Highly recommended................

 

Have to admit that it was work finishing this book.  Also believe it was worth the effort.  His argument is subtle, but my takeaway is that Crawford is saying that in our haste to be autonomous, self-sufficient individuals - to be liberated from authority - we have lost connection our heritage, our traditions, our past.  This "isolation" creates a feeling of discomfort or anxiety.  To ease that tension, we take a poll - see what others are thinking.  Helped by the latest in technology (social media) to see what others are thinking, us "rugged individualists" become part of the herd, and in turn that herd gets manipulated by the latest in technology.  Ironically, Crawford seems to be saying that the path to true individuality is to be willing to be "in conflict with the world" and in collaboration with others - past and present - and the world.  Not accepting abstractions or representations but taking the world as it is - warts and all. "Arguably, what it takes to be an individual is to develop a considered evaluative take on the world, and stand behind it. Doing so exposes one to conflict, and in the conversations with others that follow you may revise your take on things.  Such developments can't occur if you're not attached to anything to being with, or never put it forward to others as being choiceworthy."

inexplicable....................

 I will not attempt to sound the depths of psychoanalysis to explain human behavior, which is inexplicable as life itself.  More than sex or infantile aberrations, I believe that most of our ideational compulsions stem from atavistic causes—however, I did not have to read books to know that the theme of life is conflict and pain.  Instinctively, all my clowning was based on this.  My means of contriving comedy plot was simple.  It was the process of getting people in and out of trouble.

-Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography

Rooting for "polarization".............

 “There are some encouraging signs of polarization.” Nothing flippant inheres in this remark; a long and risky life has persuaded him that only an open conflict of ideas and principles can produce any clarity. Conflict may be painful, but the painless solution does not exist in any case and the pursuit of it leads to the painful outcome of mindlessness and pointlessness; the apotheosis of the ostrich.

-from Marc Andreessen's substack

Highly recommended..................

 

Self-esteem is a huge factor to negotiation, and many people set modest goals to protect it.  It's easier to claim victory when you aim low.  That's why some negotiation experts say that many people who thing they have "win-win" goals really have a "wimp-win" mentality.  The "wimp-win" negotiator focuses on his or her bottom line, and they's where they end up. . . . Remember, never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better.

Figuring out what the other party is worried about sounds simple, but our basic human expectations about negotiation often gets in the way.  Most of us tend to assume that the needs of the other side conflict with our own.  We tend to limit our field of vision to our issues and problems, and forget that the other side has its own unique issues based on its own unique world view.  Great negotiators get past these blinders by being relentlessly curious about what is really motivating the other side.

If this book accomplishes only one thing, I hope it gets you over that fear of conflict and encouraged you to navigate it with empathy.  If you're going to be great at anything—a great negotiator, a great manager, a great husband, a great wife—you're going to have to do that.  You're going to have to ignore that little genie who's telling you to give up, to just get along—as well as the genie who's telling you to lash out and yell.

     You're going to have to embrace regular, thoughtful conflict as the basis of effective negotiation—and of life.  Please remember that our emphasis throughout the book is that the adversary is the situation and that the person you appear to be in conflict with is actually your partner.

     More than a little research has shown that genuine, honest conflict between people over their goals actually helps the problem-solving process in a collaborative way.  Skilled negotiators have a talent for using conflict to keep the negotiation going without stumbling into a personal battle. . . .

     And so I'm going to leave you with one request.  Whether it's in the office or around the family dinner table, don't avoid honest, clear conflict.  It will get you the best car price, the higher salary, and the largest donation.  It will also save your marriage, your friendship, and your family.

On confusing mixes...............

     Mo matter how much we struggle for financial abundance, we'll have a hard time attaining it if we disapprove of those who have it.  If we're saying one thing but thinking another, we'll always end up with confused results.  Many people set themselves up to lose, working hard yet giving an ambivalent message to the universe about whether or not they really want money.
     Thoughts like "I want it, but I shouldn't want it, so I guess no, I don't really want it; but actually I do want it, but I don't want to admit that I want it" indicate ambivalence.  This confusing mix of thoughts inevitably brings forth a confusing mix of experiences.  Many people fail to manifest money because on some deep level they don't think they should.

-Marianne Williamson,  The Law of Divine Compensation

Hierarchy vs Network....................

The incumbent structure is hierarchy, and it represents established and accredited authority—government first and foremost, but also corporations, universities, the whole roster of institutions from the industrial age.  Hierarchy has ruled the world since the human race attained meaningful numbers.  The industrial mind just made it bigger, steeper, and more efficient.  From the era of Rameses to that of Hosni Mubarak, it has exhibited predictable patterns of behavior:  top-down, centralizing, painfully deliberate in action, process-obsessed, mesmerized by grand strategies and five-year plans, respectful of rank and order, but contemptuous of the outsider, the amateur.

Against this citadel of the status quo, the Fifth Wave has raised the network;  that is, the public in revolt, those despised amateurs now connected to one another by means of digital devices.  Nothing within the bounds of human nature could be less like a hierarchy.  Where the latter is slow and plodding, networked action is lightning quick but unsteady in purpose.  Where hierarchy has evolved a hard exoskeleton to keep every part in place, the network is loose and pliable—it can swell into millions or dissipate in an instant.

Digital networks are egalitarian to the brink of dysfunction.  Most would rather fail in an enterprise than acknowledge rank or leaders of any sort. . . . Networks succeed when held together by a single powerful point of reference—an issue, person, or event—which acts as  a center of gravity and organizing principle for action.

Typically, this has meant being against.  If hierarchy worships the established order, the network nurtures a streak of nihilism.

-Martin Gurri,  The Revolt of the Public

Conflicts of interest..........................

Back in the 1960's, the scientific community was at odds about whether sugar or fat was the culprit in the increasing rates of heart disease.  In 1967, three Harvard scientists conducted a comprehensive review of the research to date, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that firmly pointed the finger at fat as the culprit.  The paper was, not surprisingly, influential in the debate on diet and heart disease.  After all, the NEJM is and was a prestigious publication and the researchers were, all three, from Harvard.  Blaming fat and exonerating sugar affected the dies of hundreds of millions of people for decades, a belief that caused a massive shift in eating habits that has been linked to the massive increase in obesity rates and diabetes.
     The influence of this paper and its negative effects on America's eating habits and health provides a stunning demonstration of the imperative of disinterestedness.  It was recently discovered that a trade group representing the sugar industry had paid the three Harvard scientists to write the paper, according to an article published in JAMA Internal Medicine in September 2016.  Not surprisingly, consistent with the agenda of the sugar industry that had paid them, the researchers attacked the methodology of studies finding a link between sugar and heart disease and defended studies finding no link.  The scientists' attacks on and defenses of the methodology of studies on fat and heart disease followed the same pro-sugar pattern.
     The scientists involved are all dead.  Were they alive, it's possible, if we could ask them, that they may not have even consciously known they were being influenced.  Given human nature, they likely, at least, would have defended the truth of what they wrote and denied that the sugar industry dictated or influenced their thinking on the subject.  Regardless, had the conflict of interest been disclosed, the scientific community would have viewed their conclusions with much more skepticism, taking into account the possibility of bias due to the researchers' financial interest.  At the time, the NEJM did not require such disclosures.  (That policy changed in 1984.)    That omission prevented an accurate assessment of their findings, resulting in serious harm to the health of the nation.

-Annie Duke, Thinking In Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

On skin in the game...................

"There is no problem if people have a conflict of interest if it is congruous with downside risk for themselves."

-Nassim Nicholas Taleb,  Skin In The Game:  Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

I don't always read David Brooks..............

..................................but when I do, it is usually because he has written something like this:


But throughout history the wiser minds have understood that anger and moral posturing are not a good antidote to rage and fanaticism. Competing vitriols only build on each other.


In fact, the most powerful answer to fanaticism is modesty. Modesty is an epistemology directly opposed to the conspiracy mongering mind-set. It means having the courage to understand that the world is too complicated to fit into one political belief system. It means understanding there are no easy answers or malevolent conspiracies that can explain the big political questions or the existential problems. Progress is not made by crushing some swarm of malevolent foes; it’s made by finding balance between competing truths — between freedom and security, diversity and solidarity. There’s always going to be counter-evidence and mystery. There is no final arrangement that will end conflict, just endless searching and adjustment.


-as culled from his August 15th op-ed in the NYT

Do not understand me too quickly.......

     He was changing in deeper ways, too.  Defining his own public identity meant clarifying his own beliefs, as opposed to those that had come from Jack.  Few could see those critical differences even when the two were working side by side.  Both men were pragmatic, but Bobby was more willing to experiment with radical solutions and spend political capital.  Both talked about promoting Negro rights and battling poverty, but Bobby felt injustice on a gut level and lost sleep over it in ways that his imperturbable and cerebral brother never did.  Bobby also embraced contradiction in ways neither Jack nor Teddy wanted to or could.  His realism butted up against his romanticism even as the existentialist in him looked for ways to coexist with the politician.  He was half ice, half fire.  How, observers wondered, could someone so shy be so intimidating?  Was it possible to love both Albert Camus and roughhouse football?  "Robert Kennedy's motto," said the Village Voice's Jack Newfield, "could have been, 'Do not understand me too quickly.' ... His most basic characteristics were simple, intense, and in direct conflict with each other.  He was constantly at war with himself."

-Larry Tye,  Bobby Kennedy:  The Making of a Liberal Icon

Realpolitik........................

The effects of the long-term presence of two expansive religious ideologies, each originally foreign to the Andalusian ethic, transformed the nature of the conflicts at hand.  They made religious-ideological warfare a reality, cultural orthodoxy a real possibility, and monochromatic identity a realizable ideal.  And yet it must be said that neither Castilian Christians nor the Nasrid Muslims of Grenada were ever vociferous advocates of these notions, although certainly both societies moved toward far more conspicuous levels of religious segregation and intolerance.  They nevertheless continued to deal with each other in a universe characterized by realpolitik and by cultural openness of the sort that led to the building of Seville's Alcazar in the fourteenth century.

-Maria Rosa Menocal,  Ornament Of The World:  How Muslims, Jews, And Christians`Created A Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain

The year was 1822.....................

     What kind of nation was America to be?  Virtually all Americans believed that their country was different in nature from the nations of Europe, for it had been founded in principle, not conquest.*  How as a principled power to behave in an unprincipled world?   The United States would not seek colonies, as European powers did?  Would it permit them to survive on its own continent?  Would it seek to evict them?  America's great and successful experiment with republicanism had inspired brave men to fight for their freedom elsewhere in the world.  What would Americans say when they asked for help?   "Go thou and do likewise!," John Quincy Adams had proclaimed at the end of his July 4 oration - go, that is, and seize power from tyrants.  Adams would confine America to the role of spectator of this great drama.  But prudent circumspection was not very much in the American grain.  Henry Clay and many other leading figures believed that the United States could and should play a transformative role in the world.

-James Traub,  John Quincy Adams:  Militant Spirit

* Ed. note:  As a side note, the history major in me believes that maybe this land was already occupied when the country was established, plus there wasn't there a French & Indian War thing?

Untenable and personal...................

As the nation rapidly expanded and diversified, the Founding Fathers ideal of a single patriotic national interest became increasingly untenable.  Sectional interests had long pitted the manufacturers and traders of New England against the agriculturists of the South.  But now the nation's center of gravity was shifting as settlers poured into the west.  Between 1810 and 1820 the number of Americans living beyond the Appalachians doubled from one to two million.  Between 1816 and 1821, five new Western states were admitted to the union - Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, and Missouri.  (Maine was also admitted in 1820.)  The absence of organized parties meant that interests gathered around individuals and thus that the inevitable clash of interest and ideology would be intensely, and often brutally, personal.  It was not, of course, in John Quincy Adams' nature to minimize conflict.  The seven years he would spend in President Monroe's cabinet would be a period of fierce rivalry, rising suspicion, and, finally, open political warfare.

-James Traub,  John Quincy Adams:  Militant Spirit

About equality.........

“Jealousy is the foundation of equality, but not of liberty; putting man constantly on his guard against the encroachments of his neighbors. It prevents affability between different classes. There is no society without affection, without tradition, without respect, without mutual amenity.” 
-Ernest Renan

Interesting times........................

      In late August, 1,500 farmers blocked the  Court of Common Pleas in Northampton, and then moved on to Worcester, Taunton, Concord, and Great Barrington.  In several cases, militia conscripts refused a direct order from Governor Nathaniel Bowdoin to disperse the protestors.   The populist insurgency, known as Shays' Rebellion, seemed to threaten the legitimacy of government itself, and turned even the most fiery revolutionaries into defenders of the established order.  Samuel Adams, hero of the Boston Tea Party, helped sponsor the Riot Act, which authorized the suspension of habeas corpus.
      Harvard knew very well where it stood in a battle between merchants and farmers with pitchforks.  Harrison Gray Otis recruited a light infantry from among his friends to be put at the disposal of the governor.  John Quincy Adams had no fortune to protect and no intention of joining a militia, but in this, the first serious political conflict of his adult life, he immediately arrayed himself with the forces of duly constituted order.  He had no sympathy for the protestors' complaints.  "Citizens," he wrote in his journal, "must look to themselves, their idleness, their dissipation and extravagance, for their grievances."

-James Traub,  John Quincy Adams:  Militant Spirit


By way of background, from the Gospel of Wikipedia:

Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Massachusetts (mostly in and around Springfield) during 1786 and 1787. Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led four thousand rebels (called Shaysites) in rising up against perceived economic injustices and suspension of civil rights (including multiple eviction and foreclosure notices) by Massachusetts, and in a later attempt to capture the United States' national weapons arsenal at the U.S.Armory at Springfield. Although Shays' Rebellion met with defeat militarily against a privately raised militia, it prompted numerous national leaders (including George Washington, who came out of retirement to deal with issues raised by Shays' Rebellion) to call for a stronger national government to suppress future rebellions, resulting in the U.S. Constitutional Convention and according to historian Leonard L. Richards, "fundamentally altering the course of U.S. history."^[1]

Cognitive dissonance..............

Opinion polling shows how far cognitive dissonance on this point has progressed.  When asked, millions of people will say that the two parties are (a) so much alike as to be virtually indistinguishable, and (b) too much occupied in partisan warfare.  The two "perceptions" are not necessarily opposed:  party conflict could easily be more and more disagreement about less and less - what Sigmund Freud characterized in another context as "the narcissism of small differences."

-Christopher Hitchens, as excerpted from his Wilson Quarterly essay of Autumn, 2004, as found in this collection of essays

Conflicted........................

"Observing heated political conflict in the U.S. today, one does not know whether to shake one’s head in sadness or to be thankful that it provides a relatively non-violent outlet for group hatred."
-Arnold Kling, as excerpted from this post

Lessons learned................................

    "The point is, in business you shouldn't self-destruct just because the other side takes a surprisingly aggressive attitude.  Don't let personalities scare you away - because in a lifetime you are going to be selling to a lot of obnoxious people.  Stay focused on your goals and stay in the game."
-Mark McCormack

I grew up in a conflict adverse household.  As a result, confrontation has often been difficult for me and there was a time I would go to great - and not helpful - lengths to avoid it.   Then there was this client about ten years ago who, in a bit of pique,  slammed his fist on our conference table and got fairly red-in-the-face mad at me.  Trapped, it was a confrontation I could not avoid.  Just had to hang in there.  At meeting's end, a half hour later, you might have thought he was my best friend.  I learned a great lesson that day.  Some conflicts cannot be avoided, and that is just OK.

Sometimes you just have to engage........

via

Some one has been reading their Sun Tzu....

.........................................or, mischief making via the Intertunnel.

For those not familiar with Sun Tzu (shame on you), here are a couple of nuggets from the first chapter of his The Art of War:

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.  

If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

via