Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 444

 

Here is an excerpt from a book I recently read, "Triumph of the Yuppies: America, the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation," by Tom McGrath.

TV in the 1960s - from Dick Van Dyke to "Leave it to Beaver" - had largely been defined by middle-class families doing middle-class things. TV in the early 1970s, from "All in the Family" to "M*A*S*H," had developed a social conscience. But "Dallas" went in a completely new direction: It was unabashedly about a rich and powerful elite who loved to spend money - their shoulder pads and designer handbags telegraphed power and wealth - and lived by their own code. It was a show about free enterprise and success, and if some of its characters were unscrupulous, that only made it more enticing to watch. Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu, a hard-line Communist, allowed the series to be aired in his country, believing it would show his fellow citizens the evils of capitalism. His decision backfired, as Romanians began seeking out the lavish lifestyles they were seeing on the series.

What Am I Working On

 

As has become my custom every six months, here's what I'm working on now at work. I won't repeat anything from last time that I happen to still be working on, and for confidentiality's sake I have to blur some of the details for some of these studies.

Economic impact of a major public university in the south that has an elite athletics program.

Economic impact of a major private university in the northeast that has a very large research budget.

Economic impact of a small Christian university in the Midwest.

Economic impact of a public university in New Jersey.

Economic impact of a community college system on the West Coast.

Supplier diversity analysis for a small urban school district in Pennsylvania.

Supplier diversity analysis for a large East Coast municipality's federal contract department.

Economic impact of an urban hospital that is in the midst of a major financial turnaround.

Economic impact for a non-profit that manages public golf courses in a major East Coast city.

Feasibility study for a proposed university-affiliated research center in New Jersey.

To the Extremes

 

A casualty of increasingly divisive culture is a relative lack of exposure to and contemplation of opposing views. But America is only great as our plurality. I regret that we not only no longer consider contrarian perspectives, but even worse our reflexes are attuned to immediately reject and scorn them. 

I’m lucky to have people in my life who are thoughtful enough to strongly hold extreme positions in a reasoned way and to educate me on why they believe what they believe. To be sure, some of these positions I find very difficult to accept. But I respect the viewpoint and the people who hold them. 

Fundamentally, I think that modern discourse depends on that open-mindedness. And I think that societal progress depends on understanding what people want, learning where those wants are coming from, and forging compromises to accomplish as much as possible that can move things forward. 

Conversely, we can choose to not listen, argue more, and get nothing done. I don’t like that scenario. Sure, it feels good to feel outrage with your own tribe and to vilify the other tribe. But, we must co-exist, so to not find ways to interact, engage, and maybe even exchange ideas is to make no progress on the things we all agree need to be done.

As a test of what you’ve been exposed to and how you react to it, here’s an impartial list of things I’ve heard people not only say but defend. Again, not that I agree, and in some cases I am naturally repulsed. But I at least understand the inner logic and personal passion that people bring to these perspectives, because someone has taken the time to explain it to me. What about you? How many of these do you believe? Or how many of these have you heard and dismissed out of hand without the benefit of someone close to you who can explain them to you? 

1. “From the river to the sea” is truly a call for the complete removal of Jews from lands they’re on, and that is justified
2. Abortion is wrong and should be severely restricted
3. All support of Palestine is pro-terrorist and anti-Israel
4. America is so irredeemably racist at its core that nothing less than revolution is acceptable
5. America will do better moving forward if it is a more intentionally Christian nation
6. Capitalism is broken and should be replaced with public provision of income, jobs, housing, and capital
7. Climate change is a hoax, and there should be far fewer environmental regulations placed upon industry
8. "DEI" is so bad it needs to be legislatively constrained
9. Men and women are fundamentally different, and societal roles should reflect that
10. People living in this country illegally should be deported
11. Police should be abolished and society operated in an anarchical state
12. Pornography should be outlawed and its distributors punished by the law
13. Property is theft
14. Theft is a legitimate form of protest
15. Violent protest (against property and people) is sometimes justified

You may very well be offended by the mere sharing of these statements. Indeed, I consider many of these borderline if not outright inflammatory. Yet I can also say, even if I vehemently disagree with some of them, that I know at least one person who strongly believes each of these statements, and has given me a cogent and substantiated argument for their belief. I have to believe you have had contact with these statements as well, so let me ask: are you lucky enough to know someone well enough who adheres to each of them that they can explain to you why they do?

1. 

Truth or Vibes

 

I am dismayed to observe that much of modern discourse unfolds as follows:

1. Someone "reports" on something that is sure to enrage half of America.

2. People see it and become enraged, the rage gets reported on, then more people see it and become enraged, and then the whole thing gets even more coverage.

3. At some point, someone asks, "hey, are we sure that report is true?" That person is roundly ignored and the outrage continues.

4. The conversation metastasizes into memes and other mockery, such that even as the media cycle moves onto other topics, this topic is memorialized in spirit.

I'll be the first to tell you that "truth" is elusive. Context matters, rational accounts may differ on the same event, and our collective understanding evolves over time. 

That said, to me that is different than "the truth really doesn't matter," or perhaps more to the point, "the truth is less important than things that reinforce what I already feel strongly about."

If you're nodding your head in agreement or thinking to yourself, "well, obviously...I would never be such a rube like that," ask yourself: when confronted with a headline or 5-second clip, how often do you yourself jump to the conclusion you've already previously drawn, and how often do you read the whole article or watch the whole video to see if the actual information might broaden or even change your perspective? It isn't easy to do that, but when we fail to we are elevating vibes over truth.

I've used this space often to lament that people no longer desire to keep an open mind, preferring instead to cocoon themselves in tribes that circulate fundamentally different sets of facts and feelings. America as a nation and ideal, and diversity being one of those ideals, depends on differences of opinions - that they are allowed to co-exist, that they are respected, and that we are stronger for the lack of consensus. 

"Vibes" may feel better, but truth, however uncomfortable or inconvenient, is still worth something nowadays. Will we be willing to dig for it, protect it, believe it?

Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 443

 

Here are a couple of excerpts from a book I recently read, "Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World," by Theresa MacPhail.

From a biological perspective, I can explain exactly what happened during my father’s last moments on earth. The underlying biology is, in many ways, the easiest part of the story to understand and to tell: My father’s immune system response was too effective for his own good. In Greek, anaphylaxis literally means “backward defense.” My dad’s immune system—built to protect him—was completely functional but overly sensitive, misrecognizing a naturally occurring, relatively innocuous substance as a direct threat. Once a heightened immune system reaction begins, it can be nearly impossible to stop. For the people who live with a severe allergy, the paradox of having such a strong, active immune system is that, in addition to protecting you from germs and parasites, it can kill you. And that’s exactly what happened to my dad.

We’re about to explore the major theories of allergy causation that focus on the effects of our “modern” lifestyles on our immune system function. The ways in which we produce, prepare, and eat food; the modern work culture with its continuous lack of sleep and high levels of stress; the antimicrobial agents, antiparasitics, and antibiotics that we use in human medicine and feed animals; gardening and our obsession with having a lush, grassy yard—all of these are suspects in the development and steady rise of allergies. While blame for allergy may have shifted from neurotic behaviors and anxious personalities in the nineteenth century to our diet and microbiome in the twenty-first, our culture and daily habits have come under steady scrutiny for the roles they may play in our increasing irritation for more than two hundred years. When all is said and done, we are right to blame ourselves, at least partially. Our entire modern lifestyle is likely at the root of the recent rise in allergies.

Who Are You Voting For

 

 

The 2008 presidential election pitted rising star Barack Obama against elder maverick John McCain. Fair or not, Obama painted the vote as a referendum on the Bush years. Part of tapping into a message of "hope" and "change" meant contrasting that with the previous eight years, which Obama gambled a majority of Americans wanted to move on from. 

I recall McCain, exasperated that "choose Obama over Bush" left him out of the discussion, once in a debate addressed Obama saying, "you're running against me; if you wanted to run against Bush you could've run in 2004." After all, while he was the same party as Bush, McCain certainly wasn't shy about acting independently and even in opposition of the Republican Party.

Thankfully, there was plenty of room in the national discourse to carry multiple threads, namely how do we feel about this new guy from Illinois, how do we feel after 8 years of Bush, AND in what ways would a McCain presidency contrast with an Obama one. Even as the election had a lot of style, it had a lot of substance that voters could look at and base their decisions on.

Fast forward to the present and you'll forgive me for wishing we had more substance in our coverage of yet another momentous presidential election, particularly of whether or not we have liked the 4 years of the Biden presidency. It would seem to me that if the standing VP is one candidate, and the previous president is the other, then whether the past 4 years have been good or not should be front and center in determining who we should vote for.

I for one believe that Biden has had a pretty successful presidency, but that's not quite the point I'm making in this post. I just feel that whether he has and why has felt woefully under-covered in the news. Sure we have our opinions about Joe the person, but Joe the president: has it been good or bad for America? And, for that matter, to what extent will Harris the president continue or change those things? To what extent would Trump take things back to 2016-2020 or go in a different direction?

Maybe I'm consuming the wrong sources, but I feel I am searching in vain for this kind of analysis. Strangely, the question "who are you voting for," for which the emphasis is usually on the "who" (as in, which candidate do you prefer) feels like it should give way to an emphasis on the "for" (as in, what exactly are you voting for when you are voting for your candidate). This deep into the cycle, it seems crazy to me that we don't really know.

Recommended Reads, 50th in a Quarterly Series

 

Books I've read lately that I would recommend:

Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet (Lorenz). Fascinating to trace each corner of the social media world from its origins, and to see how societal trends influence and are influenced by social.

 

Thicker Than Water: A Memoir (Washington). Being a fan of Kerry Washington the actress, I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Kerry Washington the person.

 

Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond (Winkler). Cool to go behind the scenes to understand the person behind such iconic characteristics as Arthur Fonzarelli and Barry Zuckercorn.

 

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (Knight). I was not at all aware of the humble beginnings for Nike the global powerhouse.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (van der Kolk). Absolute must-read if you have suffered trauma or support someone who does.

Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America (Harriot). I consider myself well-read but did not know most of the stories and angles in this book.

 

What My Book Reports Have to Do with Running a Successful Consulting Firm

 

It's been over a month since I stepped down from being co-president of the consulting firm where I work. I'm still there full-time, with a max load of bringing in work, doing work, and helping run the business. But I no longer have to worry about many roles that I had previously taken on in the position of co-president, for which I am grateful to have served and grateful to not have to carry anymore.

One thing that was previously on my plate was running our weekly staff meetings. I'm glad we are in the habit of coming together once a week to do shout-outs, celebrate birthdays, and make important announcements. I'll miss setting the agendas but will be glad to continue to get a free lunch every Wednesday!

One thing I often included on the agenda was a reading from a book I had recently completed. As you know from this blog space, I have been trying hard to read a lot, and to diversify the topics and authors I consume. These readings lent themselves to times of the year where it was apt to hear from particular voices. So, Black authors in February, or LGBTQ+ advocates during Pride Month. 

As a preface to the actual excerpts, I would often repeat some of my reasoning for these readings, and for the specific passages I chose, which is more than just a broader value for diversity. As a consulting firm, our job is to collect, interpret, and apply information. It is a noisy and contentious world, and I don't need to tell you that all too often opinions are formed in the absence of information, supported by biased information, or in outright defiance of the plain facts.

We can all complain about this. But the fact of the matter is that it's hard to do what we do, which is collect and interpret and apply information. I don't have an easy answer as to how to do this well. I do know that neglecting voices on the fringe is a sure way to do it poorly. Hence, the desire to elevate, hear from, and take seriously the perspectives of authors and lived experiences that may otherwise be on the margins of our attention spans.

I was always heartened when people asked me to repeat the title of the book I'd just read from. We have such a great group in so many ways, one way that is important to me being that they are open-minded, curious, and driven. If I was able to point them in the direction of a book that might otherwise be off their radar screen, it makes me feel good that they were able to put forth the effort to expand their worldview that much more. It's all I want for the people I work with.