On Making Mistakes

My father was from the old school.  He insisted that whatever I did, I had to get it right from the outset.  If I made a mistake, however minor, he would land on me like a ton of bricks.  This was evidence of my incompetence and therefore unacceptable.

My father also insisted that I learn from his mistakes.  Because he had experience whereas I did not, I was to benefit from his example.  When he gave me advice based on his years of living, I was to accept it and put it into immediate action.

Naturally, this rankled.  Like most young persons I wanted to control my own destiny.  I was not my father and hence I wanted to find my own way.  Nonetheless, he was my father and there was a price to pay for defying him.

It therefore took me years to put his demands in perspective.  Initially, I became risk averse.  If mistakes confirmed my ineptitude, the best way to protect my self-image was to avoid anything new.  The tried and true path was the one with which I was acquainted; the one where I recognized the pitfalls.

Eventually I realized that this was a prescription for failure.   People who do not venture into unfamiliar territory become their own jailors.  They never do things worthy of admiration because they keep themselves from accomplishing anything notable.

In time, I came to understand that the problem was not making mistakes, but failing to learn from them.  While it was true that mistakes are to be shunned if possible, this is not always feasible.  Exercising foresight and caution makes sense; nevertheless previously untried activities almost invariably hold surprises.

I also came to appreciate that although it is difficult to admit failures, I couldn’t correct them if I did not.  While it was not always necessary to advertise these to strangers, it was not a good idea to fool myself.  This only blinded me to what needed to be done.

Today, I offer this advice to my students as they struggle to absorb new materials.  I want them to realize that we grow when we allow ourselves to expand our horizons.  We likewise become more successful when we incorporate the lessons of our missteps.

So why does Barak Obama not know this?  He isn’t a child and has had many years of advanced education.  He has also been president for nearly six years where he has been privy to information available to few others.  Moreover, the best advice from the most accomplished experts is at his beck and call.

So why hasn’t he learned.  That a neophyte president would make mistakes was predictable.  After all, the problems he faces are immense and often one of a kind.  But when shovel ready projects did not turn out to be shovel ready, why didn’t he make the pivot he proclaimed?

And when relations with Russia soured and the Iranians failed to respond to his blandishments, why didn’t he modify his policies?  Couldn’t he, like George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, do a course correction?  He didn’t have to engage in a public mea culpa.  All that was necessary was to learn from his experience.

But neither has the Democratic Party learned.  ObamaCare is exploding before our eyes, the VA is a basket case, and we recently traded five enemy leaders for a single deserter, but for them it is business as usual.  Most Democrats, certainly the leadership, reflexively endorse whatever the president does.

Elected officials, and the party rank and file, may believe that in doing so they are protecting their long-term interests.  They are mistaken.  So was Charley Wilson.   This former president of General Motors once erroneously told us that what was good for the country was good for General Motors—and vice versa.

Democrats should take note.  What is good for the nation is good for them, but not necessarily the other way around.  They need to learn that their first duty is to help their country—or they too will be in trouble.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Liberal Privlege

One of the current liberal clichés tells us that “whites” are privileged.  The color of their skin evidently bestows benefits others do not receive.  They are therefore supposed to be grateful and defer to those who are less fortunate.

But in what does this “privilege” consist?  Yes, whites have not been discriminated against the way African-Americans have.  They have not been denied jobs or forced to drink from separate fountains because of the pigmentation of their epidermis.  This is surely an advantage—but how big an advantage.

Charges of white privilege make it sound as if every Caucasian is automatically successful.  The fact is that most are not.  Few are born with silver spoons in their mouths.  The vast majority needs to work hard to achieve the objectives they desire.

Far more pervasive is “liberal privilege.”  The very people who accuse others of not being sufficiently grateful for their status are guilty of taking their own advantages for granted.  Liberals do not seem to recognize the special treatment they receive.  They actually believe they are nicer and smarter than others as a result of having been allowed to get away with this conceit.

Liberals, because they are liberal, assume that they are more compassionate than anyone who disagrees with them.  From elementary school on, they are praised for their concerns about the welfare of others—even though this kindness is only manifested in verbal declarations.

Likewise, from the earliest grades their teachers applaud their superior intelligence.  Since they agree with the principles they are being taught and regurgitate them on cue, they are regarded as unusually perceptive.  Critical thinking, although orally encouraged, is, in practice, punished.

And so liberals grow up in a bubble of self-deception.  Their self-esteem is grounded in conforming to beliefs that do not accord with reality, but which nevertheless earn them gold stars and certificates of achievement.

Then they enter the real world.  Yet for them it is not altogether real.  The books they read and the television shows they watch confirm their special status.  Liberal newsreaders and authors assure them that they are better than their conservative peers.  Clearly, they are more generous and insightful than these relics.

If liberals decide to enter politics, the effusive praise is ladled on with a bucket.  They quickly learn that being liberal means they never have to say they are sorry.  Whatever mistakes they make will be blamed on their opponents.  That they have good intensions is sufficient to merit adulation, no matter what the outcomes.

Liberals can destroy the economy, but hey, no one could have done better.  They can undermine the national security, but at least they were showing the appropriate humility.  They can drive their country into bankruptcy, but this only confirms their compassion.

If one is a liberal, any nasty thing one might say about an opponent is passed over in silence.  The cruelest invective is regarded as appropriate, given the sins of the target.  Even vulgarity is excused because it emphasizes the understandable passion of the speaker.

If one is a liberal, lies are accepted as essential to promoting benevolent causes.  The rabble does not appreciate the benefits heaped upon them; hence it is okay to manipulate them into submission.  Whatever the falsehood, the worst criticism will be that one “misspoke.”  Or maybe that one was quoted “out of context.”

Is this not privilege?  Is it not a form of protection others do not obtain?  Yet liberals consider it their due.  They become huffy if their motives are questioned.  Then they drive up truckloads of excuses they expect to be accepted without dissent.  If this still doesn’t work, they attack their critics as playing politics (which, of course, they do not).

Nowadays, when publically queried, liberals trot out focus group tested talking points.  After this, they stonewall their questioner by changing the subject.  But the full depth of their privilege is revealed when the pubic subsequently refuses to be outraged.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Osage Oranges

Most fruits are edible.  Their appearance is pleasant and their taste is appealing—at least to some animals.  This seems not to be the case with the Osage orange.  Native to Texas, when ripe the Osage is spherical and yellow.  It looks like a prickly orange, but the comparison stops there.

The Osage most certainly does not taste like an orange.  Its juice is milky and acrid and its texture stringy.  Once thought poisonous, it is merely distasteful to humans and most other creatures.  As a result, virtually all avoid it despite its superficial attractiveness.

But why am I writing about Osage oranges?  This column has never before been dedicated to the culinary arts. The answer lies in the Bible.  While I am not a religious man, even I know that the Bible contains a great deal of wisdom.  One piece of it crossed my mind not long ago.

The saying is familiar: You will know them by their fruit (Matthew 7:16).  This struck me as an apt warning with regard to Barack Obama and his crowd.  Superficially they are an attractive bunch.  Well spoken and given to lofty aspirations, they can sound like the heralds of a brave new world.

But we have been living with them for nigh on six years and the fruit of their labors is bitter and noxious.  Few have as yet perished from their works, yet we are in more danger than we once were.

Liberals specialize in promises.  They are always telling us about the wonderful protections they intend to deliver.  Convinced that they are super-compassionate and super-smart, they evidently know best.

The trouble is that good intensions are like seeds.  Too often we cannot tell what they will grow into until long after they germinate.  Unfortunately, the Obama promises have turned out rather like Osage oranges.  They have not yet killed many of us, but a steady diet of them might.

The litany of failures has grown too long to be cited every time there is a need to document the incompetence of the current administration.  Nonetheless, it includes ObamaCare, the VA scandal, the IRS debacle, the Benghazi affair, a foreign policy from hell and a toxic superciliousness that does not travel well.

What then is the point of stating the obvious?  By now even Democrats acknowledge that Obama is a poor administrator.  Detached and surrounded by yes-men and women, he doesn’t even learn of problems in his own government until he reads about them in the paper.

So my question is: Why has it take us so long to reach these conclusions?  After all, it was less than two years ago that we rejected the stability of a Mitt Romney for the razzle-dazzle of Barack Obama.  What were we thinking?

Didn’t we have enough evidence that the economy had not recovered?  Weren’t there enough straws in the wind to suggest that our international stature was declining?  Couldn’t voters see through Democratic assurances that things were getting better?

As to the future, are we going to be in exactly the same position when Hillary Clinton runs for president?  When she tells us that she will fix the ObamaCare mess or that under her tutelage our foreign relations will improve, will we believe her?

Judging from what she has already achieved, there is little reason to give her promises credence.  Wasn’t she the one who hatched that reset button with Russia?  And didn’t she, in another lifetime, attempt to force HillaryCare down our throats?

As for Benghazi, she tells us she had nothing to do with that fiasco.  Other people messed it up.  But if so, why wasn’t she involved?  Let’s not forget she was in charge, so does that mean she was as much a hands-off administrator as Obama?

I am beginning to detect the whiff of Osage oranges in the air.  Hillary may look good from afar, but do we really want another four years of hyperbole and good intensions?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Major Surgery

Barack Obama is fond of telling us he intends to take a scalpel to fixing social problems.  Not for him an indiscriminate meat cleaver that will cut away the healthy flesh along with the diseased tissue.  Unlike his critics, he can tell the difference and therefore, like a good doctor, refuses to do harm.

Then again Barack Obama has never met a bureaucracy he didn’t like.  Whatever the difficulty, he plans either to throw money at an existing government agency or to create a new one expressly to supplement the old one.

No wonder our president has dithered in his approach to resolving the Veteran’s Administration dilemma.  He does not understand that some bureaucracies can only be repaired by grabbing an axe and cutting them down to the roots.

Bureaucracies gone wrong are analogous to cancers.  They grow uncontrollably and metastasize wildly.  Rogue organizations always employ more people than they need—especially administrators.  And they always spew out toxic regulations that destroy whatever they touch.

This is why sclerotic bureaucracies must be drastically slashed.  Whether they are governmental, educational, medical, or commercial, tiptoeing around their edges only allows their occupants to devise defensive strategies.  They become experts in obscuring their malfeasance from outsiders who do not know better.

Among commercial organizations, market discipline takes care of the more egregious bad actors.  Because they must compete with other enterprises, they need to be efficient or go out of business.  The result is that during economic downturns, executives fearful of becoming unemployed downsize.

Government workers have no such fears.  Often in cahoots with the politicians who hire them, they know their financial contributions and votes will keep their “friends” in line.  All they need to do is rattle their checkbooks and plans to curb abuses are set aside.

This is why public bureaucracies must be reformed from the outside.  Those who lead and sponsor them are usually motivated to maintain the status quo.  Since both benefit from organizational gigantism, whatever they tell aggrieved outsiders, they persist in feeding the beast.

 Nor can genuine correctives be modest.  Small wounds are readily papered over.  Organizational functionaries isolate them so that they do not weaken the basic structure, or culture, of the enterprise.

Bureaucracies, it must be understood, are networks of interlocking offices and lengthy ladders of authority that are linked together by a communal culture.  Upset one element and the others are upset.  As a result, those not yet touched by a change rush into the breach because they know their own positions will be in jeopardy if they do not.

We have seen this at the VA.  It is also true of the IRS, the Pentagon, the EPA, the Department of Justice, the State Department, the CIA, Social Security, Head Start, the Department of Education, and, of course, the Department of Health and Human Services.  Rest assured, it will also be true of Obamacare.

Many commentators have observed that the VA’s problems are not new.  They also realize that stopgap fixes have not worked.  They therefore recommend that the agency be replaced by another program—such as vouchers.

This is a good first step.  But it is only a first step.  The federal government has become absurdly bloated.  Just as Ronald Reagan advised, but was unable to accomplish, it must be reduced in size.  –Not eliminated, but reorganized and streamlined.

Standing in the way, however, is the Bureaucratic (aka Democratic) Party.  Despite protests to the contrary, the liberal ideal is socialism.  The objective is for the government to own—or control—virtually all of the economy.  This is regarded as essential for social justice.

Yet real justice is grounded in freedom and freedom cannot flourish when trampled on by government bureaucracies.  So let’s get out the meat cleavers because government officials will not take the appropriate action on their own unless forced to do so.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University