Life Advice Archives - Page 10 of 10

The Undesired Crossroad

Sometimes you are faced with a really lousy set of options.

Sometimes that lousy set of options is your own fault.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Counselor wrestles with exactly that problem.

A brilliant book. Just brilliant. You won’t forget it.

First though, we need to straighten one thing out. This book is called a screenplay. Don’t even think about watching the movie. It’s awful. Just read the book. McCarthy is an amazing novelist, perhaps the greatest living writer. He is a lousy screenwriter, a really lousy screenwriter.

The world you live in is a world which has been made up of previous choices you have made.

You may not have intended to create the world in which you live, but you did create it. Once you find yourself in your current world, you will often find yourself at a crossroad, but it is not the crossroad you want.

You want the crossroad to be whether you have to live in this world you created or not. You want to decide whether you have to endure the consequences of your previous actions.

But that is not the crossroad you are at. You have no choice.

You might give everything to avoid the consequences of your previous actions, but you cannot change your previous actions. You are at a crossroad, but it is only the crossroad of deciding whether you will accept the fact that you have created this world you did not want or whether you refuse to accept the fact that you cannot change the world you created by your previous actions.

But, it gets worse.

It is not simply that you must endure the pain of knowing that the world you created is painful because of things you have done.

You also have to make decisions now and then later on you are faced with other decisions you did not see coming at all. You will in the future be faced with decisions you would rather not make, but you will have to make them later on because of the decisions you make now.

But, it gets worse. There are other people out there who are also making decisions. And some of those people do not have the moral scruples which you have.

And in a world in which those with moral scruples, no matter how small those scruples may be, meet those without moral scruples, the latter will win.

Like all of Cormac McCarthy’s work, this novel has a deeply moral core.

We go through life trying to skirt the edges of being moral. We think we can commit a small sin here or there and that it won’t really matter.

But every time we commit those small sins, those small violations of our moral code, we create a new world in which we must live with the consequences of those past violations of our moral code. One violation of your moral code leads to new choices and you cannot escape those new choices. And once you are down that road, there is no going back. Along that road you will meet people who do not have the same limits as you, and when you meet them, you will not like the results of all those previous choices you made.

And right now, you are thinking this is all a bit overblown. You are thinking that just because you make this small decision now, you will not end up with your world destroyed.

The hunter has a purity of heart that exists nowhere else. I think he is not defined so much by what he has come to be as by all that he has escaped being. You can make no distinction between what he is and what he does. And what he does is kill. We of course are another matter. I suspect that we are ill-formed for the path we have chosen. Ill-formed and ill-prepared. We would like to draw a veil over all that blood and terror. That have brought us to this place. It is our faintness of heart that would close our eyes to all of that, but in doing so it makes of it our destiny. Perhaps you would not agree. I don’t know. But nothing is crueler than a coward, and the slaughter to come is probably beyond our imagining.

If you think this is overblown, you have just closed your eyes.

Don’t act surprised when you cannot undo your prior actions because you don’t like the results.

Leadership in The Republic

As a manual on leadership, Plato’s The Republic is a very useful thought experiment.

But, it is a useful guide to leadership?

First off, The Republic a mammothly sprawling book. It is a conversation which wanders all over the place, constantly circling back to the general theme.

But even there, it isn’t entirely clear what the general theme actually is. Justice? Good Government? Education? Moral Character?

In previous readings, I had read the book as an argument about a Good Society. This would put the book in the same category as Locke’s Second Treatise or Hobbes Leviathan or Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty.

So, it was rather interesting to read it this time, thinking about it as a manual on leadership. (This was one of the texts in my course “Leadership and the Liberal Arts.”)

Part of the definition of a Great Book is that you can reread it and learn something new every time. With Plato’s Republic, such a thing is easy. Just pick a new central organizing principle and embark on a journey.

It is a fun book. This is truly one of those books where you just go along for the ride and see where you end up.

About halfway though I started wondering how well the whole thing would work as a stage play. A curious production, but I suspect, if acted well (which would not be easy), it could be great. The acting would be a problem though. It wouldn’t be easy to convey the sense that this is just a rambling conversation. The temptation to make it more directed or philosophical-seeming would be quite large.

What do we learn about leadership in The Republic?

Well, first, Socrates is, as always, in pursuit of Leadership, with a capital L. He wants to discover the Truth (capital T) about Leadership, the Form of Leadership of which all earthly examples are merely pale reflections.

This is, after all, where Plato’s Cave originates. You are all in a cave staring at shadows, and I have gone forth into the light and have come back to tell you all (I shall tell you all) about Leadership, the real thing, not the shadow of the real thing.

You want to know the Truth? To be a Leader, you obviously must be a philosopher, a true lover of wisdom, someone who pursues knowledge and wisdom to the exclusion of all else. The Leader is the one who understands the Truth.

You want Justice? You need a leader who understands Justice, True Justice, not the pale imitation which normal people call justice, but the Form of Justice.

You want, whether you know it or not, The Philosopher King.

There are two immediate implications of Plato’s argument (or should that be Socrates’ argument?—it is never easy to tell) which are rather interesting:

1. There are not different types of leadership. There is only good leadership and bad leadership; good leadership is that which comes closest to the Platonic Ideal of Leadership.

2. True Leaders will undoubtedly fail in a real society because it would take a True Leader to recognize the importance of True Leadership. The masses—all the farmers and soldiers, the people obsessed with honor and material gain—will have no ability to appreciate or even understand the best leaders. All those masses are still stuck in their caves, and they cannot comprehend the Beauty and Perfection of Leadership as it truly is.

Those two points are related. We think there are different types of leaders because we cannot recognize True Leaders.

And so, the best Leaders, those who would be closest to the Platonic Ideal, end up not being Leaders in the world in which we live.

Imagine the Platonic Ideal Leader coming to earth and walking among us. That Leader does not lead because nobody follows. So, is the perfect Leader still a leader if nobody follows?

Is the ability to attract followers a part of the Platonic Ideal of Leadership? Why not?

In some ways it is hard to take the idea of the Philosopher King seriously because, quite frankly, people with a Doctorate in Philosophy are not great material for leadership. (Recall William F Buckley’s quip that he would rather be ruled by the first 200 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.)

But, Socrates would have an easy time noting that our contemporaries with Ph.D.s (doctorates in philosophy) are not generally lovers of wisdom. They are the sham philosophers, the charlatans, who masquerade as knowledgeable so that they can get paid to do very little in a tenured sinecure.

So, set aside the charlatans. Imagine the true philosopher, the person truly committed to gaining wisdom and knowledge. Would you want that person as the leader of your society or organization?

The short answer is “No.”

But why not? I suspect it is because when we think about leadership, we mean more than simply knowing where all the parts should go. We also imagine a mechanical or practical skill—the ability to get things done—and it is not at all obvious that knowing what would be best thing to do is the same thing as accomplishing the best things.

In Plato’s Republic, a society which could never actually arise on Earth, it makes sense to have the Philosophers as Kings.

But, here on Planet Earth? It’s not enough to have seen the light. You also need to have the ability to inspire the rest of us to want to leave the cave and the ability to lead the expedition.

How to get More People to Read Your Blog

If someone you knew was reading a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie, would you commend them or get worried?

Even more troubling: if a college professor assigned the book to a class of undergraduates and they take took the book to heart, would said professor have been doing a noble or vile act?

When I was putting together my course “Leadership and the Liberal Arts,” I Googled things along the lines of “Great Books on Leadership” and browsed through the many book lists which appeared. This book showed up repeatedly.

I’d never read Carnegie’s book before. I always mentally tossed it in the category of “Tedious self-help books.” This is a category which I loathe. The thought of reading endless insipid rambling pep talks causes me to shudder.

I was a bit hesitant to even assign such a book in a college class. After all, I am aiming for Great Books here, not Pathetic Books which lots of people have read.

But, then I convinced myself that having a book in this category might provide some frission to the class and then I figured “Why Not? Maybe it will be entertaining.”

And after all, these people who talk about leadership all the time sure talk about this book a lot. And, Warren Buffet did praise Dale Carnegie and Warren Buffet is really rich and so at least one really rich guy liked this book and that would be enough to recommend it to some people and so why should I have a higher standard for book selection that that?

I also figured that having a book like this on the syllabus would be a nod to the way this class used to be before I took it over and put a bunch of Great Books on the reading list.

It was the first book on the syllabus. The conclusion: it is nowhere near as bad and painful as I thought it would be—which is not praise at all. But, I didn’t mind reading it—which is surprising, and thus can be considered to be praise. And, mirabile dictu, I didn’t even mind rereading it the next time I taught the course.

Dale Carnegie is the quintessential enthusiastic, peppy, can-do type of guy and the book is an endless stream of anecdotes illustrating 30 different Principles which if followed will allow you to win friends (section 2), convince them to think the way you think (section 3), and then become a leader (section 4). To his credit, Carnegie knows how to keep a story quick and to the point, and so the book is a fast read.

The conclusion: if Carnegie is right, then Leadership is Technique. Follow these simple steps and you too will be a leader in no time. Smile. Start with the positive. Think about what the other person wants. Get other people to talk about themselves. Let others save face. Avoid direct confrontation. And so on.

One of my students said the whole book was really just kindergarten advice, which was a perceptive remark.

That comment also immediately started a debate about whether anyone really learns this in kindergarten (obviously not), but nonetheless the student was fundamentally right—even though we don’t actually teach 5 year olds to “Call attention to other people’s mistakes indirectly,” the general impulse of this book is akin to the “Be nice. Play fair.’ advice which we do give to 5 year olds. Sadly, many people forget all about that advice as they get older. So, one way to read this book is as a corrective to the failings of adults.

Read that way the book has good advice, but it is shallow. Very shallow. Carnegie insists in a “stomp your foot when you say it” way that it is not sufficient to feign interest in others, you actually have to be interested in others.

But, the book is also premised on the fact that everyone is selfish, so if you want to win friends and influence people then you need to learn to manipulate that selfishness inherent in others. But, do that in a genuine way. And then report back on how you got what you wanted by manipulating others using this list of 30 tricks of the trade. Then Carnegie can use your anecdotes about manipulating others to show everyone how his principles are really useful and then everyone will want to use them too.

Oh, and by the way, be genuine about all this caring about others. Really, be genuine. But, be sure to smile and tell someone all about what a nice head of hair he has (an actual anecdote in the book), because if you do that, then the person with a nice head of hair will be really happy and after all, you want to make people happy, right?, and then you can insist that you only wanted to make people happy because you are altruistic despite the fact that a few chapters earlier you discovered that nobody else is altruistic and they only do nice things because they get that warm fuzzy feeling from doing seemingly nice things. Except of course if you are Dale Carnegie, in which case you only write books and give seminars for the good you can do for humanity and not for the large royalty checks.

Truth be told, that last paragraph wasn’t really fair to Dale Carnegie and this book. This is not a book which is meant to be taken all that seriously.

It is a book meant to be read in a rather uncritical way and then (hopefully) you will go out and be a little bit nicer and find that being nicer makes other people nicer too.

Honestly, I should just take the book for what it is—a quick read with some kindergarten advice, that, all in all, isn’t a bad reminder that I really ought to smile the next time I get irritated with a sales associate in a store.

Or, I could think of a title for this blog post and use this review as a way of drawing attention to my website and thereby win friends and influence people. Is that noble of me?

Does the World Fit You?

John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces is one of the books I recommend to people the most often.

This book is funny, very funny. And thought-provoking.

It is interesting, well written, and has some of the most memorable characters you’ll ever meet.

The main character, Ignatius J Reilly is a modern day Falstaff. Take Shakespeare’s character, put him amongst the working (or non-working as the case may be) classes of New Orleans in the 1960s and you would have this book. Brilliantly done.

The cast of supporting characters are also worthy of Henry IV. No small feat, that.

It’s a sprawling book, with, I suppose, something akin to a plot line, but really a series of minor plot lines weaving in and out.

Uniting the plots is Ignatius’ attempts to navigate a world in which he doesn’t quite belong.

A slothful holder of a Master’s degree in English, holed up in a room in his mother’s house, we see Ignatius simultaneously trying to write the grand philosophical work to end all philosophical works—he runs out of steam every time he gets a paragraph or two of random musings down on paper—and looking for a job to help pay the bills so his mother doesn’t lose the house in which he resides.

Reilly is unsuitable for work—in exactly the same way the Falstaff would have been unsuitable for a desk job.

Reilly is larger than work. He is larger than life. There is simply a vast Too Muchness about him.

You would not want to know Ignatius J Reilly. You would think he was an Absolute Loser because, well, he is one.

He Dreams Big, can’t muster the energy for even the most mundane tasks, and yet, despite being everything you would not want your kid to become, it is hard not to secretly, very secretly (you wouldn’t want anyone to hear you think this), admire him a bit because he just doesn’t care that the world does not fit him.

He chalks his misfortunes up to Fortuna, and…well, I was going to say moves through life, but “moves” conveys a bit more purpose than Ignatius is wont to display.

Throughout the book, the other characters serve as a foil for the problems of Reilly—we watch others struggling or giving up the struggle to fit into the world, none of them terribly successful. As Reilly muses toward the end of the novel:

Once a person was asked to step into this brutal century, anything could happen. Everywhere there lurked pitfalls like Abelman [a customer of the factory in which Reilly briefly worked], the insipid Crusaders for Moorish Dignity, the Mancuso cretin [a policeman], Dorian Greene [a rather campy homosexual], newspaper reporters, strip-teasers, birds, photography, juvenile delinquents, Nazi pornographers. And especially Myrna Minkoff [a wannabe 60s radical]. The consumer products. And especially Myrna Minkoff [yes, he repeats that sentence—Myrna is a real problem for Ignatius].

It is interesting to think at the end of a novel like this: how much do I try to fit into the world? How much of what I do is a deliberate attempt to shape my life so that I seem at home here?

What would be different if I simply woke up every morning, firmly convinced, that the world should fit me, that world should modify itself so that it was at home with me?

Imagine that you really believed that, that you really did wander through life unaware that there was something odd about your attitude toward the world. You are totally unaware that it was singularly odd that you actually didn’t understand why you should adapt yourself to the world.

It’s a strange thought experiment.

From there, one gets to wondering why the world is the way it is. There is a logical progression from Faulkner to Toole.

And yet…is the world really all that bad? Is fitting into a world of work and polite social interactions really all that bad? Are we really living lives of quiet desperation (OK, that’s a Northerner’s line, but even still, it fits)?

I’m not so sure. I like my computer and my iPhone and the easy ability to buy books. I like microwave ovens and cordless drills. And is modern industrial life really such a high price to pay for the marvel of being able to read news about the Raiders on the internet while living on the East Coast?

But, Ignatius J Reilly just sits there and I can’t help wondering why I admire him so much.