confidence. The kind that makes you think maybe we can take on an industry."
Worth thinking about.
05/18/09 5:29 PM
The Wild West: Bias and Myth in Media (cont'd)
A follow-up to my earlier post on the MoMA "Into the Sunset" exhibit ...
My second thought on the subject: While it's true that any photo or story is only a piece of a far more complex puzzle, it's also true that photographers (and writers) make choices about which puzzle pieces they capture and share with the rest of us. Every day. On every subject. But are they intentionally skewing our vision, or trying to reinforce a fantasy image? Well... sometimes. A travel magazine generally doesn't want to see the slums of a Caribbean island vacation spot. The assignment is to talk about and show the pretty places. And the old newspaper adage "if it bleeds, it leads," didn't crop up out of nowhere. In addition, we all view the world through our own particular lenses. And there are certainly photographers and writers who have an axe to grind, or an agenda to push.
However. I would argue that the bias the vast majority of professional photographers and writers have is not toward one take on a story or another. It's toward a compelling story, period. The photo that's dramatic. The unexpected story that cuts against the grain. The moment that stops people in their tracks and makes them re-think their assumptions. The one photo that tells a story better than 1,000 words.
We know we can't tell the entire story in one article, or one photo. So we try to find something compelling that represents an important aspect of the story. And, hopefully, we get to tell other pieces, in other stories and images. So that over time, we can paint a fuller picture of a complex milieu. Are our efforts flawed, even when we try our best to tell a story representational of the "truth"? Of course. We have to live with that. Truth is elusive. So we tell stories. And we hope, on our best days, that we provide enough pieces of the puzzle for people to: a) get some sense of what the overall image is, and b) realize that it's a complex image that goes beyond any easy categorization or answer.
05/18/09 12:34 PM
The Wild West: Bias and Myth in Media
The Museum of Modern Art in New York is currently running an exhibit called "Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West." The exhibit's premise is that photography and the American West essentially grew up together, and that photography played a key role in "shaping our collective imagination of the West." But one of the key questions raised both in the exhibit and in this Slate review of it, is: did that photography help create a myth of the West that isn't true, or isn't reflective of the full reality of the place?
Is each of us, as the Slate review put it, "the victim of a great Western fantasy"?
A couple of thoughts (one here, one in a later post).
First: Without question, photography has helped form our vision of what "The American West" is like. Just as photography and stories, whether journalistic, cinematic, or artistic, construct our visions of any event, place, or group of people we don't know from personal experience. But do photographers create myth? Or is myth something we create ourselves, from a lack of connective detail in between the selected moments a photographer ... or writer ... captures?
In the case of Hollywood movies and advertisements, of course, the myth-making is both clear and intentional. For anyone who saw "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" one too many times and has any lingering thoughts of how romantic it might have been to be a woman on the Western Frontier, I suggest Pioneer Women--writings and journal entries from actual women on the frontier, collected by Joanna Stratton--as a sobering reality check.
But myth or fantasy, like the aura of "fame" surrounding celebrities, is an illusion that requires a little distance, and a limited amount of information, to maintain. I, too, had a somewhat unrealistic vision of California and the American West ... until I moved there. But after 18 years there, I have a fuller context in which to put the MoMa exhibit's photos. And in that context, they're not misrepresentational. Each one is simply a piece taken out of a vast and multi-faceted puzzle. True in its particulars, just not the whole story. Any more than a single photo of my niece on my refrigerator tells the whole story of the person she is. If you really want to know the reality of a place, or person, you have to fill in the dots between the images yourself--not from a distance, but up close, in person.
More on this in a bit ...
05/18/09 9:26 AM
Best Locations to be Laid Off (cont'd)
A follow-up to my last post about places in America where being "secure-job-free" (as a "car-free" Californian might put it) might be easier ... both in terms of emotional and cultural support, and in terms of tangible networking and freelance help from experienced independent workers, for those who decide to launch their own business or creative endeavor.
It turns out that last summer, CNNMoney put together short profiles of the 100 best places, in their opinion, to launch your own business. An interesting list to ponder.
05/14/09 1:55 PM
Best Locations to be Out of a Job
"Location, Location, Location," is the time-tested Rule #1 (and #2 and #3) for real estate dealings. A good location is the bottom-line determiner of real estate value. But what constitutes "good"? While real estate agents tend to focus on factors such as low crime, neighborhood aesthetics, good schools, and access to commerce, there are other factors ... especially in a recession, or if you have a creative or entrepreneurial bent. I'm putting those three categories together because they all share a central trait: the potential of being without a steady paycheck or job.
In terms of pure economic considerations, everyone in the U.S. is at a disadvantage when it comes to getting laid off ... at least when compared to countries with more socialistic bents and stronger safety nets for the unemployed. This list of the best countries in the world to lose your job might prompt some to consider relocation to Scandinavia, cold and dark be damned.
But this short piece I stumbled across in the New York Times a couple of months ago offers a more nuanced take on the subject. In it, Susan Dominus describes four friends in New York City who'd been laid off, and who had decided to make an independent film with their suddenly spare time. One of them admits, "I would not have done this unless I'd lost everything"--because of both a fear of failure and a simple lack of time. Dominus concludes:
"Even unemployment can feel burnished by the setting. To be an out-of-work artist in New York is to be part of a grand tradition, and that history no doubt helps fuel aspirants like Ms. Major and her friends, who might otherwise succumb to fear of failure."
On the one hand, places like New York City, Los Angeles, and (for more technically-oriented creative types) Silicon Valley, are obscenely expensive places in which to live. Which means doing a start-up or trying to make a living there as a freelance artist is far tougher financially than, say, in rural Minnesota. But location does matter--not only for moral support, but also in terms of finding other people with more fluid lives to provide bits-and-pieces creative and technical support.
When I first quit my corporate job and set out to be a self-employed writer, I was living in a predominantly blue-collar community in Minnesota. The cost of living was wonderfully low. But getting hit with "when are you going to get a job?" from everyone I met was exhausting. Tell someone in New York or LA that you're a writer, or tell someone in Silicon Valley that you're starting your own company, and the response is far more likely to be, "Wow! That's great! Tell me all about it!" And, quite possibly, the conversation will conclude with, "you know who you might want to talk to ..."
Every city has a personality, and different places have different predominant norms and values. Low rents and good schools are great. But attempting to be an entrepreneur or artist in the world is tough, and scary. The obstacles are great, the security level is low, and every step is a challenge that has to be figured out without any clear guide as to what the "right" next move is. Having a supportive and nurturing social culture in which to struggle through those challenges ... as well as ready access to more experienced, like-minded explorers ... is a huge asset. Not only to inherently creative or entrepreneurial types, but also for anyone who's just lost their job.
Being laid off in New York or LA or Silicon Valley just means you've joined a well-populated club with a long and cherished tradition. Even if you don't want to stay in that club forever, you don't have to be embarrassed to be a part of it. That counts for a lot. And it might just open up doors to a new career that, like Ms. Major, you never otherwise would have tried.
If all goes according to plan, the shuttle Atlantis will lift off from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center today for the last servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope ... bringing together, possibly for the last time, the two sometimes-competing arms of NASA's space exploration divisions.
To the outsider, NASA might seem like one big entity that, collectively, explores near and far space. But having written six books for the agency, I can tell you that it's a very segmented place. The "first A" in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, aeronautics (aircraft and flight within the atmosphere), is a completely different realm--with completely different budgets--than the space side, and human space flight is separate from the scientific, or satellite-based, space research. Even satellite-based scientific research is divided into planetary research (based primarily at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA) and atmospheric/cosmic research (based at the Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, MD).
Not that there isn't overlap or cooperative effort among the research disciplines or centers. But they represent very different areas of focus and schools of thought. And, not surprisingly, the scientists and engineers who work there have very different opinions about where or how the agency's most valuable work is done. Particularly when it comes to the continuing value of human space flight.
This July, it will be 40 years since Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon. The Space Shuttle, while anything but the mundane "Space Transportation System" (STS) it was originally envisioned to be, has been flying missions to Low Earth Orbit for more than a quarter century. But while the Shuttle remains an engineering marvel, and an incredibly exciting experience for the lucky and risk-tolerant few who have gotten to fly in it, I have long believed that the single, or at least the best, argument for keeping the Shuttle flying was its role in maintaining and improving the Hubble Telescope.
Why? Because, over the course of 13 years and hundreds of interviews with NASA researchers and managers, including at least half a dozen shuttle commanders, a pattern emerged.
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I have a soft spot in my heart for Minnesota Public Radio, having spent four years living in Garrison Keillor country back in the early 1990s. If you have that much snow and sub-zero weather in your life, maybe you have to have both an enduring, and slightly wry, sense of humor about things. Or maybe you don't. But ... you betcha ... it certainly helps.
In any event, this piece by Bob Collins of MPR--full of wry insight and humor--is well worth the reading. It came out of a research project MPR did on the optimism or pessimism of current college students, but it would make for a great commencement address, if any college out there is still looking for a speaker.
Collins' point is that while college students may be terrified of the uncertainty they're facing, heading out into the world right now ... their predicament is hardly new. Life has always been uncertain, and the path to one's dreams has never been easy or straight. And--even more importantly--that's okay. A good thing, even.
"It's supposed to be hard to make the transition from college to the working world," Collins admonishes the project's students. "The dream has never been accomplished by taking one giant step, but by taking a series of small steps, some of which can be missteps. That's just how it works. It's the late '90s that were the exception. Don't make me tell you about my first $110-a-week-six-days-a-week job I got out of college."
Navigating your life one step at a time. Collins argues, is both what we end up doing anyway ("Raise your hand," he says, "if life has gone exactly the way you thought it would,") and important if the journey is to be meaningful. "Your mother was a hippie and wants you to be more concerned about settling down than she was? Fine," he says. "Ask her if she'd be a hippie again if she had to do it all over."
Collins acknowledges that humans--himself included-- tend to get more conservative and risk averse as they age. "But," he cautions students, "you're far too young to be 50."
In short, Collins makes a terrific argument for young people to stop worrying about security so much. Or, as Marmee once counseled a restless Jo in Little Women, to embrace their freedom and enjoy the ride, uncertain and challenging as it may be. And while Collins' primary audience may have been college students, there's a spoonful of tonic in there for the rest of us, too. A reminder that a vibrant life is not a pre-planned, predictable, and totally safe Disneyland ride. It's an uncertain journey. Always has been, and always will be. Regardless of what else may be going on in the world.
Perhaps Minnesotans are particularly good at accepting life in all its uncertainty and challenge. This is a place, after all, where it's been known to snow in every month of the year, and people have to shovel their roofs as well as their walks. I'm not kidding. I've done it, myself. If you want an easy ride in life, with palm trees and year-round sunshine, you don't settle in Minnesota. But whatever the reason, Collins' advice is a valuable reality check--not only on the current economic situation, but on how all of us, media included, can or should respond to it.
Right after I'd returned to the U.S. from a month-long trip flying relief supplies into Chad, Sudan, and the tumultuous eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I overheard a woman in the locker room of my gym admonishing someone not to drink from a particular kind of plastic water bottle, because it might cause cancer.
Compared with lawless conflict zones populated with angry, AK-47-toting young men, the dangers presented by a plastic water bottle (and not a water bottle formed from an old kerosene container, mind you, but one manufactured specifically to live out its life as a water bottle) seemed rather low on the richter scale of hazardous things to worry about.
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While it's not a fair fight to compare the risks of unstable African countries with a middle-class neighborhood in a wealthy, industrialized nation, the interchange certainly highlighted how amazingly safe we are, that we can obsess about the small risks posed by a plastic water bottle. But still, why do we worry about so many small-risk factors in our lives? Having eliminated so many lethal threats in our lives, do we now indulge in the fantasy that we can have a risk-free society or life? Or is there something else at play?
Americans are huge fans of adventure. Man vs. Wild is a big hit. Survivor put reality shows on the map (for which I still want to have words with its creators). Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and George Lucas are iconic business heroes. As a culture, we romanticize people who climb mountains, start innovative new companies, fly or sail around the world, hand out malaria nets in Africa, or otherwise take on daunting physical, business, or cultural challenges. Most of us have also at least harbored a fantasy or two about doing something like that ourselves. Myself included.
But now, with some 20-odd years of adventures under my belt, I have a slightly more realistic view of the subject. To wit:
There's no question that adventure is great stuff. Particularly beforehand, when you're sitting in your living room, imagining how exciting it's all going to be. Or afterward, when you get to tell all your friends about how incredible it was. But smack dab in the middle of any real-life, full-blown adventure--whether that adventure involves climbing a mountain, starting a new company, switching careers, moving to a new country, or trying to change the world--few people are actually dwelling on how much fun they're having. Generally speaking, they're more likely wondering what possessed them to think this was a good idea.
