Relevant History

Note to David Brooks: Just because I like Downton Abbey doesn't mean I want to be a servant

David Brooks has a great idea for solving America's cultural problems (and for him, all problems reduce to culture):

We need a program that would force members of the upper tribe and the lower tribe to live together, if only for a few years. We need a program in which people from both tribes work together to spread out the values, practices and institutions that lead to achievement.

If we could jam the tribes together, we’d have a better elite and a better mass.

There's a name for such a thing: the English manor. The great and the good, their virtues observed by an army of footmen and maids. Everyone living together in a strict hierarchy that teaches the value of place and work.

Come to think of it, there was another name for it. The conscript army.

Clearly Brooks has been watching too much Downton Abbey, and learning the wrong lessons.

"I'll never, ever accept the idea that triviality, mediocrity, and futility are appropriate goals for any human being"

Umair Haque has been hanging out in hip New York hotels,

overhearing more than my fair share of Very Serious Conversations* from the movers and shakers of the world.

And boy, have they been tedious.

Haque uses this as a jumping-off point to talk about the "lethally serious" work of "doing stuff that actually matters." He suggests three criteria:

Does it stand the test of time? Ponder this for a moment: the vast majority spend the vast majority of our lives sweating, suffering, and slogging mightily over stuff that's forgotten by next quarter, let alone next year or next century. Call me crazy, but I'd suggest: mattering means building stuff that's awesome enough to last…. Of course, all that really means is that since nearly everyone seems to suck at standing the test of time, you've got a tremendous opportunity not to.

Does it stand the test of excellence?... Mattering means recognizing that everyone's opinion is not created equal — some count more than others, for the simple reason that some opinions are more nuanced, educated, sophisticated, historically grounded, and self-aware than others.

Does it stand the test of you?.... It's one thing to work on stuff that seems sexy because it's socially cool and financially rewarding. But fulfillment doesn't come much from money or cool-power — all the money in the world can't buy you a searing sense of accomplishment.

And I love this conclusion:

Being human is never easy. But that's the point. Perhaps as an unintended consequence of our relentless quest for more, bigger, faster, cheaper, now, we've comfortably acceded to something akin to a minor-league contempt for the richness and grandeur of life unquenchably meaningfully well lived. Hence, call this post my tiny statement of rebellion. Hex me with all the bland management jargon in the world, zap me with all the perfect theories and models you like, but I'll never, ever accept the idea that triviality, mediocrity, and futility are appropriate goals for any human being, much less our grand, splintering systems of human organization.

* I love how Very Serious Conversations, or "Very Serious [insert thing here]" is evolving into an insult. When those two words appear together in a Paul Krugman piece, you know the big guns are being trained on a new target.

Gives a new meaning to the term "targeted advertising"

A rather unfortunate, though doubtless algorithmically-generated, juxtaposition:

via flickr

On the decline of American manufacturing

A good, lengthy piece in the New York Times uses iPhone manufacturing as a window into the growth of Asian factories, and the relative decline of American manufacturing capabilities. Well worth a read.

Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

Similar stories could be told about almost any electronics company — and outsourcing has also become common in hundreds of industries, including accounting, legal services, banking, auto manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

But while Apple is far from alone, it offers a window into why the success of some prominent companies has not translated into large numbers of domestic jobs. What’s more, the company’s decisions pose broader questions about what corporate America owes Americans as the global and national economies are increasingly intertwined.

“Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

If corporations are people, then profits are a human right

At least that's the underlying argument behind a move being considered by hedge funds that have bought Greece's debt:

Hedge funds... [are considering] suing Greece in a human rights court to make good on its bond payments.

The novel approach would have the funds arguing in the European Court of Human Rights that Greece had violated bondholder rights, though that could be a multiyear project with no guarantee of a payoff.

You almost have to admire the absolute, graceless cynicism and depravity of a strategy like this. There's a refreshing honesty about a move this openly crass.

On the other hand, it IS a logical extension of the idea that corporations are people.

Best. Excuse. Ever.

The Telegraph:

Dominique Strauss-Kahn did not know he was sleeping with prostitutes 'because they were all naked'

A year ago...

...I was settling into Cambridge. Wow.

my road, via flickr

 

Light beams at Peninsula this morning

Nice light at school this morning.

via flickr

Peninsula School hallway

From today.

via flickr

How Newt Gingrich is like the History Channel

This is an excellent little essay:

The Republican candidate Newt Gingrich and the cable channel History have both followed the same formula for success, by elevating fantasy over actual history. The difference, however, is that Newt wants to carry his sensational vision of a bygone age into office.