ROW Episode 4

In today’s episode we consider our long-standing habit of responding to crises by reaching for expedient solutions and the consequences of this knee-jerk behavior. We also consider the possibility of replacing it with a new, more constructive habit of principled action.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Reimagining Our World, a podcast dedicated to envisioning a better world and to infusing hope that we can make the principled choices to build that world. In today's episode, we consider our long standing habit of responding to crises by reaching for expedient solutions and the consequences of this knee jerk reaction. We also consider the possibility of replacing this reaction with a new, more constructive habit. So let's get on with the topic of the day. I just wanted to remind us all that we have been thinking about a number of different ways of envisioning our world, and I wanted to start by reminding us of the three steps we need to take if we want to make a better world. If you'll remember, I think this was from episode one. First, we need to accept exactly where we are and take responsibility for who we've become and how we're showing up as a global society, as a national society, as individuals. Then we need to envision the future we want to have, the new people we want to be the world we want to become. And then the third step is to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be. Now, apropos of that Third step, bridging the gap between here and there, what is really important as we discussed last time is to recognize the supreme gift that human beings have, the unique gift of free will choice and the ability to make good choices and good decisions. These choices can be applied essentially in two areas. One is to shift the way we think about things and view things, our mindsets, in other words. And the other is to shift certain habits. In other words, how we show up, how we behave. One leads to the other. In other words, our habits and our behaviors are actually dependent on how we perceive things and how we view things. So, today I'd like us to consider a particularly baneful habit, a very dysfunctional habit that we have as a society and have had for a very long time, a habit that does not serve us well. And that is the habit of reaching for expedient solutions to crises or to challenges, whether they're global challenges, national, or individual. So the habit of expediency. This is a knee jerk habit we have. And before we go any further, I think it's important to define exactly what it is we're talking about, so we're on the same page, because different people may have slightly different definitions of the word expediency. This is what I mean when I talk about it for purposes of the conversation today. Expediency essentially has three key features. The first feature is that it entails a reactive response to a crisis, a challenge, or a situation. In other words, we don't stop and think proactively ahead in a calm way. We're responding to the crisis of the moment. We are putting out the fire of the day. And we're so eager to put the fire out that we don't think about long term consequences. Most importantly, we put the fire out, but we allow the embers to continue to burn, and they're just waiting for the next gust of wind, the right circumstances to come along, basically, and start this fire all over again. So that's the first feature of expediency. The second feature of expediency is that when we reached for expedient solutions, we look at short term solutions. We're never really thinking long term. So we're just thinking whether it's a day ahead, a month ahead, three months ahead, and that's all we're concerned about. And the third feature of expediency is that we craft solutions based on very narrowly conceived self interest, whether it's the interest of my neighborhood, my locality, my nation, which expresses itself in the form of often a rabid nationalism, or my ethnic group, or my racial group. Whatever the story is, we conceive our interests in very narrow terms. Now, expediency is a habit that we see play out both in our individual lives and in our societal lives. So let's take a couple of simple examples to hammer home the point. So in our individual lives I don't know about you, but I remember when I was a little younger going through a period where a lot of my friends were getting married and it was funny to observe this phenomenon that was fairly ubiquitous. People would be eating junk food, not taking care of their diets, not taking care of their health. And as soon as there was a wedding on the calendar, it was like, oh my gosh, I have to be able to get into the wedding dress, or I have to be able to get into the wedding tux. And so they would go on a crash diet, right? Short term, reactive, reacting to this new situation, to this date on the calendar that says wedding and thinking very short term and in a very narrow self interest. So that's an example. Another example that All of us, I think, or many of us have experienced and witnessed our children, our young people experiencing, is that of cramming for exams, right? So you spend the year or the semester, goofing off, watching Netflix, going to parties, hanging out with friends, having interesting conversations till three in the morning, and then whoops, it's exam week, and all of a sudden you realize, I have the exam, all of this material that I need to master before I sit the exam. And so we start cramming. Now, again, that's a reactive approach and it's based on very short term thinking, because if the objective is to learn and to really absorb information in a way that enables us over the long term to apply it, then we're defeating the purpose. Just as we're defeating the purpose with the crash diet of really ensuring that our bodies are healthy for the long term and able to serve us in our purpose in life, right? So these are two examples in the individual sphere. Now let's look at the societal sphere. So one example that jumps to mind is that of consumption. We're all in the habit of shopping and consuming, and we have all the lights on, and we have all these gadgets, and we use a lot of electricity, and we buy a lot of clothes and things, and go on vacations. We like to travel long distances for those who are able as often as possible. And we're not thinking about our carbon footprint and we're not thinking about the sustainability necessarily of our actions. And that's been a very short term thinking based on my self interest very narrowly conceived or my nation's self interest, because I want to get ahead and we want to become an economically strong nation and it's very reactive. So that's a good example of an expedient approach in life that causes untold problems over the long term. Another example that just has just come to mind is during this COVID time, that of getting together, with other people, especially during the holidays. So we think, well, gosh, it's my child's 21st birthday. It's a once in a lifetime event. What harm can there be if if I have a party and invite, 50 of their closest friends? Well, I know in our neighborhood this has happened quite a bit and all of these events have become super spreader events for COVID. Again, these are decisions made on very narrowly conceived self interest thinking very short term and reacting to the moment, the birthday or the Thanksgiving event or the the event to celebrate Hanukkah or Christmas or whatever the holiday is without thinking of the impact on all of society and the impact long term. Okay, now, when we, so we've defined expediency, with these three features. Now, what happens when we apply expedient solutions? There are three very deleterious, unfortunate consequences that tend to flow from this habit, this dysfunctional habit of expediency. The first consequence is that we generally never solve any of our problems at root. We basically end up with, as I said before, dousing the flames of the fire but the embers continue to burn and we pay no attention to them because we're busy, we're rushing off to put the, the next fire out. And so as a result, we tend to get flare ups and it reminds me actually of, autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, where you can go for a while and then you get a flare up. You have inflammation in the body, and you get pain in the joints and the swelling and so on, and after a while it dies down. But if you don't actually tackle the causes of the flare ups at root and tackle the disease, and just, if you just mask the symptoms, then you're going to just continue to have flare ups. And that's exactly what happens in international society. So for instance, genocide, has been a feature of the global landscape for decades. After the genocide in Rwanda, the global community said, never again. And we said the same after the genocide in Bosnia, and then Darfur happened. And then we've had the situation in Syria. And yet we seem to have been unable to actually get to the root of the genocide and figure out effective ways of tackling this problem and this disease in the international community. Later we can talk about ways, including the creation of institutions of global governance and collective decision making and enforcement institutions to tackle these problems, for instance, as a mechanism. Another, Problem that has come up again again that we haven't solved at root is the problem of illegal secret nuclear weapons programs. We've seen this happen over and over again. We've had problems with iran that continue apace, problems with North Korea's illegal nuclear program. We had one in Libya. We've had one in Syria. And we just see all of these programs continuing to pop up and proliferate, because, again, we haven't been able to come up with a mechanism to tackle once and for all, this other societal disease that we have, that actually threatens our very existence and wellbeing, although we're so numb to it now that many of us never even consider that we have tremendous, threats of nuclear war hanging over our heads, given the number of nuclear weapons and the behavior of various nations. All right. So that is the first consequence of, of taking an expedient approach to solving problems. The second is that these solutions that we craft often actually not only don't solve the original problem at root and make us subject to flare ups, but they sow the seed of the very next problem. Disaster. An example that comes to mind is Afghanistan. When the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, the global community was very keen to get them out, as was the West. The thinking was, we just want to get them out. That was the short term goal. And so we armed the Mujahideen and we trained them and sent them into Afghanistan to dislodge the Soviets. We were very successful in that short term goal. However, what ended up happening is that those very Mujahideen became the Taliban of the future and spawned a whole new problem, which we have spent two decades trying to resolve and are still mired in it. And of course, the country of Afghanistan itself and the Afghani people have suffered enormously as a result. There are many other examples, but let's just leave it at that. Now, the third consequence that flows is that the solutions we craft tend to undermine each other because they're not congruent. For example, as an international community, we want to stand together to eliminate the threat of terrorism. And at the same time, we also want to stand together to uphold human rights. Now, unfortunately, very often what ends up happening or has happened in the past is that a country will, in the name of gaining the support of another country against terrorism, be willing to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses conducted by that country. Or in the name of trying to get access to energy resources, a country will do the same. Turn a blind eye as, we've seen with Darfur where one of the countries who had oil concessions in the Sudan one of the P5 countries, the members of the Security Council that has permanent membership had said, I will veto any resolution to formally declare the genocide in Darfur a genocide," because they were keen to maintain their interests in locking up energy sources. All right, I want to wrap this portion up with an example that actually illustrates expediency with all of its features and all of its unfortunate consequences. So the government of Ecuador not too long ago decided, because its people were in tremendous poverty and didn't have access to energy resources, that it was going to try to build a dam in order to create electricity to support its people and to pull them out of poverty. It was a very laudable goal. They needed money to build the dam. They ended up borrowing vast sums of money from China. Now, both the countries were so keen to get this deal done, each of them thinking of the immediate benefits that they would garner from the deal, that they didn't stop to pay attention and think proactively in the long term, pay attention to certain details. In particular, a very critical detail that the location of this dam was just below a volcano. So they went ahead and built the dam, and unsurprisingly, within two years, 7, 000 cracks had already appeared in the machinery of this dam. As a result, a lot of mud and silt and trees and bushes ended up in the reservoir which made it ineffective. So here's the government of Ecuador left in a position of not having satisfied its original short term goal of lifting its people out of poverty, and found itself unable to repay the debt to China, which resulted in the fact that it is now in the position actually of having to pay 80 percent of the proceeds of its biggest export, which is oil, to China. So it's ended up poorer, worse off, and not having achieved the goal of either providing electricity to its people or pulling them out of poverty in the way it had hoped. So this to me kind of is an example, is an illustration that really sums up this whole concept of expediency. Now, the coronavirus pandemic is forcing humanity, we can think of it as forcing, but also affording us an amazing opportunity to learn a really important lesson regarding this dysfunctional habit of expediency. First of all, it's forcing us to look at this habit, stare it in the face and look at the consequences. The lesson that we are learning. is that there are certain laws that govern our social reality. Just as there are laws that govern our physical reality, like the law of gravity, so too there are laws or principles that govern our social reality. This is a really important point. Just as we ignore the laws of physics at our peril, so too we ignore the laws of social reality at our peril. What do I mean? If you wanted to build an airplane, you wouldn't want to ignore the law of gravity, because it would end up in disaster. First of all, you wouldn't have a flying plane, and if it took off briefly, it would end up in a crash or a disaster. So we ignore these laws at our peril. And yet, We have chosen for such a long time now to ignore one of the fundamental principles underlying social reality, and that is the principle of, or the law of, the oneness of humanity. We have insisted on building institutions, social, economic, political, environmental, religious, based on principles that don't take into account this principle of oneness. Is it any wonder then that we are finding that our institutions are collapsing and unraveling around us with bewildering rapidity? On the one hand, we're surprised, but when we actually delve in and look at what's going on, There is actually no cause for surprise. It's a wonder that it hasn't unraveled more completely, sooner. In fact, there is a wonderful quote from Montesquieu that says, The deterioration of government begins almost always by the decay of its principles. I love that quote because it is so true. All right, the question then becomes, Is there an alternative habit that we can adopt to replace the habit of expediency, which is just so deeply ingrained in us and as we know with habits, it's so hard to let go of them. And we also know with habits, just letting go of a habit isn't sufficient, because we just create a vacuum and and then another bad habit can come and take its place. So what we want to do is to replace it with a constructive empowering habit. What might that be? I propose that the habit we want to replace the habit of expediency with is the habit of a principled approach to solving global challenges and societal challenges of all kinds, including national and local challenges. What do I mean when I say a principled approach to solving problems? How do we define that? How do we describe that? There are three steps that are involved. The first is that society needs to, if we're talking about global society, then the community of nations, if we're talking about national society, then the members of a nation or the members of government, need to identify a set of organizing foundational principles that they can all agree on. The idea of the importance of doing this has become talked about Increasingly over the last few years. It started actually with a statement crafted by the governing body of the Baha'i community in 1985, in a document called the Promise of World Peace. And in it, that governing body called on leaders of nations to identify the principles involved when attempting to solve problems, to identify principles first, and then to apply them methodically to solving those problems. This call was later taken up and one started to hear it in other fora. In particular, one that strikes me was the call by the foreign former foreign minister of Australia, Gareth Evans, who was also the long time head of the NGO International Crisis Group. And he, I remember, also talked a couple of times about the fact that, after his long experience in government at all levels, he had concluded that the only effective way to tackle any challenge was to identify the principles involved and then apply them. He went on to bemoan the fact that this is not common practice, either at the domestic level of governance or at the national or international levels. You may remember from one of the previous episodes that Kishore Mahbubani, the Singaporean diplomat, talked about humanity being like a ship with 193 cabins, and he talks about the fact that unfortunately, the laws that govern the inter internal affairs of some of these cabins, each cabin representing a different nation are dangerous to the the welfare of the ship as a whole and threatened to sink it. So that is the first step, identifying the set of organizational foundational principles. Again, the key foundational principle is the recognition of the oneness of humanity. The second feature of a principled approach to solving global challenges is to take these principles and apply them systematically and methodically to solving any problem, and to do this proactively. And this is what gets us to really the proactive question that we were talking about. There's a lovely quotation from one of the great peacemakers of our time, which I'd like to read to you. He says Look ye not upon the present, fix your gaze upon the times to come. In the beginning how small is the seed, yet in the end it is a mighty tree. Look yee not upon the seed, look yee upon the tree and its blossoms and its leaves and its fruits. This is part of a new culture that we need to start training ourselves to have, which is that of looking ahead and seeing the end in the beginning, looking at the consequences of our behaviors and our actions. The last feature of a principled approach to solving global challenges is to apply these principles, having identified them in an uncompromising fashion. Now there are a couple of quotes that I'd like to share with you. One is from John Maxwell, who's an American author and coach. He says, Policies are many, principles are few. Policies will change, principles never do. Victor Hugo also had the famous saying in which he says Let go of the leaves of the tree, but cling on to the roots the roots being the principles. Because those should be eternal. But the rules and the laws change in accordance with the needs of the time. And the last quotation is from Abraham Lincoln. He says,"important principles may and must be inflexible." So again, this idea of being uncompromising in the application of principle. If we do that, then we can rest fairly assured that we will be able to tackle whatever global challenges before us, including the coronavirus pandemic, including the economic recession, including the scourge of institutional racism that really the answers to that particular question, again, so deeply embedded in the recognition of the oneness of humanity in the idea that As human beings, the soul, the thing that animates us, has no gender, has no race. And if we truly understood that, our behavior would be very, very different. Okay, so those are my reflections for the day on reimagining the world with this new habit. If there are any questions, I'd be happy to try to field them. And before I do that, again a reminder that my, if you like the content of this series, then you will probably really like the content of my latest book, which is The Alchemy of Peace, which has just been released and is available online on Amazon. Here is a picture of the cover and it lends itself well to book club conversations and other conversations and some of the material I've been discussing is also in there so you have it all in one place. All right I will look now at the comments page. If there are any questions or comments, feel free to jump in. Thank you, Mo for ordering the book. I appreciate it. Please share it with your friends. Okay, well, it's been a pleasure again to be with you all. Thank you so much. That's all for this episode of Reimagining Our World. I'll see you back here next month. If you liked this episode, please help us to get the word out by rating us and subscribing to the program on your favorite podcast platform. This series is also available in video on the YouTube channel of the Center for Peace and Global Governance, CPGG.