The greatest evil is not one action; a murder, a rape, a day's torture. It is a state of being. It is the merciless persecution of people by exclusion, insult, intimidation, theft, vandalism and maybe violence. Day in, day out, pursuing this agenda of destroying others' lives for their own twisted personal reasons.
It isn't triggered by rage or insult, personal greed or any sort of deliberate intent. It is sheer thoughtlessness. One might call it a lack of compassion, but it's done by people who in other ways can be very compassionate, and isn't the same lack of compassion one finds in deliberate crime. One might call it selfish, but it's no more specifically due to selfishness than almost any action is.
It is thoughtlessness, low-level malevolence and a lack of principle. A valuing of immediate emotional concerns over principled action; partaking of the widespread belief that small unpleasantnesses don't really matter, especially when done to strangers, even though the person who ought to judge such a thing is the person to whom you're being unpleasant.
Anyone can avoid murdering a person. Someone who commits murder either doesn't subscribe to the same moral principles as the rest of us, or else was provoked beyond self-control.
But those same supposedly principled people who subscribe to moral rules and most stridently denigrate a murderer for his momentary loss of control will often be the same people who break their own principles in small ways every day, and will nevertheless feel self-righteous about themselves and their lives.
It is this hypocritical self-righteousness that is the greatest evil in the world. I can cope with murderers who claim that the rules are pointless and don't apply. I can cope with criminals who regret their misdeeds. I despise all the everyday bigotry, bullying and other hypocrisy that the self-righteous never admit is wrong.
Given that it is thoughtlessness that leads to some of this, is there some way to correct it? Well, of course there is; make people think about things. But the problem is then how to make people think about everything when they have no natural tendency to do so. We can have awareness campaigns about bullying, racism, sexism, leaving litter on the streets and about countless more things or aspects of these large problems, but the more things people are reminded about, the more likely they are to forget something.
What is required is not 'awareness campaigns' for individual cases of unpleasantness, but a general rule. Coincidentally, something rather useful was first described by Immanuel Kant, a famous German philosopher. His categorical imperative says that one should judge the principle underlying the action and consider what would happen if everyone were to act according to that principle.
In a democracy, voting might be a good example of an application of this principle. There is no commonly accepted immorality in not voting, but Kant's categorical imperative gives us a new analysis: we consider what would happen if everyone were to feel too lazy to vote and we realise that anarchy (or, if almost everyone were too lazy, rule by a very few people who had taken advantage of everyone's laziness to vote themselves power) is undesirable. We are therefore obliged to vote.
However, Kant's emphasis on the principles underlying an action is most relevant here. People will frequently judge that a little insult here or a push or a shove there are insignificant, but it is not their place to judge. They, when questioned on the subject, usually admit that the action was bad, but that it didn't matter. If we could only teach people to think about principles and not consequences then we might eliminate a lot of the little evils in the world that all add up to a lot of nastiness.
When a man owes £1, and decides not to pay the debt because it's insignificant, he is stealing. When he queue-jumps, he is cheating. When he insults someone, it can hurt, it can be spread and it can sow little seeds of doubt about someone in others' minds. If it was meant to be insignificant, then it was better unsaid. Bullies need to think what the world would be like if everyone were to bully those they could: we'd have no social cohesion at all, and we'd have networks of force and dependence. Without the social fabric of society, the bullies would either be petty-minded thugs living in perpetual fear of someone killing them in order to pre-emptively save themselves, or else weak dependants being abused by other thugs.
Queue-jumpers face a similar problem: if no-one had any respect for the accepted method of rationing demand to limited resources then we'd have great heaving masses at every counter. The sharpest elbows and strongest shoulders would win (I'm blessed with both, thankfully).
But this is just repeating what I've said before. What really matters is that the small things do matter. Nothing can be assumed to be insignificant. If it's wrong, it's wrong no matter how small it appears. £1 to one person might be a couple of minutes' work. To another it could be a day's pocket money.
We should always judge based on our principles, not on our feelings. I have heard people excuse themselves because they had been stressed earlier, had a bad night or just couldn't be bothered. Laziness is no excuse; nor is grumpiness, PMS or any other stress. The spreading of small evils is something that almost everyone does, and it is the false justification through irrational arguments that drives me utterly batty. When we talk about murder, we don't say 'oh, I did it because I slept poorly'.
What we do find, however, is that people say
"I just couldn't deal with it any longer. (S)He'd been going on at me for years and that [whatever it was] was the last straw."
Just imagine if every time someone felt grumpy or lazy, instead of taking it out on other people they controlled themselves. Would those poor benighted murderers ever reach the snapping point? If other people stopped the bullying and the cheating, would there be any gradual build-up of rage?
Are the 'great' evils strange manifestations of the devil, or could they perhaps be partly a result of everyone else's little evils building up in someone?
What are the similarities between a murder and an insult? They both require a lack of self-control. They are both wrong. Neither becomes right because of personal opinion. If you do something to someone else, it should be with his consent.
Monday, 26 April 2010
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Care in the home
http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_dishman_take_health_care_off_the_mainframe.html
The summary of this talk is that we currently have a centralised system of healthcare. People go to their GP or the hospital, have a 15-minute exam and get a treatment and then are sent out into the world again. Eric Dishman wants to take care out of the institutions and into daily life and the home.
This might work for some illnesses; acute infections that can be cured by a simple drug prescription, or broken bones because of a bad rugby tackle, but it's a grossly dysfunctional way to approach chronic conditions and ageing, which are by far the biggest burden on healthcare, and will be even bigger in the future, with an older population.
Chronic conditions wax and wane, and ageing is a gradual process. These things only get people to a doctor once the damage is done; when a pensioner has fractured his hip or after the asthma attack.
We have the technology for constant surveillance: to monitor how long it takes to recognise a friend on the telephone, and to analyse gait in the house. These things can detect subtle changes long before the patient will, and provide solid evidence of change. With such systems we won't have intelligent people getting sent away from Alzheimer's clinics because they still function well, even though they and their families know that they were once much better.
We have the basic systems (in this country: the US is worse) for care in the home. We have district nurses who visit patients who need minor care, and they do a fantastic job of freeing hospital beds, saving money and allowing people to enjoy the familiarity and comfort of their own homes.
We have GPs, who have some degree of personal knowledge of patients. But they don't get personal information, they don't necessarily know their patients well, and they typically don't make home visits.
We need to expand our system of caring for people outside of hospital (which is expensive). More nurses, more health visitors, and more automated early detection can all help prevent injury and disease.
As I know well, patients much prefer to live at home. Every nurse will remember patients moaning endlessly about wanting to go home, patients fighting to be let out, patients who are unco-operative because they're just not happy and patients who are rude. Patients refer to hospital as 'the gulag' and similar words, expressing their appreciation for incarceration.
We need patients to feel grateful for their medical care, and that will be more likely to happen when it comes as an addition to their lives, not as a replacement of their lives.
So, as Eric Dishman says, we need more research and effort to be put into home care. It is already well known to save money, despite not being as effective as it could be. With inventive home monitoring and better support the system could make patients happier and healthier (and we know that happiness has health benefits), hospitals less crowded and budgets less tight.
And if patients are seen in their own homes they won't be affected by hospital-acquired infections and epidemics. There will be much less risk of picking up a cold, C-Difficile or any of the other problems that plague the long-term bedridden.
The summary of this talk is that we currently have a centralised system of healthcare. People go to their GP or the hospital, have a 15-minute exam and get a treatment and then are sent out into the world again. Eric Dishman wants to take care out of the institutions and into daily life and the home.
This might work for some illnesses; acute infections that can be cured by a simple drug prescription, or broken bones because of a bad rugby tackle, but it's a grossly dysfunctional way to approach chronic conditions and ageing, which are by far the biggest burden on healthcare, and will be even bigger in the future, with an older population.
Chronic conditions wax and wane, and ageing is a gradual process. These things only get people to a doctor once the damage is done; when a pensioner has fractured his hip or after the asthma attack.
We have the technology for constant surveillance: to monitor how long it takes to recognise a friend on the telephone, and to analyse gait in the house. These things can detect subtle changes long before the patient will, and provide solid evidence of change. With such systems we won't have intelligent people getting sent away from Alzheimer's clinics because they still function well, even though they and their families know that they were once much better.
We have the basic systems (in this country: the US is worse) for care in the home. We have district nurses who visit patients who need minor care, and they do a fantastic job of freeing hospital beds, saving money and allowing people to enjoy the familiarity and comfort of their own homes.
We have GPs, who have some degree of personal knowledge of patients. But they don't get personal information, they don't necessarily know their patients well, and they typically don't make home visits.
We need to expand our system of caring for people outside of hospital (which is expensive). More nurses, more health visitors, and more automated early detection can all help prevent injury and disease.
As I know well, patients much prefer to live at home. Every nurse will remember patients moaning endlessly about wanting to go home, patients fighting to be let out, patients who are unco-operative because they're just not happy and patients who are rude. Patients refer to hospital as 'the gulag' and similar words, expressing their appreciation for incarceration.
We need patients to feel grateful for their medical care, and that will be more likely to happen when it comes as an addition to their lives, not as a replacement of their lives.
So, as Eric Dishman says, we need more research and effort to be put into home care. It is already well known to save money, despite not being as effective as it could be. With inventive home monitoring and better support the system could make patients happier and healthier (and we know that happiness has health benefits), hospitals less crowded and budgets less tight.
And if patients are seen in their own homes they won't be affected by hospital-acquired infections and epidemics. There will be much less risk of picking up a cold, C-Difficile or any of the other problems that plague the long-term bedridden.
Monday, 19 April 2010
The link between junkies and politicians
http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_pisani_sex_drugs_and_hiv_let_s_get_rational_1.html
The points I want to take from the talk are these:
Politicians and junkies do stupid things: politicians make stupid policies and junkies do things that help them get HIV.
People respond more favourably to 'making the world a better place for starving children' than to 'making the world a better place for junkies'.
If junkies are going to be punished for those things they can do that reduce the risk to themselves then they will balance the risks of being caught and getting ill and take more risks.
Both have politicians and junkies have rational reasons for doing what is, practically, worse.
Politicians respond to people's desires to be tough on drugs and crime by punishing drugs users, and using any evidence of drugs use as an excuse to prosecute. They do this even though it costs the nation more money in health-care and harms more people's lives.
Junkies respond to these induced risks of having drug-using equipment by sharing equipment. They do this even though sharing equipment means that roughly half of them will get AIDS.
It's an interesting enough observation if we stop there and simply suggest that we take more notice of sensible solutions like needle exchanges, rather than ignoring them.
But I like this story because it brings attention to a problem that is dawning on me, and has been forming in the world for a while now, and that is the conflict between science and politics.
Another good talk on the subject was here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_specter_the_danger_of_science_denial.html
Michael Specter talks about a number of instances of 'science denial' which have had measurable negative consequences. The aversion to vaccines, fear of genetically modified crops (which is foolish, unlike quibbling with the direction that GM research is taking) and, of course, denial of climate change, all have direct consequences that add to the sum total of suffering in the world.
Elizabeth Pisani has found yet another one of these instances of science denial, and hers is a fine example of politically-motivated science denial. This is not a scare story about vaccines spread by stupid or cynical journalists and believed by the gullible and ignorant. This is the deliberate prioritising of political expediency over scientific fact, and it is this aspect of science denial that is as worrying as any other.
We can all agree that gullible people need to be educated, and we can all agree that media scaremongering in order to sell copy is morally dubious (at best). But I am certain that there are people out there who truly believe that science should be subservient to politics.
I have heard someone say that he has 'no problem with science or scientists, until they try to dictate what we should or should not do. That's meddling with politics, and they don't belong there.'
I'm very keen to stress that science is a process, not a belief-system, and that it makes no moral demands or statements. One cannot call scientific knowledge evil; one can merely say that it is being abused. However, part of this labelling science as a process is describing what it does. Science is the best process by which we ascertain truth. We have no better method for finding out what is true and what is false.
Given that science gives us what we know to be true, let's look at the idea that science does not belong in politics again: this idea is telling us that the truth is unimportant in running our countries. I find this idea incredible. Do we really want politics based on lies, rumour, scandal and opinion? I know that's what we have, but are we happy with it?
Voting figures and opinion polls suggest that we're not.
I see here a fundamental conflict between the current politics, the ideal of democratic engagement and the ideal of enlightened rule. Obviously the current political system is neither enlightened nor democratically engaged, and people who are empowered by the status quo try to 'play off' the two opposing ideals. Democratic engagement at the moment would mean less science involved in governance, because it would hand power to the large media corporations who promote and sway opinion. Democratic engagement is a measure of opinion; if it were perfect each and every person's opinion would matter. Enlightened rule contrasts with this because opinion does not matter: only truth matters. Science tells us what is most likely to be true, and so where science gives us an answer we would do best to heed it.
The simple problem is, as Michael Specter says, sometimes you are not entitled to your opinion. Where science gives us an answer then democracy is defunct. If we are to aspire to being well-governed and democratically governed then we must accept limits on those things on which democracy can pronounce. We must have a constitutional recognition (written or unwritten) that no amount of desire or stubbornness can undo scientific findings.
Science is rarely concrete, but when it reaches a conclusion, that conclusion is the most likely to be true. Democracy must cede to science those areas of life that science can govern. We do not vote on the best way to treat high blood pressure, and we should not vote on the best way to prevent AIDS. We cannot have people staking out for democracy every decision that a government can take.
I see here the ghosts of science denial in all its forms, trying to keep science out of politics. It is not only those who truly believe that it is morally right to value majority opinion over truth, but those who stubbornly believe in falsehood and will side with majority opinion to protect it from truth.
I can imagine that a large number of fundamentalists would be upset were science to be welcomed into government. Science is the utter opposite to fundamentalism. Where fundamentalism holds certain facts to be universal and true, science questions everything, and no theory in science is unquestionable. That is not to say that one can simply discard a theory; to question is not the same as to ignore. Where fundamentalism provides a solid foundation of unmoveable knowledge, science provides a shifting sea of grains of data which form great pyramids of knowledge, but can occasionally fall apart.
It is the stubborn adherence to dogma of any sort that is the greatest rival to science. Religion springs to mind as the most obvious example, but free-market fundamentalism can be as dogmatic as any religion.
Stubbornness is inherent to human beings. We are stubborn creatures: economists call it the sunk-costs fallacy, psychologists no doubt have a name for it too (I remember going to a talk about research in which people stuck with their previous option in a sequence of choices 70% of the time. The best solution would have been to change every time). We can't fight stubbornness sub-consciously. We must have it laid out before us: dogmatic faith is no way to run a country.
Running a country is a practical task. It is hard enough to do well without having reality questioned by any sort of faith.
The points I want to take from the talk are these:
Politicians and junkies do stupid things: politicians make stupid policies and junkies do things that help them get HIV.
People respond more favourably to 'making the world a better place for starving children' than to 'making the world a better place for junkies'.
If junkies are going to be punished for those things they can do that reduce the risk to themselves then they will balance the risks of being caught and getting ill and take more risks.
Both have politicians and junkies have rational reasons for doing what is, practically, worse.
Politicians respond to people's desires to be tough on drugs and crime by punishing drugs users, and using any evidence of drugs use as an excuse to prosecute. They do this even though it costs the nation more money in health-care and harms more people's lives.
Junkies respond to these induced risks of having drug-using equipment by sharing equipment. They do this even though sharing equipment means that roughly half of them will get AIDS.
It's an interesting enough observation if we stop there and simply suggest that we take more notice of sensible solutions like needle exchanges, rather than ignoring them.
But I like this story because it brings attention to a problem that is dawning on me, and has been forming in the world for a while now, and that is the conflict between science and politics.
Another good talk on the subject was here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_specter_the_danger_of_science_denial.html
Michael Specter talks about a number of instances of 'science denial' which have had measurable negative consequences. The aversion to vaccines, fear of genetically modified crops (which is foolish, unlike quibbling with the direction that GM research is taking) and, of course, denial of climate change, all have direct consequences that add to the sum total of suffering in the world.
Elizabeth Pisani has found yet another one of these instances of science denial, and hers is a fine example of politically-motivated science denial. This is not a scare story about vaccines spread by stupid or cynical journalists and believed by the gullible and ignorant. This is the deliberate prioritising of political expediency over scientific fact, and it is this aspect of science denial that is as worrying as any other.
We can all agree that gullible people need to be educated, and we can all agree that media scaremongering in order to sell copy is morally dubious (at best). But I am certain that there are people out there who truly believe that science should be subservient to politics.
I have heard someone say that he has 'no problem with science or scientists, until they try to dictate what we should or should not do. That's meddling with politics, and they don't belong there.'
I'm very keen to stress that science is a process, not a belief-system, and that it makes no moral demands or statements. One cannot call scientific knowledge evil; one can merely say that it is being abused. However, part of this labelling science as a process is describing what it does. Science is the best process by which we ascertain truth. We have no better method for finding out what is true and what is false.
Given that science gives us what we know to be true, let's look at the idea that science does not belong in politics again: this idea is telling us that the truth is unimportant in running our countries. I find this idea incredible. Do we really want politics based on lies, rumour, scandal and opinion? I know that's what we have, but are we happy with it?
Voting figures and opinion polls suggest that we're not.
I see here a fundamental conflict between the current politics, the ideal of democratic engagement and the ideal of enlightened rule. Obviously the current political system is neither enlightened nor democratically engaged, and people who are empowered by the status quo try to 'play off' the two opposing ideals. Democratic engagement at the moment would mean less science involved in governance, because it would hand power to the large media corporations who promote and sway opinion. Democratic engagement is a measure of opinion; if it were perfect each and every person's opinion would matter. Enlightened rule contrasts with this because opinion does not matter: only truth matters. Science tells us what is most likely to be true, and so where science gives us an answer we would do best to heed it.
The simple problem is, as Michael Specter says, sometimes you are not entitled to your opinion. Where science gives us an answer then democracy is defunct. If we are to aspire to being well-governed and democratically governed then we must accept limits on those things on which democracy can pronounce. We must have a constitutional recognition (written or unwritten) that no amount of desire or stubbornness can undo scientific findings.
Science is rarely concrete, but when it reaches a conclusion, that conclusion is the most likely to be true. Democracy must cede to science those areas of life that science can govern. We do not vote on the best way to treat high blood pressure, and we should not vote on the best way to prevent AIDS. We cannot have people staking out for democracy every decision that a government can take.
I see here the ghosts of science denial in all its forms, trying to keep science out of politics. It is not only those who truly believe that it is morally right to value majority opinion over truth, but those who stubbornly believe in falsehood and will side with majority opinion to protect it from truth.
I can imagine that a large number of fundamentalists would be upset were science to be welcomed into government. Science is the utter opposite to fundamentalism. Where fundamentalism holds certain facts to be universal and true, science questions everything, and no theory in science is unquestionable. That is not to say that one can simply discard a theory; to question is not the same as to ignore. Where fundamentalism provides a solid foundation of unmoveable knowledge, science provides a shifting sea of grains of data which form great pyramids of knowledge, but can occasionally fall apart.
It is the stubborn adherence to dogma of any sort that is the greatest rival to science. Religion springs to mind as the most obvious example, but free-market fundamentalism can be as dogmatic as any religion.
Stubbornness is inherent to human beings. We are stubborn creatures: economists call it the sunk-costs fallacy, psychologists no doubt have a name for it too (I remember going to a talk about research in which people stuck with their previous option in a sequence of choices 70% of the time. The best solution would have been to change every time). We can't fight stubbornness sub-consciously. We must have it laid out before us: dogmatic faith is no way to run a country.
Running a country is a practical task. It is hard enough to do well without having reality questioned by any sort of faith.
Friday, 12 March 2010
Discrimination by the back door
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8563122.stm
If laws forbid a school from discriminating, but not private citizens, then clearly one should just hand over the task to the citizens, rather than question whether discriminating is a good thing.
After all, if it were good, surely the country would want schools to promote it?
Or perhaps the governors think that the school rules are silly, in which case I wonder why they're governors, their job being to ensure that the rules are followed.
A private party will not cater to students' best interests because it will exclude some, thereby detracting from school life, and not have the advantage of using school facilities, which are probably designed for the right number of schoolchildren and are well located for all attendees.
If laws forbid a school from discriminating, but not private citizens, then clearly one should just hand over the task to the citizens, rather than question whether discriminating is a good thing.
After all, if it were good, surely the country would want schools to promote it?
Or perhaps the governors think that the school rules are silly, in which case I wonder why they're governors, their job being to ensure that the rules are followed.
A private party will not cater to students' best interests because it will exclude some, thereby detracting from school life, and not have the advantage of using school facilities, which are probably designed for the right number of schoolchildren and are well located for all attendees.
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Management discrimination
'Actually, the problem with many established companies is that they don't challenge existing corporate norms, and therefore are slow to change. Japanese companies are experiencing this problem; Toyota's recent (I say recent, it's been going on for years now!!) failure to (a) identify a problem, (b) admit there was a problem, and (c) fix the problem is a prime example of how the corporate norms -- which were to be entirely subservient to senior managers, and to not displease them with bad news -- completely destroyed the reputation of a company that had long been associated with the highest standards of quality and safety.
The idea that diversity enhances a company is not new, it's been around for decades. And it's not just because it's politically correct; studies have shown that companies that adapt to fit their employees, rather than simply employ people who already fit the established mould, show better shareholder returns, because of the wider applicant pool that they can draw from. Senior managers are on-board with new ideas on how to recruit, how to reward employees, and how to fit their jobs around their families or social lives. But middle-managers -- the people who actually do the interviews -- are not. They are slow to react (there are many reasons why, but I won't get into them here) and are more fuddy-duddy than their more senior managers. They tend to employ people who are similar to them, rather than people who are fit for the job. They dress this up as wanting employees who fit to the corporate environment, even though they have been instructed not to do this by senior managers!
The problem, then, is not about fitting to corporate norms, it's that many interviewers are simply not very good at conducting interviews, don't know enough about management best-practices, and employ people who are similar to themselves, rather than people who are good for the job.'
The idea that diversity enhances a company is not new, it's been around for decades. And it's not just because it's politically correct; studies have shown that companies that adapt to fit their employees, rather than simply employ people who already fit the established mould, show better shareholder returns, because of the wider applicant pool that they can draw from. Senior managers are on-board with new ideas on how to recruit, how to reward employees, and how to fit their jobs around their families or social lives. But middle-managers -- the people who actually do the interviews -- are not. They are slow to react (there are many reasons why, but I won't get into them here) and are more fuddy-duddy than their more senior managers. They tend to employ people who are similar to them, rather than people who are fit for the job. They dress this up as wanting employees who fit to the corporate environment, even though they have been instructed not to do this by senior managers!
The problem, then, is not about fitting to corporate norms, it's that many interviewers are simply not very good at conducting interviews, don't know enough about management best-practices, and employ people who are similar to themselves, rather than people who are good for the job.'
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)