It's been more than a couple of months since I've written anything in this space. I have several really good excuses for my failure to write- a real sin in my personal list of life offences. First and foremost I just haven't found anything that moved me to write. That's not to say that there haven't been some events worthy of thought and debate. There most certainly have been. The police violence and rioting in Baltimore, the so-called military exploits of ISIS in Iraq- and constant Obama bashing over it, the growing herd of Republican Presidential candidates jumping in the clown car, the never-ending Benghazi/Email/Clinton Foundation/Chipotle.. made-up Hillary scandals all come to mind. But in the end I found the public discourse on these subjects both silly and tiring, and I had no desire to weigh in. It all began to be noise and I just didn't want to make any more of it.
I also have the great excuse of traveling quite a bit over the last month or so. Through my work at Goodwill, I was able to travel to Washington DC where I took part in national advocacy events with members of Congress and their staff. I had been to DC before, but this was the first time roaming the halls of Senate and House Office Buildings where the real work (?) is done. Talking to Senators and House Members and their staff people left me with enough impressions to keep me writing essays for months- but I won't go into the specifics just now. Sufficed to say, it's fairly obvious why things are a mess in our national government these days. But it was an interesting experience and I learned a lot. Another great opportunity came right on the heels of the Washington trip, and that was our national convention in Colorado Springs. It was interesting to meet people from all over the country and compare notes on common issues- aside from the pure pleasure of meeting new people. I always find meeting new people be a great experience. Diversity does not abound in my town- so this is a great way to experience people who think and see things differently from me, most especially from differing racial perspectives. For instance, I had breakfast with several people from Baltimore the morning following the riots and I got to see their sadness and worry very closely and personally. It's the kind of thing one normally doesn't get on the news. I'm thankful for that experience.
My final good excuse is that I spent more time reading. I'm not one to spend a lot of time with books. My preferred method to get information about the world I live in is to scan over lots of material from different sources and media, but long hours on airplanes and the chance to relax a bit gave me the opportunity to read a few things. I was particularly pleased to read a couple of books by Fareed Zakaria. The two books of his I read were The Future of Freedom and In Defense of a Liberal Education. I particularly enjoy his perspective because he has an outstanding understanding of this country- yet he brings an interesting point-of-view from a person not raised in the U.S. His name might suggest he is from a middle-eastern country but he was actually raised in India. I also read the Elizabeth Warren book, A Fighting Chance. I was well aware of her point-of-view on economic issues, but I enjoyed the story of her upbringing and how those experiences informed her academic and political careers.
Well, those are my excuses. Good or bad I'm sticking to them. But, the lesson from all this travel, new people, new ideas, and new thoughts is that I should make a conscience effort to think better. How easy it is to get caught in the web of seeing events and experiencing the world from the same old sources and from the same old people.
I had wanted to read Zakaria's book on a liberal arts education since I first noticed it some weeks earlier. I'm a big believer in a strong liberal arts education. Over the last decade or more I have been disheartened to see so many young people tailor their education only towards the technical aspects of the jobs they hope to get, and ignore the benefits of a broader and more expansive education that favors arts and literature along with job-specific learning. I can't help but think that this phenomenon has been bolstered by the economic conditions wherein the middle class wages have remained low- placing more emphasis on "just making a living". The sad byproduct of this thinking is that a new generation of the workforce does not have "thinking skills" (let's call it critical thinking skills) those college educated people had a generation or two ago. Now, as a person who does a lot of hiring, I can see the deficits in people I hire. Even people coming to me for jobs and possessing a college degree are unable to write a coherent paragraph and use basic rules of the English language.
For me, the ability to write and use language well is a critical skill. It is critical to professional success for two reasons. The first is that so much of professional behavior in this age of "compliance and accountability" is the act of documenting one's work. The ability to accurately record thoughts and actions in our professional life is more important than ever- mostly because we have come to rely on data so heavily. Data is not always defined as numbers- but is more broadly defined as "information" and information must have words attached to it on some level. The second, and most important reason is that writing, according to Zakaria, teaches you how to think. He writes," the central virtue of a liberal education is that it teaches you to write, and writing makes you think. Whatever you do in life, the ability to write clearly, cleanly, and reasonably quickly will prove to be an invaluable skill."
"The second great advantage of a liberal education is that it teaches you how to speak. The Yale-NUS report states that the college wants to make 'articulate communication' central to its intellectual experience. That involves writing, of course, but also involves the ability to give compelling verbal explanations...At the deepest level, articulate communication helps you to speak your mind. This doesn't mean spouting anything and everything you're thinking at any given moment. It means learning to understand your own mind, to filter out under-developed ideas, and then to express to the outside world your thoughts, arranged in some logical order." Well said Fareed!
These notions about education and thought have always been important to me. At the risk of sounding snobbish about a liberal education (and please note that the use of the word "liberal" in this context is NOT political) I remain convinced of the old adage that an educated person is one who doesn't necessarily possess the most information- but is the person who possess the best ability to locate and process information. In other words, it is knowing how to think. I'm also convinced that this is not a quality that once achieved, can be relied upon thereafter and always. Like any other ability it must be exercised- it must be taken out and given a good workout on a regular basis. Writing these essays is my workout for thinking.
When I started this blog a few years ago I did it for very selfish reasons. I knew that what I may think about any particular topic would be largely unimportant to anyone else. But I wanted to create some forum to give myself exercise in both thinking and writing. I was creating a small rebellion in my own head against a world that had come to see writing as the expression of thoughts in 140 characters or less- a typical tweet. So much for the rebellion- more people than ever are "tweeting" and I'm still writing essays almost nobody reads. Nonetheless, I'll keep doing this and encourage others to read, and write, and think more- because I know it will make me think better- and I considerate trying to think better a worthy pursuit.
We are all facing a challenge over the next year and a half that will call upon us all to think better. President Obama called election time the "silly season" in 2008, and I can't think of a more apt name for our process of electing Presidents. The ability to think better is important for all of us no matter what our political leanings. My fear is that we have become victims of a culture that actually encourages the opposite of better thinking. The media and the talk-radio culture we now live in has served to dumb-down big portions of the country. I don't advocate silencing these purveyors of nonsense, and reasoning that can be summed up in a few hateful phrases meant for simpletons to repeat in famous "ditto-head" fashion. The Limbaugh's, Hannity's, O'Riley's, and other Fox News types have reduced our ability the think better. And they did it, not on the strength of the message, but by the constant and unrelenting volume of it. They make us reject analytical thinking and brow-beat us into giving up on our own efforts to think. What else could explain the emergence of Sarah Palin? I know some of the same criticism applies to the other side- but the shear amount and degree of non-sense coming from the Fox News Republicans make them too rich an example of doing damage to our minds to ignore. There was a time when journalism was sacred and not part of a media money machine. There was a time when conservatives made intellectual arguments and wrote eloquently in support of their ideas. There was a time when the public had the privilege of seeing both sides make honest arguments and the voting public had a better chance of casting more informed votes. These are not those days.
Given that important issues need to be resolved we must all make a commitment to think better. We have to understand the science behind climate change and quit calling people "arrogant" (Jeb Bush) for looking at evidence. We have to think about, and understand the intellectual truth of human rights and equal rights among them- and not be asked to suspend basic humanity because of religious dogma. We have to expect that our politicians give us more than slogans to explain the complex problems of the world because we think better and we now expect them to think better- write better- and speak better. I will always endeavor to think better and hope more of us will do the same.
Thanks for looking in.
