THE CLICHE DRIVEN PRESS WHEN A BIT OF CANDOR IS CALLED FOR

THE CLICHÉ DRIVEN PRESS WHEN A BIT CANDOR IS CALLED FOR

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© January 1, 2009

“Examine what is said, not him who speaks.”

Arabian Proverb



REFERENCE:

In the course of a year, I receive literally hundreds of invitations from readers to read this or that book, this or that article, and then to render my comment on the material. I receive the same complement of materials on this or that opinion, asking me for mine as well. These responses are from involved and concerned persons who think for themselves, but desire confirmation that others think as they do.

Yesterday, I received a letter from a reader of my books and articles, who attached an official letter from Pam Iorio, Mayor of Tampa, Florida, a friend of hers.

She feels the mayor should have me on the mayor’s television program discussing books and ideas. The letter from the mayor to this reader concluded, “I really enjoyed our lunch! I hope to meet Dr. Fisher in the future.”

I doubt that I will hear from the mayor, and it is just as well because I don’t talk in sound bytes (as readers know) and I don’t say what you necessarily want to hear. We live in an age where explaining has become the substitute for acting, and who is speaking and from what platform the evidence of relevance. Small wonder we are so lost.


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A READER WRITES ABOUT AN ARTICLE IN “THE ECONOMIST”:

Did you see this Jim?

http://www.economist.com/theworldin/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12574180


I notice they use some of your language, e.g. hubris. The anticipated world order will be better for ordinary Americans, I personally think, and I’m sure you would agree. I would be interested in your take on the article in any case.

Happy New Year

George


DR. FISHER RESPONDS:


George,

I hope your daughter had a nice visit here on the Sun Coast of Florida when she was here. She came about a week early before we had the balmy days of summer in winter here. I don’t think she minded the temperatures in the high 60s and low 70s coming from Canada at this time of year.

Regarding "The Economist" piece, I am not convinced we are moving into better days for ordinary citizens, but quite the contrary. The easy road for Western society is behind us; the hard road is what we are all now traveling on.

Over the next century, I sense there will be serious upheaval of the old and old traditions as we transition to the new world order. In fact, it is doubtful to my mind that anyone living today will have much sense of a utopian existence, but quite the latter. We learn slowly if at all, and then only when we must.

There is a wrenching difference between the haves and have nots of the world, and the West is no longer an isolated oasis. Yet, in a time of such transparency, where it is nigh impossible to hide abuse or poverty or severe disadvantage, there is hope of some improvement, how much is doubtful in the next hundred years.

Talking heads escape into their BlackBerries and cell phones yapping away nonsensically everywhere, in the United Nations, in Congress, in the august bodies of government and commerce all over the world, as everywhere is nowhere, which is the definition of “utopia.”

Those that would lead are pushed and pulled by destiny but not by any consensus will. We are a sorry mess, and I see no improvement for scores of years.

The article you would have me read is part of the problem. It is a piece totally devoid of content and with that nearly mystical roll of witchcraft drums in words to soothe the conscience of the reader.

I am always amazed when professional writers for such prestigious periodicals as THE ECONOMIST resort so much to clichés, which communicate so little. Here are a few that got my attention:

(1) "Clay feet of economic system."

The economic system is not a metaphor and does not have clay feet. Say what you mean. The economy is completely dysfunctional led by greed, neglect, and excess. It is capitalism of the absurd.

(2) "Gap between global system for economics and global political system which must be addressed."

Notice how we toss these terms around while none of them has been well defined, mainly, I suppose, because we're not quite sure what global economics or global politics actually means.

Fuzzy thinking is from people like myself all the way up the food chain, and it is scary! I include myself because I too often lead without a clear separation between my emotions or intuitions and my mind.

I feel things before I see them, and my feelings have been a better gauge to my success in life than my mind. I think this is true of most others as well because it is easier to explain success or failure after the fact, but not before.

I’ve always known when I was in troubled waters. It wasn’t my mind alerting me to the danger but my heart. I write with my heart not my head. I wish I saw more of this in politicians and corporate leaders whereas it is common among novelists, poets and painters. Why? Solzhenitsyn put it best: "Falsehood can hold out against much in this world, but not against art." It is the mind that has gotten us into trouble, not the heart. Artists compose witht the heart.

(3) "Economy must be put on sound footing."

There we go again with feet!

(4) "Entitlement programs reviewed and national dependence on debt overcome."

Now, here is something of substance. Our entire economy is debt dependent. So, what are we doing? We are leveraging economy with even increasing debt.

Economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman writes that debt is good and good government is government not afraid of debt, as FDR was not afraid of it in 1933.

I am a poor kid whose father worked on the Works Project Administration (WPA) and it put food on the table. But WWII -- if you can believe all the books I've read -- killed the Great Depression, not the plethora of government programs under FDR's "New Deal."

(5) "Soft power."

It means diplomatic power, statesmanship, negotiation, and the rest as opposed to "hard power" which is military might. I wonder, though, how many people pass over this expression without a clue.

(6) "What is the future of capitalism?" Ah ha! This is slipped in but not elaborated when I think it is extremely important to the next expression.

Capitalism is in trouble. The so-called “invisible hand controlling the market place” no longer applies. We have moved beyond Adam Smith. Like sacred texts, however, we give up the literally meaning of the words reluctantly if at all. We have seen how slowly words such as “empire” and “nationalism” and “monarchy” have hung on long after their relevance ceased. So, it will be with capitalism.

(7) "Must have a debate over priorities."

Obama cannot play God, but he can make wise choices such as Lincoln made. When one of Lincoln's general said he had pushed the Confederate army deep into the South, and was celebrating the fact with his troops, Lincoln said, "My God, man, the South is part of the Union. It is not a separate country."

Content and context can get terribly mixed up in the mind of a person with the wrong focus. They are both essential but not the same. This was the general’s problem.

Periodically, I read a spate of book on this or that subject. Currently, Lincoln is on my mind. It is hard to believe how timid were his generals. I can understand why he would get angry and depressed.

Priorities have always been an easy lot for me. They were for Lincoln as well. I don't think they are for most Americans. We look for answers outside ourselves, for experts, for confirmation of our feelings, rather than weighing our feelings against our experiences. We forget how valuable our failures are in our successes, how much our disappointments bring us into more intimate contact with ourselves and improve our character. How about Canadians?

(8) "Global objective/national interests."

Again, I'm not sure what this means. I listen to C-Span, and the wise men and talking heads of the world that use such corporate speak. I can imagine what fun Erasmus would have with such empty language. I’ve concluded that no one wants to offend anyone else, so nobody has the courage to express what they think, or to ask hard questions about such empty expressions as 'global objective' or ‘national interests.’

Of the more than 6 millions souls on this earth, 80 percent of them have little or no stake in either expression. Don’t they count? Be careful! If you say they do, where is the evidence in terms of ‘global objective’ and ‘national interest’? This is the West talking to itself in the mirror.


(9) "(US) prided itself in its exceptionalism."

Isn't that the truth, and now we're all paying dearly for it, wherever we might be.

(10) "(US) must discipline itself, develop a strategy of gradualism in order to accumulate the attainable."

These are three phrases I tied together, as they speak to what the rest of the article only hinted at, but clearly stated in the title, "An End of Hubris."

There will be no end in sight to hubris as long as Americans are a tactical not a strategically directed people. Tactics are based on a single objective; strategies are based on a holistic approach. Americans can talk strategy but they walk tactics, and so it has always been.

As for gradualism, think of it for a minute. What is gradual about the “Electronic Age”? What is gradual about the ‘bail out’? What is gradual about the previous ‘space race’? Americans are addicted to speed and excess be the driver success or failure.

(11) "Dialogue with the rest of the world."

That is my primary hope with the new president. (10) Has kept this nation at bay. He will have to be another Lincoln to succeed.

(12) "(US) will not remain self-proclaimed tutor" as it experiences the "limits of hegemony."

We must go back 100 years to the Age of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to when the United States first convinced itself it was the supreme educator ("tutor") of the world order.

Americans hate words such as “empire” and “hegemony,” seeing such words as implying Americans are greedy for expansion.

The United States has failed to see that mind expansion is every bit as dangerous and intrusive as territorial expansion.

Mind expansion implies that American culture and way of life is better than that of anyone else.

If there is one thing I have learned in my long life, traveling the world, is that people love their own customs, their own languages, their own religions, their own way of doing things, in their own place and space without anyone suggesting that their way is inferior to others.

It has been my personal experience that people of strong biases are not content with those biases but feel compelled to have others think as they do. I have also noticed that people that deny their own problems often feel compelled to solve those of others as if they are superiorly qualified, when they don’t have their own house in order.

Notice how judgmental some are. Do you wonder why they are? It has been my experience that the seeds of such damage are the failure to be self-accepting. Emerson saw this in his time with Americans 150 years ago. I have seen in my own time as well.

George, I am a simple soul who knows so little about economics that I ask myself these kinds of questions when I read such foolishness.

Herbert Marcuse, the French philosopher, said that a one-dimensional society attempts to explain everything away as its policy of dealing with its problems. Language becomes an end in itself rather than an expression of ideas. It is interesting to me that Marcuse has been discounted by many Americans, not because of the relevance of what he says about the Western mindset, but because of his political beliefs. Quite conveniently, he is discounted summarily on this basis by many Western thinkers when he is trying to assist them in getting to the next dimension of their existence.

Be always well,

Jim
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