To Be or To Do

“One day you will take a fork in the road, and you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go one way, you can be somebody. You will have to make your compromises and … turn your back on your friends, but you will be a member of the club, and you will get promoted and get good assignments. Or you can go the other way, and you can do something, something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself … You may not get promoted, and you may not get good assignments, and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors, but you won’t have to compromise yourself … In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you have to make a decision: to be or to do.”

-Col. John Boyd

What American Foreign Policy Was Meant To Be

“America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.  She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.  She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.  She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart … Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.  But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.  She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.  She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.  She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.  The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force … She might become the dictatress of the world; she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....”

- John Quincy Adams, address to US House of Representatives, July 4th, 1821

Self-Awareness, Orientation, and Culture

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

One of the first things a beginning psychology student is taught is that, despite what people think, they actually do not know know themselves very well.  This is a well-established fact.  Who you think you are and who you really are often differ greatly.  In many cases other people know you better than you yourself do.  We must be skeptical when evaluating ourselves, and the quest for self-awareness must be an ongoing struggle.  This is often uncomfortable and it is easier said than done.  But, as Richard Feynman once said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."  While he was talking about scientific integrity, the saying applies to self-knowledge. 

A large part of who you are is how you view the world.  You may think that you the world exists as it appears to you, that you see it and so you understand it. But here you are fooling yourself.  You never objectively observe the world.  An example of this is seen constantly: Two people in the same place, at the same time, witnessing the same event and each having a drastically different account of what occurred . This is because we don't see the world as it is, with perfect knowledge.  We only take in hints (observations) and it is how we interpret those hints that defines our understanding of the world. 

That interpretation is called orientation. And as the late John Boyd described, it is essentially a filter made up of our genetic heritage, cultural traditions, previous experiences, new information and the analysis and synthesis of information.  All these things act on and manipulate our observations to provide us with our understanding the world around us.

And if you are not aware of how these things affect your understanding, then you are not aware of the limitations of your orientation and where there may be errors that cause a divergence between reality and your understanding of reality, between what you think the world is and what it really is.

So again, we go back to self-awareness.

But how can you assess your own orientation when it is a part of how you view everything, when it is the lens through which all information comes to you?  Didn't Kurt Gödel say that it is impossible to understand the nature of a system from within it?  So, how can you step outside yourself to gain this understanding?

John Boyd points to Edward T. Hall as providing an answer for how to do so, at least for the "cultural traditions" aspect of our own orientation:

"Everything man is and does is modified by learning and is therefore malleable. But once learned, these behavior patterns, these habitual responses, these ways of interacting gradually sink below the surface of the mind and, like the admiral of a submerged submarine fleet, control from the depths. The hidden controls are usually experienced as though they were innate simply because they are not only ubiquitous but habitual as well.

… The only time one is aware of the control system is when things don’t follow the hidden program. This is most frequent in intercultural encounters. Therefore, the great gift that the members of the human race have for each other is not exotic experiences but an opportunity to achieve awareness of the structure of their own system, which can be accomplished only by interacting with others who do not share that system …"
- Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture

So the next time you experience something strange in another culture, take note.  Ask what it is telling you about your own perspective, and get to know yourself better.

Much learning does not teach understanding

1. Much learning does not teach understanding.

-Heraclitus (540 BC - 480 BC), On the Universe

2. I have always found the name of a person's Alma mater to be a better indicator of their ego than their intelligence.
 
3. I think Mark Twain was in agreement when he said, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."  

4. Sir Ken Robinson certainly is, as he demonstrates in this video on how our flawed education system is a product of industrial age thinking. 

5. Socrates said, "I know that I know nothing."
(more precisely: This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing [anything]. On the other hand, I – equally ignorant – do not believe [that I know anything].)

6. TS Eliot was probably thinking of that when he wrote, "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

7.  Henry Rollins points to experience as key to true knowledge when he says, "You can sit in school all your life, which is cool to do for some years, but then you gotta take that knowledge and go out. Knowledge without mileage = bullshit to me.  So you have to take what you know and then go out into what Mark Twain called 'the territory' and break your nose on it."

8.  Thomas Sowell brings us back to Heraclitus when he defines the difference between intellect, intelligence, and wisdom:

"The capacity to grasp and manipulate complex ideas is enough to define intellect, but not enough to encompass intelligence, which involves combining intellect with judgment and care in selecting relevant explanatory factors and in establishing empirical tests of any theory that emerges. Intelligence minus judgment equals intellect.  
Wisdom is the rarest quality of all - the ability to combine intellect, knowledge, experience, and judgment in a way to produce a coherent understanding.  Wisdom is the fulfillment of the ancient admonition, 'With all your getting, get understanding. Wisdom requires self-discipline and an understanding of the realities of the world, including the limitations of one's own experience and of reason itself.  The opposite of intellect is dullness or slowness, but the opposite of wisdom is foolishness, which is far more dangerous."

9. Aristotle identified that man alone is a rational animal.  This ability to reason is what sets us apart from all the other animals.  As such, if we do not use this ability, if we do not practice it, refine it, strengthen it, feed it, then we are in essence, no better than animals.

10. Which is probably why Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living.

Intellect Is Not Enough...Four Quotes

I. From a report concerning men recruited to work for the OSS (Office of Strategic Services during WWII):

"The organization has been recruiting too many men, civilian or military, who have intelligence and sometimes the necessary mechanical training but who lack common sense, know nothing about working with men or how to look after the welfare and morale of the men under them. We simply must have men who can shoulder responsibility and use initiative with common sense. Simply because a man is intelligent does not qualify him for this type of work."


II. Then-Major Carstens, OIC of a SF detachment commanders' course in 2002, cited by MAJ
Major Fernando M. Luján in his report Light Footprints:The Future of American Military Intervention:

"The OSS, when selecting officers to parachute into occupied France, described the ideal candidate as a Ph.D. that can win a bar fight. We don't just want an officer that can carry a hundred-pound rucksack on his back. We need someone who can think and improvise." 
 

III. Statement made by German general Hermann Balck about a division commander in WWII on the eastern front:

"It is interesting to note, incidentally, that this fellow was a highly rated General Staff officer. Clever, but unfortunately not very practical. So we were always brought back to the fact that cleverness is a curse. Clausewitz once said, 'Man needs a harmony of strengths.'"


IV. Michael Kenney, From Pablo to Osama
 
"The concept, James C. Scott reminds us, comes from the ancient Greek poets and philosophers. Mētis refers to a broad range of practical skills that sailors, athletes, doctors, statesmen, and others use to respond to a 'a constantly changing natural and human environment,' including prudence, perceptiveness, ingenuity, elusiveness, and deceit. This crafty intelligence 'bears on fluid situations which are constantly changing and which at every moment combine contrary features and forces that are opposed to each other,' observe Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant, a pair of Greek classicists and two of the foremost authorities on the subject."

Why The Founders Matter

"It is fashionable in these days to regard [George] Washington- and America's other Founders - as irrelevant, as dead white men, as antiquated, and as morally abhorrent because some of them owned black slaves. This attitude is a mistake for any American to take.
The Founders remain vitally relevant to the conduct of American domestic politics and foreign policy, not because they could see the impact of such future developments as transcontinental railroads, the cell phone, ballistic missiles, Social Security, and nuclear weapons. They clearly could not, and so have little value to us as soothsayers.

The Founders eternal relevance for Americans is based on their study and knowledge of human beings, of how human beings act and interact, and of the manifest imperfectibility of human beings. When the Founders met in 1787 in Philadelphia to write the American Constitution, as the brilliant professor Daniel Robinson has said, they drew on the totality of the "political life of early America [which itself] is an extended treatise on the nature of human nature..." The Founders' wisdom must remain in the forefront of American thinking not because they were demigods but because they were, by their own admission, flawed human beings who used that knowledge about themselves and others to shape a nation capable of an ongoing effort to build an equitable society, preventing the growth of tyrannical power at home, and savvy enough to survive in a world of competitive nation-states and frequent wars.

- Michael Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq

The Four Kinds Of People

by Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord

"I divide my officers into four classes: the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid.  Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities.  Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy.  The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations.  But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!" 

Alternately quoted as:
"I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief."

(Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord (September 26, 1878 – April 25, 1943) was a German general who served for a period as Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr. He is famous for being an ardent opponent of Hitler and the Nazi regime.