George Washington, the Indispensable Man

Happy George Washington's Birthday. Some people were quite Surprised when President Obama spoke of George Washington in his inaugural address. It had seemed previous to the inauguration that Lincoln, FDR and JFK were his favorite past presidents. But there is a reason Washington is called the Indispensable Man, He was the right man in the right place at the right time to nurture an infant United States of America.

Rapid Progress in China and India

During our urgent economic crisis, it may be more difficult than usual to turn our attention away from immediate concerns to look at long-term trends outside the U.S. But here are two worth thinking about: The emphasis on education (including classical music education) in China and the progress brought about by economic liberalization in India. Comparisons with trends in the U.S. are worrisome.

The controversial Australian (I think) columnist Spengler, who writes for Asia Times, says, "Watch out, Americans - a generation from now, your kid is going to fetch coffee for a Chinese boss. That is a bit of an exaggeration, of course - some of the bosses will be Indian. Americans really, really don’t have a clue what is coming down the pike. The present shift in intellectual capital in favor of the East has no precedent in world history."

The main focus of this piece is the current emphasis on training in classical music in China, and its connection to the formation of a future intellectual elite: "It must be a conspiracy. Chinese parents are selling plasma-screen TVs to America, and saving their wages to buy their kids pianos - making American kids stupider and Chinese kids smarter." Spengler goes on to explain how studying classical music helps produce excellence in other fields. He hints at similar results from the study of classical languages (learning a contemporary foreign language helps, too). Read the whole thing, as they say.

Of course, economic liberalization made it possible for Chinese parents to give their kids piano lessons. Here is an interesting discussion of economic liberalization as it relates to the movie "Slumdog Millionaire", about a young orphan who is determined to become a millionaire. The video suggests that continuing economic liberalization in India could lead to many, many "Slumdog Thousandaires" with full stomachs.

Many of us would not think first of the protagonist of this movie as "greedy", although he seems quite interested in money. Here, Milton Friedman puts "Greed" in perspective on the old Phil Donahue show. Since that interview, further economic progress has been made in China and India due to economic liberalization in those countries.

As a general rule, I like to see some separation between those most interested in money and those most interested in political power. The best way I know of to limit the power of money in politics is to limit the scope of responsibility of individual politicians. When they start to diversify outside their "core business", trouble seems to follow sooner or later. I think our Founding Fathers, with their emphasis on separation of powers, were on the right track.

Jonah Goldberg is nostalgic for Phil Donahue's honorable treatment of guests with whom he disagreed. "I sort of grew up watching the Donahue show, and I will confess to often loathing him. But, truth be told, compared to most of the talk shows these days, the old Donahue show was the School of Athens."

Victor Davis Hanson knows something about the School of Athens. He taught Greek, Latin and ancient history to mostly minority students for twenty years while also operating a raisin farm. This interesting balance of life experiences seems to have given him an unusual outlook on life. He has some comments on educational decline in America. He especially points out the ability of a classical education to temper utopian thinking. The development of logic is also emphasized by such an education. Less utopian thinking and more logical thinking could probably help us navigate the future more successfully. The intellectual elite of our generation, many of whom have largely rejected the wisdom of the past, have certainly gotten America into an economic mess, with spill-over effects elsewhere in the world. Not that the intellectual elite in other countries have not contributed to the mess.

Now that most young Americans, including many college graduates, cannot follow a line of argument in a newspaper editorial, some of us may find ourselves going outside the standard educational system in America for a deeper education. But it may be a while before we can find a way to replace the influence of classical university education of the past, and its "trickle down" influence on primary and secondary education in the past.

Bureaucracy: Process vs. Principles and Results

David and I participated in an interview yesterday which reminded me of this devastating piece about the ability of bureaucracies to overlook or dismiss glaring problems. Functionaries in these bureaucracies often seem unable to "think outside the box" because their job is defined by filling in forms and following procedures. They concentrate on process rather than on results. Sometimes they can see a problem which is outside their particular box, but can't think of a way to help.

We also ". . . recognize, as Orwell did, that the advantages to saying nothing at all in a bureaucratic world are very great. If you say nothing, no one can blame you for anything. It used to be the case that only macroeconomists were allowed to make deliberately ambiguous statements. But today it is a general virtue to be like Sergeant Schultz. I know nothing, I see nothing."

In our case, a degraded, corrupt government institution takes the place of a depraved "family" as the first problem in the story described by Richard Fernandez in the link above. I can't get into details. In both our case and the case described by Fernandez, agencies which should exert oversight seem remarkably adept at not seeing or responding to the "big picture" or at seeing problems as someone else's responsibility or as insoluble dilemmas.

Without standard procedures, many agencies would be plagued by confusion and favoritism (even more favoritism than currently exists). But I believe that laws, regulations and standardized procedures often set agencies up to miss what is important, especially when the problems they face change form even a little. As Stephen R. Covey suggests, it's important that your ladder is taking you up the right wall. This is one reason not to leave "the authorities" to deal with all our societal problems.

Back to the Fernandez piece: He links a couple of articles by Theodore Dalrymple on the dismaying recent changes in British family life. If I recall correctly, Dalrymple is not a religious man, having been disillusioned at a religious school when young. But he still recognizes the importance of religious traditions in a formerly stable society:

". . . As the liberal newspapers’ response shows, the problem with British childhood is by no means confined to the underclass. Our society has lost the most elementary common sense about what children need.

More than four out of ten British children are born out of wedlock; the unions of which they are the issue are notoriously unstable. Even marriage has lost much of its meaning. In a post-religious society, it is no longer a sacrament. The government has ensured that marriage brings no fiscal advantages and, indeed, for those at the lower end of the social scale, that it has only disadvantages. Easy divorce means that a quarter of all marriages break up within a decade.

The results of this social dysfunction are grim for children. Eighty percent of British children have televisions in their bedrooms, more than have their biological fathers at home. . . . "

Usually, government bureaucrats are addressing real problems and have good intentions. Often, they actually make a positive difference, especially when an agency is small, new and flexible. But over time, just as in private business, many government bureaucracies become bigger, more rigid, more expensive, more controlled by special interests and less helpful. Lawrence M. Miller describes two types of problematic bureaucrats, the unresponsive and the overly aggressive or controlling. In private business, these bureaucrats tend to develop aristocratic attitudes which help lead to the downfall or painful shake-up of many organizations. In government, dysfunctional institutions and bureaucracies afflicted with the same types of bureaucrats and "aristocrats" tend to survive much longer in a degraded state, propped up by taxpayer money and government clout - they're often just too big and powerful to challenge.

I tend to see the growth of government social programs as a sign of failure in society. And sometimes, those social programs end up causing social problems in their own right. I would like to concentrate more on getting things right to begin with, so some government agency doesn't have to pretend to fix problems by filling in forms or by handing out money (often not to the people who need help). I am going to put more energy into living and teaching timeless, basic principles as a way to avoid (as well as solve) problems. Here's one place to start. I have not been diligent in my New Year's program (can't really call it a resolution) to work through this book more carefully. Time to get going.

Lincoln's 200th birthday. Darwin's, too.

The USA doesn't celebrate Lincoln's Birthday anymore. Now we just have the amorphous "President's Day".

Today is the 200th birthday of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. Google is only recognizing Darwin's birthday. Interesting, in light of the attention President Obama has given to Abraham Lincoln during his campaign and leading up to the inauguration.