The Tragedy of Abundance

Who doesn’t like success? It is a wonderful thing. Especially the stories of those who, against all odds, somehow prevail. Success is worthy of celebration and, as the saying goes, “success breeds success,” even though our road to success is often paved by failures. Perhaps that is why it feels so damn good once we arrive.

The twentieth century, often described as the “American Century,” ended with a largely overlooked but profoundly important development—one that explains a great deal about our current challenges. In the late 1990s, America and much of the world made an historical transition from the prevailing condition of scarcity, that had been with us throughout human history, to the prevailing condition of abundance.

For the first time ever, humans had access to everything they needed to sustain their well-being without fear of running out of either necessities or comforts. An enormous success by any calculation. And while it is true that such abundance was, and remains, unequally and perhaps inequitably distributed, the fact is that—in aggregate—humans have succeeded in achieving something that eluded them for centuries. This is what strategists call a paradigm shift.

As it is with life lived in real time we did not, however, realize our success. There were no fireworks or new holidays taken or proclaimed. We simply indulged ourselves in the comfort of abundance. The prescriptions and proscriptions of life lived in prior generations like straightening and reusing every nail, and abstaining from public preening, were suspended in favor of casual indifference to the constraints of scarcity. When prudence and humility lose favor, decline is a certainty. This is when things started to go off the rails.

Now, nearly twenty-five years later, the tragedy of abundance is revealing itself in all manner of emerging malignancies that have driven our collective character into the dumpster of hubris, narcissism, greed, and sloth. It is no wonder we have entered an era of chaos and destruction that risks our well-being even while we remain awash in the fruits of abundance. Perhaps we should call it the paradox of plenty. However, while we would have benefited from maintaining historical American values, a shift in strategy was, in hindsight, urgently required.

In my last post, “Our Time Has Come,” https://ameritecture.com/our-time-has-come/,  I argued that a subscription to a zero-sum perspective manifested as a win-loss mentality was one of the reasons we were unable to successfully address the Covid-19 crisis. That it was a remnant-disposition of people like me—old white men—who were the product of a different era. That era was the era of scarcity, when zero-sum/win-loss was indeed an appropriate modality. In reality, the only viable way to compete in a world of scarcity.

Once the dynamics of abundance finally arrived, a shift in strategy should have also occurred. Yet, we stubbornly held close to the strategy that had served us well during the age of scarcity since, well, it had worked! Nothing could have been more natural or, as time now reveals, more foolish. As the then solo superpower in the world, America made the same mistake the victors made after World War I: we treated the conquered as losers who owed the winners due compensation and acknowledgment of their greatness, which (as we know from the post-World War I era) nearly assured World War II.

What we should have done in the late 1990s, was shift form the win/lose contemplation of power as a lever of coercion to a win/win contemplation of power as an opportunity to empower others to achieve their objectives as well as those we all share. In an age of abundance, empowering others does not diminish your own power, it actually enhances and sustains it. Call it the principle of enlightened altruism. And this shift would not, as it would have been criticized in the era of scarcity, been an expression of reckless idealism. Rather, it would have properly found residence in the school of realism. That is what paradigm shifts both allow and require.

Unfortunately, this missed strategic opportunity was not just realized in America’s international relations, it permeated all aspects of our society creating the fear, anger, and violence we see now at home every day. Those who stood to gain the most from the age of abundance sought more for themselves without regard for others. Those who were natural beneficiaries—especially the white privileged class—remained in a coercive win/lose posture and became vulnerable to those promoting the fear of inclusion rather than the plus-sum benefits of enlightened altruism.

In the last twenty-five years, had we viewed the world and our own country through the lens of empowerment rather than coercion, I have no doubt we would have responded much differently and more successfully to the attacks of 9/11, the Great Recession, Covid-19, and climate change. Moreover, we would have rejected the fear-based appeals of politicians like Donald Trump and the many condemnations that continue unabated from the woke-left. We would be unified in the spirit of abundance rather than perpetuating inequities that have broken our spirit of unity, liberty, and justice for all.

We could have erased the poverty of dignity that cause people to embrace the life of a terrorist. We could have kept families in their homes during the Great Recession rather than kicking them to the curb. We could have spent the $50 billion it cost to vaccinate the entire world and be its hero rather than seen as a selfish nation of charlatans. And, we would be well on our way to the innovations and policies required to affect saving ourselves and the world from the effects of climate change.

But, most of our leaders still believe that for every winner there must be a loser. (Visualize McConnell, Pelosi, et al, here.) When and until we encourage and support enlightened leadership who understand this paradigm shift afforded by abundance, and its implications for the power dynamics of humankind, we will continue on our current path of destruction. The now multi-power international system will continue to flirt with conflict that could, at any moment, produce World War III. Covid-19 will be the first, not last, of twenty-first century pandemics. Inequities will continue to make us vulnerable to fascists and perpetuate suffering at home. And, temperatures will continue to rise.

Most often, I feel as if I am screaming into a deep dark void. But, hey, at least you read this. Maybe others will too. If you know someone in a position of leadership—at any level of our society—please pass this on to them. Hopefully, the tenet “it’s never too late to do the right thing” will hold.

By |2022-02-27T21:44:18+00:00February 16th, 2022|Leadership, The New Realities|0 Comments
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The Great Reclamation Project

Would you like to have your life back? Your community? How about your country?

It seems as though the United States has entered a death-spiral of self-destruction. The conservative and always mild-mannered New York Times columnist, David Brooks, suggested America is “falling apart at the seams”; that it is “a society that is dissolving from the bottom up as much as from the top down.” What we need is a new vision of what life can be and the leadership to match. But we also need to make a commitment to ourselves and each other to change some fundamental behaviors to realize a new destiny through reclaiming what we know is true and good founded in a deep sense of personal responsibility.

When was the last time you sat on the edge of your bed before laying your head on the pillow and said to yourself, “If only all my tomorrows could be like today”? To then rise in the morning with a heart filled with aspirations. To find joy in each face you meet. To be overwhelmed by gratitude. To know that greatness—for yourself, your community, and country—were not just possible, they were probable. To feel like a winner living in the greatest nation in the world. This was once the shared prospect of every American and it can be again.

The Great Reclamation Project is our pathway to a new destiny. It requires a commitment to reclaiming our agency as individuals, strengthening the institutions—both formal and informal— that serve our collective interests, and caring for each other and the environment we inhabit in the same manner we wish to be cared for. It also requires a willful suspension of the long list of grievances, doubts, and animosities we all have collected in the dark days of deceit and peril we have endured over the last several years. To be reclaimed—to affect a new destiny—we must first unshackle ourselves from the anchors of fear and anger and hate. They are killing us. Bearing those burdens is no longer worthy of our attention; it is self-destructive. They must be vanquished to the currents of history.

The work begins at the first hint of dawn—when the sun breaks the horizon tomorrow. We must reclaim our individual lives, our communities, and our country.

Here is how.

Reclaiming Your Life

Step one is taking back our personal agency; to take responsibility again for our decisions and actions that define who we are. To regain our capacity for critical thinking that begins with knowledge gained from credible sources. To be honest with ourselves and truthful with others. Since the dawn of the digital age in the 1990s, we have, willingly and lazily, sacrificed our essential personhood to algorithms controlled by those who wish to exploit us like Google, Facebook, and Amazon. We are not algorithms, we are humans. Apps we downloaded to speed our access to news, products, and services to empower our lives have proven to be little more than a means of manipulation that have chipped away at our autonomy one click at a time. In extreme cases of immersion, which I witnessed personally with a former family member, they came to completely displace reality with a toxic and paradoxical mix of self-loathing and delusions of grandeur. Let’s be clear, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook (now the Metaverse) could not care less about our welfare. Do not participate in his meta-ambitions. Click delete—forever. Take back your agency as a human being. Discard the fear of missing out (FOMO) in favor of the joy of missing out (JOMO).

As the editor in chief of Tablet, Alana Newhouse, recently argued, Americans are suffering from an ethic of “flatness” that arose through a combination of the progression of capitalist incentives dating to the 1970s, with the application of digital technologies in the 1990s, that have rendered American lives indistinguishable from each other—an epidemic of frictionless sameness. All round pegs and round holes. Our institutions have devolved into “forbidding exploration or deviation—a regime that has ironically left homeless many, if not most, of the country’s best thinkers and creators…strangling voice[s]…before they’ve ever had the chance to really sing.” The solution is to embrace, once again, what makes us human. Express your desires, ambitions, and truths regardless of pressures to conform to what the algorithms and apps command of you. Return to the richness of creativity and diversity that once was a hallmark attribute of Americans. As Newhouse concluded, “our lives should not be marked by ‘comps’ and metrics and filters and proofs of concept and virality but by tight circles and improvisation and adventure and lots and lots of creative waste.”

Next, engage with the world under the assumption that there is more good in each of us as than there is bad. History is loaded with examples of regular folks doing horrible things. But, by and large, humans are wired for goodness. From the beginning of humanity, doing right by each other was the key to survival. Today is no different. The key to unlocking the good is a matter of expectations. Humans love to meet the expectations of those who they wish to emulate—with whom they wish to share an identity. We must flip our lens of expectations from the darkness to the light. Reclaiming ourselves can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A change in moral perspective from bad to good—from desperation to aspiration—is essential to changing our personal and collective trajectory.

In hand with this commitment to the expectation of goodness is the rejection of personally held feelings of fear, anger, and hate. Yes, there are legitimate reasons to feel all of these emotions. I feel them—and fight them—every day. But here is the reality each of us must face. Negative emotions such as these provide those who wish us ill, or who wish to control us, with doors of weakness to exploit. Our fear, anger, and hate are weapons-against-us that produce self-inflicted wounds; that eventually cause us to lose our freedom and any hope of self-determination. This was, and is, the entire strategy of control and manipulation employed by our 45th (and perhaps 47th) president of the United States. It has been used by countless fascists who preceded him. Why provide the ammunition for our own executions?

Reclaiming our lives begins with reasserting our strength of individuality. Taking back our personal agency to create a human garden of beauty and diversity that once left the French philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, both amazed and perplexed as he toured a young America. We must live in the present with an eye on the future while expecting the good in each of us and capturing moments of beauty and success as fodder for gratitude. Know thyself and express thyself while safeguarding beliefs and values such that personal integrity is assured. Flourishing requires character and courage, neither of which emanate from algorithms, nor from apps.

Reclaiming Our Communities

If you have read my essays over the least few years, you know I am a fervent proponent of focusing on the development of what I call stronghold communities. And, specifically and urgently, turning our attention away from the shiny loud object that is our federal government. As David Brooks observed, cited at the head of this essay, our “society is dissolving from the bottom up.” That observation is easy to confirm as each of us have attempted to navigate the conflicts and animosities endemic in the communities we call home. Coupled with the ineptitude of our federal government, which has rendered itself little more than a resource-hoarding sloth, and is populated by those more interested in self-aggrandizement than the welfare of Americans, we face little choice but to fix-our-shit at home and envision a future with stronghold communities as the central actor in curing societal ills and enabling a future denominated in aspirations.

Stronghold communities can come in the form of counties, towns, neighborhoods, or any other organization—open to being defined by those who find themselves in any association to serve a common interest. Just as the reclamation of our individual lives requires rekindling our commitment to personal responsibility, we are similarly required to take responsibility for the communities in which we claim association. The principal focus of stronghold communities is for the production and maintenance of what economists call public goods. Public goods are the things that make our lives work—safely and productively—that we all need individually, but which are only achievable collectively. Schools; utilities; security; transportation, commerce and social infrastructure, are all examples of public goods. In America, we follow schemes of collective capitalism to affect the realization of public goods—a hybrid of socialism and capitalism. Even all types of insurance are schemes of collective capitalism even though they are usually dispensed by private companies. Yes, Mr. Allstate, you are (at least) half socialist!

Stronghold communities must see themselves as significantly more autonomous than they have in the past. They must reimagine themselves as the central actor in securing the welfare of their constituents. The three key skill sets of a stronghold community are: 1) a comprehensive knowledge of the needs and issues of the community; 2) the capacity to persuasively solicit and creatively apply resources to affect the objectives of the community; and, 3) the ability to network by and between other stronghold communities to pursue shared ambitions. Forget the hierarchy that places communities below state and federal institutions. In the future, stronghold communities are the hub of the wheel. We must take sole responsibility for whatever our common interest defines as the public goods of the community. Fortunately, technology is on our side that enables us to both network within the community and to forge alliances between communities to affect the capitalist benefits of division of labor and economies of scale. Traditionally, we have looked to the federal government to perform this networking function, but we must now flip that paradigm on its head.

It starts with fighting—tooth and nail—for the return of our financial resources from the federal government to the state and local level. Keep our tax dollars at home for application to locally controlled public goods. To accomplish this, we must also demand the dramatic reduction in the scope of public goods the federal government is (ostensibly) responsible for. Things like national security, central banking functions, and national transportation infrastructure should remain at the federal level. But things like education, public health, and commerce should be re-delegated to the state and local level. There is no question in my mind that my state, county, and town would have done a better job at protecting our public health during the pandemic than was accomplished by the executive and legislative branches of our federal government, let alone the FDA and the CDC. What a disaster. It is time to scale back the scope of burdens our federal government undertakes and return those obligations and attendant resources to the control of stronghold communities.

Some will argue this pits communities against one another right when we need to come together as a nation. Notwithstanding the fact that our national government cannot effectively produce and distribute many of the public goods we need anyway, competition between communities may produce (as competition often does) better solutions for us all. This scheme harnesses that capitalist ethic of competition that will, no doubt, create differential advantages between communities (and varied attractiveness for people considering relocation), but in the long run will force the unification of communities eager to capture those advantages for themselves through networked coopetition—competing to cooperate. And, unless you haven’t noticed, our well-intentioned national leaders have no chance of unifying the country while the malicious ones have no interest in doing so. As members of our respective stronghold communities, we will all still be Americans, but with a renewed sense of thriving rather than suffering. All, without raising taxes!

Reclaiming Our Country

As argued above, our federal government is irretrievably broken. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t reclaim our country from the bottom, up. The Trumplican Party has completely subsumed what was the GOP. Conservative ideals have been dismissed in favor of a naked power grab designed to protect white Christian nationalists who live in fear of losing their position in the hierarchy of socio-economic-political power. Our nation no longer looks like them and it terrifies them. Ideas are no longer their pathway to power; power expressed as coercion has become an end in itself. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is completely self-absorbed in intra-party bickering and shaming the opposition, all wrapped in a veneer of elite righteousness. As a result, the Biden agenda has collapsed and the American people have been left to struggle to remember why they ever formed a union. Currently, Biden is not just in danger of being a one-term president, he is looking more like a one-year president. This can certainly change, but the prospects look dim. In addition, while the executive and legislative branches seem like they are engaged in a middle school food fight, our Supreme Court in the judicial branch has become a political cudgel that has forgotten such sacred norms as the value and sanctity of precedent. To extend the metaphor of branches, I am reminded of Immanuel Kant’s warning that “out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.” Perhaps our founders didn’t read Kant.

As I read the many recent essays—some scholarly and others sloppy punditry—about the impending collapse of our democracy and the prospect of civil war, I am reminded of an old maxim in my study of international relations which holds that at the time the question has been asked, the eventuality is most likely underway, if not having already occurred. Today, we are indeed no longer a democracy. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people? We have drifted very far from that ideal. The political scientist, Barbara F. Walters, prefers the term “anocracy” which is somewhere between a struggling democracy and authoritarianism. In limbo, but headed in the wrong direction. The prospect of civil war is also well underway. Unless you have been asleep since 2016, we are engaged in a cold civil war that is becoming hotter (just look at the trends of violence) every day. And, the leaders of both major parties are fomenting further enmity at every opportunity they can find. Divide us to oppress us to keep power and money to feed their own illiberal ambitions.

I have heard the argument that other aspects of society—more specifically business, industry and the financial markets—will not allow our democracy to fail, or our cold civil war to become hot. However, the institution most cherished by these entities is capitalism, not democracy. We know, if we accept the highly persuasive research of the French economist, Thomas Piketty, that the endgame of capitalism is the destruction of democracy owing principally to capitalism’s effectiveness in producing concentrations of wealth (then power) among the very few, which is profoundly anti-democratic. Have you ever heard of the Koch brothers? Do you think they prefer democracy to capitalism? Further, unless the violence of civil war disrupts the processes of profit-driven businesses, do you think those executives will care? Their job is to serve shareholders, not the liberal ideals of Thomas Jefferson, or the unification ambitions of Abraham Lincoln.

There is a way to reclaim the spirit of America and the ideals of our founders—to reclaim our country. Like many of the challenges any human organization faces it comes down to charismatic and inspired leadership that is genuinely interested in serving constituent members. In our current circumstances, this means a completely new—even flipped—perspective by new leadership whose aim is to re-establish the prospect of the American Dream, including all the aspirations of every human being within the states and territories of the nation, as well as re-establishing the integrity of traditional American values and human dignity throughout the world. This is damn hard work, but no more difficult than that faced by prior generations.

It starts with candidates who aspire to not just restore a functioning government, but to empower the least powerful among us such that we may all rise to become our best selves. Not just better, best. Yes, we are absolutely stronger together. That has been proven over and over throughout the history of humankind. We need to be lifted up, to believe in ourselves again. New candidates must embrace the intoxicating power of winning; of the natural and contagious appeal of victory, which is among the most alluring attractors known in the constellation of human persuasion. Against all odds, FDR, Reagan, and Barack Obama prevailed over their rivals with one simple proposition: they made Americans feel good again; they made both citizens of the country and people around the world want to identify as Americans. FDR made “happy days are here again” a national mantra during the depths of the Great Depression. Regan claimed it was “morning in America” again. Obama promised the prospect of “hope and change.” Our next president must do much more than “Build Back Better.” They must convince all Americans, regardless of political affiliation, that our traditions of hard work, honesty, and creative innovation will, once again, provide a land of abundance and opportunity unrivaled anywhere in the world.

Last November, I proposed a way out of our mess when I published “MAFGA”: Make Americans Feel Good Again, https://ameritecture.com/mafga/. I argued that “lifting people up has always proven more powerful than putting them down.” That candidates who embraced this concept could save us from the doom of Trumplican-styled authoritarianism. I received feedback ranging from thumbs up to “you couldn’t be more naïve.” Many readers were hung up on a visceral need to bring justice to those (especially January 6th insurrectionists and Trump) who have done America wrong before any pivot to aspirational aims. To be clear, reclaiming America requires justice to be served. I fully endorse bringing the full weight of the law down upon the heads of those guilty of violating our laws, including sedition and treason.  But, I also believe that is the job of our justice system. Our job, as citizens, is correcting our personal behaviors by reclaiming our personal agency, strengthening our communities, and supporting those who are willing to do the hard work of re-establishing the American Dream. We must focus on what is within our control. Absent these efforts, the shaming, prosecution, and punishment of those who we believe have done us wrong may amount to little more than a Pyrrhic victory.

We must flip our focus and intentions to advocating for aspiration, hope, success, and winning, assured and secured in the hand of sincere responsibility for ourselves and each other. If we remain where we are, addled by fear, anger, and hate—divided in the sinister trap of us vs. them—we will seal a fate none of us desires. We will fail ourselves and every generation that succeeds us.

It is time to shift our eyes toward the light of dawn. To rise again in the embrace of hope. To know that our strength and our future are in our hands. It is time to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and, before we lay our heads on the pillow of our dreams, know that tomorrow is another opportunity to prevail in the game of life and maybe, just maybe, re-establish that beacon of hope—that city on a hill—conceived by John Winthrop at the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.

By |2022-02-07T21:46:32+00:00January 17th, 2022|General, Leadership, The New Realities|0 Comments
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The E-Boom of 2022

The bad crazies have dominated America for the last several years; it is time for the good crazies to take the stage.

I expect 2022 will be similar to the entrepreneur-boom (E-Boom) years of 1983 and 1998. Those were years when business—not politics—catapulted the American spirit to new heights. They were years when the most asked question was simply, “Why not?”

George Gilder’s 1984 book, The Spirit of Enterprise captured the energy of the early 80s best as he celebrated the birth of widespread entrepreneurship when he described entrepreneurs as those who “In their own afflicted lives, they discover the hard predicament of all human life, threatened always by the encroachments of jungle and sand. From their knowledge of failure, they forge success. In accepting risk, they achieve security for all. In embracing change, they ensure social and economic stability.” These are the good crazies.

In the late 1990s, it was technology that drove businesses to transform our lives and renew the American spirit. Once again, entrepreneurs provided stewardship of the digitization of everything that drove productivity and economic development to levels unseen in American history. Don Tapscott’s, The Digital Economy (1994) foretold what we have now all experienced: a world in the palm of our hand. First there was fire, then the wheel, then the Gutenberg Press and next the combustion engine and, in the late 90s, a life reduced and (paradoxically) accelerated by 1s and 0s.

A more beautiful insurrection than the bad crazies provided on January 6, 2021is on our doorstep. I am not into numerology, but 2-0-2-2 with three deuces and a one-eyed Jack has to be a good omen. Pick your Jack—the heart or the spade—love or power. Combine it with three deuces and it looks like a good time to go all in. People will be considering decisions that would have never been on their radar a few years ago. No subtlety, no nuance. Big bold moves. A chance to live life on your own terms again, or maybe for the first time? Crises always provide the opportunity to make the world new again. While most sit back licking their wounds or remain imprisoned by their fear and loathing, a few—the entrepreneurs—dive headfirst into the void.

After years of fear and uncertainty, which began with the Trump presidency and ended with COVID-19, we are in transition from a wannabe fascist and a life-threatening pandemic to a rational White House and an endemic annoyance. Home tests, anti-viral drugs and the availability of monoclonal antibodies are game changers. The fundamental shift this allows is removing the threat of the unvaccinated from ending the lives of the vaccinated. Our healthcare system can recover and meet the needs of non-Covid emergencies again. Researchers can take what we’ve learned from the mRNA platform and apply it to other endemic diseases like the common cold and influenzas and, yes, maybe even the eradication of many types of cancer. There are entrepreneurs in the healthcare industry, too.

Our democracy remains under threat and our politicians, who remain trapped in their own shame games and petty grievances are unlikely to save the day by themselves. Addled by anger, which is simply the manifestation of fear, and stuck in a modality of condemnation, which is actually evidence of self-loathing, our well-intentioned politicians may spiral into irrelevance. Especially since most Americans have lost their appetite for listening to their many promises and proclamations. However, an expanding economy driven by non-institutional entrepreneurs has the natural and powerful effect of dispersing power across new centers of influence that are impossible to corral by authoritarianism. Why do you think Xi Jingping is cancelling entrepreneur-cum-tycoons in China like Jack Ma? A broad dispersed economy driven by entrepreneurs is inherently democratic and anti-authoritarian.

Meanwhile, there is plenty of cash in the hands of Americans providing seed capital for startups and funds to support high levels of demand for new products and services. Private and venture capital equity funds are flush. The cost of money will rise but, for now, remains at historic lows. Supply chain issues will be unwinding in the new year. Dispositionally, people are ready to go it alone, away from traditional employment in favor of lifestyle flexibility and abundant generational opportunities to make their own mark on the world. Business startups are already accelerating well above pre-pandemic levels. The IPO market is deal-horny providing a vehicle to realize the economic value created by entrepreneurs and support the long-term capital needs of growth companies.

Finally, breakthrough innovations only occur when entrepreneurship is in full bloom, which is our last hope of dealing with climate change. Our weak-willed politicians and our own selfish intransigence means we will have to rely on transformative innovation in the creation, storage, and distribution of energy. The only other thing that can reverse climate change is catastrophic economic collapse, and nobody wants that. The rebirth of entrepreneurship may prove a just-in-time solution to our greatest existential threat.

As the E-Boom of 2022 approaches, these are my words for my 20- to 40-year-old readers:

  • Avoid complexity. It confuses, confines, and compounds risk.
  • Blow away rules and boundaries.
  • Hitch a ride on a comet—destination unknown.
  • Lose the shackles and throw away the key.
  • Suspend that long search for meaning; let it find you.
  • Those who fail succeed the best.
  • Ask, over and over again, why not?

For my readers 40 to 60 years old:

  • The people at your dinner table should be your principal focus.
  • Balance stability with dynamism; perfect the art of the pivot.
  • Forget about being first, be the best.
  • Segue from accumulation to thoughtful discernment; discard!
  • Be assertive with your hard-won knowledge.
  • Engage with completely new areas of learning.
  • Craft a financial plan to serve you in later life.

For my 60+ readers:

  • Extinguish the fire of anger; avoid the trap of judgement and condemnation.
  • Focus on pace rather than distance; steady now.
  • Seek inspiration in simplicity.
  • Stand ready to lift up those younger than you.
  • Focus on the light of transcendence—rise above the rabble.
  • Allow Nature to define your path.
  • Listen, learn, love; your relevance depends on it.

Sit up tall at the table, folks. Those deuces and that one-eyed Jack are ready to be played.

By |2021-12-05T14:47:30+00:00November 24th, 2021|Leadership, The New Realities|0 Comments
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MAFGA

Do you remember when it felt good to be an American? When the always sunny-side-up Ronald Reagan proclaimed that every day was “Morning in America”? The best day ever in America was always that day, and tomorrow would be even better.

Traditionally, the essence of the American spirit lies in one basic proposition: that the United States of America is the best place in the world to become all you can be—to realize your dreams. If you were born here, you were damn lucky. And, if you weren’t you would do what you could to get here.  The shining city on the hill beckoned all as the escalator to unmatched human fulfillment where each successive generation would reach new heights of achievement. That spirit was indomitable in American life for more than fifty years—from the late 1940s until the early 2000s. Then, we turned against ourselves.

Today, Americans are exhausted. Many feel as though they have been living on the edge of disaster—mentally, physically, and financially—since before the Great Recession, now more than a decade past. Then, the pandemic threw us all in a pressure cooker threatening our very existence. It has taken an extraordinary toll that has proven very stubborn to resolve. The sad fact is that Americans are killing each other at rates not seen since the Civil War, and committing suicide at rates never seen—ever. (Let those facts sit with you for a moment.) Since the early 2000s, we have fallen so dramatically into divided camps of hate-filled animus the prospect of redemption seems impossible to summon.

After fifty years of extraordinary achievements and prosperity, made possible by the sacrifice and toil of six-plus generations of Americans who preceded us, we slipped into the trap of judgment and condemnation, heaping shame on each other at every opportunity. Shame that kindles humiliation, which results in depression, anger, and violence.

The invocation of shame started with the religious right, but today finds its greatest animated vigor on the woke left. “Family values,” espoused by the religious right was always a contrivance to bind true believers together (for the benefit of the church and/or televangelists), and to condemn those who did not join and conform to the money-machine bondage of institutionalized mysticism. Their pro-life movement is perhaps the most enduring shame-based construct of all time. All well-packaged doctrines, but nonetheless hypocritical and knavish.

More recently, the many shame-based movements of the woke left (MeToo, BLM, Defund the Police, Occupy Wall Street) target men, Whites, cops, and the wealthy with a firehose of shame. Do those targets deserve ridicule? Yes, some do. Will it change behavior—solve the problem? Absolutely not. Finally, right when we need everyone on board to solve the many effects of climate change, and to persuade the unvaccinated to get in line for a jab, the principal pathway of persuasion is, you guessed it, shame. We humiliate people and then wonder why they flip us off rather than do what we need them to do, for us and for themselves.

The message is always the same, notwithstanding subtle modifications to fit different targets: you are immoral; you are unworthy; you are deplorable; you are stupid. Like middle school bullies, we put each other down to build ourselves up. In fear of being displaced from our position in American socio-economic hierarchies and/or enduring the effects of a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, or simply satisfying our elitist impulses, we defaulted to putting one foot on our fellow Americans’ necks and a knee on their backs to assure our own status and success. It is little wonder why we live in a toxic cauldron of ire that is destroying our humanity and our country.

This dire assessment aside, there is an enormous opportunity for those in all elements of society—business, political, and social—who are astute enough to provide the foundation of redemption to save us from ourselves and, yes, thrive. Make Americans Feel Good Again (MAFGA) is a simple and powerfully persuasive proposition. Lifting people up has always proven more powerful than putting them down. “Your success makes mine possible” is a tried-and-true leadership axiom. The elegance of this proposition lies in its return on investment inasmuch as the investment—the cost of adopting this approach—is $0.

The use of the term ‘good’ in MAFGA is intentional. Not happy, or great, or special; good. As my high school expository writing teacher often reminded me: “good is a moral term.” Moreover, ‘good’ is the essence of feeling worthy, which is essential to every human being’s sense of self that enables them to succeed in their pursuit of their particular purpose—of their dreams. Evisceration of the goodness in our fellow Americans—what shaming does—is a surefire pathway to societal collapse.

Today, MAFGA can be applied to any aspect of life that requires persuasion. Business, public health, politics, education, law enforcement—wherever you need people to make a preferred decision or adopt better behaviors, making them feel good about themselves for having done so is by orders of magnitude more effective than dropping the anvil of shame upon their heads. Shaming and the humiliation it evokes must stop, now.

Finally, since many of you follow this post for my political observations, to my Democrat readers, it appears the Republicans have figured this out first. While Democrats are busy criticizing each other in Congress, and shaming people who are unsupportive of their policies (from fiscal stimulus packages to climate change to vaccinations), Governor-elect Youngkin in Virginia was making parents of schoolchildren feel good about themselves again and won the statehouse. Even Republican senator Josh Hawley, a Trumpy firebrand, who made some rather visceral remarks about the state of manhood in America last week, is onto something: he was attempting (wittingly or not) to make men feel good again.

In the presidential election of 1980, Mr. Sunshine, Ronald Reagan, defeated the jeremiad-driven Jimmy Carter by granting Americans absolution from their sins. He intoned: you (Americans) are not the problem, government is. You Americans are good. The question for Democrats today: is Biden, Carter? Republicans may not even need history, redistricting, or voter suppression to assure their next wins if they embrace MAFGA-based strategies. The midterm elections of 2022 and presidential election in 2024 may well turn on the simple measurement of who made Americans feel good again. In the emerging post-crisis era, how could making Americans feel good again ever fail? (Wake up Dems, you may not be as ‘woke’ as you think.)

MAFGA, people. MAFGA.

By |2021-12-01T16:24:06+00:00November 17th, 2021|General, Leadership|0 Comments
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Amaze me. Please.

I would like you—anyone—to amaze me with your spirit and fortitude. With your sacrifice. With your resilience. With your intelligence. With your dedication. With your honesty. With your passion.

Unfortunately, we are overwhelmed today by stories of grievance; by stories that begin and end with demands based in half-truths or full-lies. Spun and spewed by people for whom life is seen as a buffet of entitlements. People who believe their lot in life will be enhanced by finger-pointing blame at anyone or anything beyond themselves. “Don’t trigger me; I am fragile and it’s your fault!” “Keep those immigrants out; they might take my job!” “Don’t blame me about climate change; I recycle!” “Don’t make me wear a mask, or get a vaccine; my right to ignorance is worth more than your life!” In this age of affluence and abundance, our sense of personal responsibility has largely vanished, and with it our capacity to address urgent problems.

Meritocracy, capitalism, and even democracy, which have served America well as cornerstone institutions, have become whipping posts against which all manner of complaints find a place to whine and wail. To be clear, each are imperfect institutions. Meritocracy has been corrupted by the impulse of plutocrats who have cleverly developed practices and systems to, in effect, turn the meritorious work of their antecedents into inheritable legacies. (See: Ivy League.) The economist Thomas Piketty, in his book Capital, illustrates the terminal effects of the destruction capitalism levies on democracy via its capacity to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few (enabling the aforementioned plutocrats). Finally, we are observing in real time how Trumplicans are using democratic systems to destroy democratic ideals through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and court packing.

However, these institutions served us well for more than two-hundred years. Yes, they have created inequalities and stubborn forms of discrimination, but they also produced the most powerful and bountiful civilization in the history of the world. It is only in the last twenty years that these institutions have fallen into the shadow cast by their dark selves; a darkness perpetrated by those charged with protecting their integrity: politicians, media chieftains, judges, and justices. The lesson: people make institutions what they are, not the other way around. The problem we must address is the quality—the character—of our leaders. These institutions will serve us well again once we become their stewards, rather than parasites eating away their strength and compromising their integrity.

I know it’s hard to find these days, but do you remember courage? It is becoming a quaint virtue right when we need it to rise up to elevate a new spirit of leadership that can purge the cynical charlatans who have turned our cherished institutions into schemes to fill their wallets and sate their frail and vile egos. As I shared with my readers in Saving America in the Age of Deceit, “courage is the spine of character; it is the synaptic command and control system for all other virtues.” I further characterized “transcendent courage” as based in truth, action, selflessness, and the humility of self-acceptance, while providing a fountain of strength to embolden everyone. “Those who act courageously enhance the lives and behaviors of everyone around them” (pages 235-237). This might be called the viral benefit of courage. It tends to spread and replicate in a manner that nurtures communities of virtue. And boy, could we use a renaissance of virtue.

The good news is that we know what to do about the unfortunate by-products of our institutions like inequality, discrimination, and climate change. We have never been stumped in creating solutions—in providing the guidance and guardrails that all institutions require. Our challenge is summoning the will to assert what we know is true. The problem started with embracing lies and fantasies that, when they reached critical mass in the mindspace of Americans, became so disorienting and toxic that today we cannot even agree on a shared reality. Seeing things as they are—the most critical skill in decision making—has become so corrupted by incompetent and selfish leadership that we have no hope of solving any of the problems we face. And, the clock is ticking. If we don’t get our proverbial shit together soon, it may be too late to stem things like civil conflict and environmental catastrophe.

Call me cranky if you wish, but cranky is an awkward yet symbiotic bedfellow of wisdom. I know I won’t have the last word, but please allow me the deep word. I want to look upon my fellow Americans and believe in us the way Abraham Lincoln believed that the Union would prevail; the way Harriet Tubman believed in herself; the way that Nikola Tesla believed in alternating current; the way that every nameless and faceless immigrant that crosses our border believes in their future. Moreover, I want to know that when it is my time to take my leave of this place that America and the world are back in courageous hands.

So please, in whatever chosen role you play in this country of ours, please amaze yourself with your dedication to the truth expressed with a deep sense of personal responsibility, and uphold our institutions in the face of those who would like them destroyed. They have served us well, and they will again, once we renew our commitment to leaders of high character. There is little, if any, time to spare.

By |2021-09-05T14:01:08+00:00August 2nd, 2021|General, Leadership|0 Comments
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Our Next Destiny: Objective Morality

As a student of history, I have been trained to consider what we can learn from an expanse of time at altitudes that transcend the moment. To be clear, we must deal with the flames at our feet; ignoring them means tomorrow may never come. However, if we are to have any claim of authorship of our future, we must lift our eyes, hearts, and minds to consider new possibilities and opportunities. Otherwise, we are forever victims of circumstance. The time is now to lift our perspective to shape a new destiny.

I have written extensively about the cycles of American history. Born in crisis, our history suggests we then move to a period of objectivism, then liberalism, then idealism, and crisis again. We are at the end of our fourth period of crisis in American history, what I termed the “Age of Deceit.” What comes next—a new era of objectivism—has been characterized in the past by terms such as unity, reason, inclusion, pragmatism, tolerance, risk aversion, stability, containment, self-reliance, standardization, meritocracy, frugality, humility, redemption, secularity, family, and community.

Every period of objectivism varies to reflect the nature and consequences of the immediately preceding crisis. Historically, these consequences have emanated from economic and physical destruction. The periods that followed the American Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Great Depression and World War II were periods of objectivism. The next fourth period of objectivism will be different. Yes, there has been economic and physical destruction during the Age of Deceit that spanned the wars we waged in the Middle East, to the Great Recession, to the pandemic; but, this time, there has been an unprecedented degree of moral destruction as well. Among other things, the term “empathy” must join those above to set a new destiny—a new era—of objectivism.

Although deceit was the common denominator that I chose to characterize the period of crisis we are now leaving, the moral transgressions ranged a spectrum of violations of those things we might consider under the umbrella of “good.” In addition to our many deceits, we were also selfish, greedy, reckless, conceited, and profoundly narcissistic. Our calculus excluded morality; it began and ended in a transactional modality measured principally in dollars and seldom considered effects beyond ourselves—across extended peoples, places, or time.

Ironically, but also consistent with history, one might expect that morality would have been a primary consideration in the era just passed since periods of late idealism and early crisis are marked by high religiosity. After all, aren’t religions known for their high morality? The answer, of course, is that the values religions promote are, but the institutions and organizations formed to support them fall victim to the same things other institutions and organizations do: compromising their principles in the name of self-preservation. Organized religions compete for adherents just as private enterprise competes for customers. Doing good—meeting moral commitments—are often the first victim of competition.

Of the values all world religions hold is the idea that we should treat each other as we wish to be treated ourselves; the so-called Golden Rule. However, there is another tenet of morality we must both recognize and embrace if we are to transcend this crisis and deliver ourselves to a much better place—to a destiny of objective morality. It to, is taught by most, if not all world religions. I call it the principle of moral reciprocity. It is the idea that we are as strong as the weakest among us, as wealthy as the poorest among us, as safe as the least secure among us, as healthy as the sickest among us. This principle is they key to solving many of our problems; those that collectively fall into the basket of concerns we call inequality. And, it is a prerequisite of achieving the loftiest objective of all: a sustainable culture of integrity.

To secure a future of objective morality we must change two things: where we focus our eyes, and how we measure success. Where we end up, whether we are driving a car, or plotting a path to a new destiny, largely depends on where we focus our eyes. We go where our eyes tell the brain behind them to go. The brain then commands the body to coordinate its capabilities to get there. The other element is how we measure success; when we have arrived at our destination, be it a place or an outcome. In the Age of Deceit, we measured our success in dollars and personal gratification. It should be no surprise, then, that we are in the mess we are in as a society. I believe it can be argued we don’t even have a society today.

For the most part, this shift in perspective is understood by our current president, Joe Biden. Against extraordinary structural impediments, President Biden is trying to take us to a period of objective morality. The good news is forces tend to move us in the direction of objectivism following periods of idealism and crisis. In many ways, we are given little choice to correct our path if we are to survive. We have that going for us. Our eyes will naturally focus on new destinations out of the basic desire for self-preservation. However, embracing the principle of moral reciprocity is anathema to where we have been for the last three decades. This will be a formidable challenge.

Curiously, organized religion could play a positive role. The decline of religiosity in America could be addressed by a new appeal to the so-called “nones” that claim no religious affiliation by appealing to their sense of morality as defined by the Golden Rule and the principle of moral reciprocity. Organized religion—to save itself—must authentically and sincerely embrace morality again. If it does, it will be the first time since it supported civil rights and rallied against the war in Viet Nam in the 1960s. Since then, it has mostly spiraled into the abyss of its current irrelevance. It followed our descent into depravity rather than saving us from it.

As individuals, we must also set our sights on new horizons. If we want stronger families and communities, why do we continue to stare at our federal government and national media? We need to assure we each take responsibility for where our feet stand each and every day. We need to point at ourselves to assure a new destiny. We need to ask our neighbors how they are doing. No one will, or can, lift us up if we don’t make the effort ourselves.  Good and bad are both contagious. It is up to us to see which one spreads.

A life lived in a state of objective morality has many benefits. Today, given from whence we have come, it may just be the key to our very survival, and the prosperity—both material and moral—of many generations to come.

By |2021-04-18T13:22:24+00:00April 11th, 2021|General, Leadership|0 Comments
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The Allure of Madness

As the country descends into chaos, driven by a mix of structural inequities and a ruthless pandemic that requires leadership far beyond the grasp of Trump World, we each have a choice: stand in resolution guided by values and virtue, or hitch a ride on a comet of madness toward a romanticized return to a mythical normal that will never be normal again. Regression—the fantasy of returning to yesterday—is the fault line of the selfish and uninspired. Progress requires clear-minded honesty and transcendent courage acknowledged with the certainty of sacrifice.  It has been curious, and at times shockingly sad, to watch which path people choose.

Standing to reestablish and actualize values and virtue is difficult work; an often gut-wrenching undertaking unaccompanied by the prospect of immediate reward. It requires a deep sense of self, based in the hardened steel of dignity to suffer sacrifice with eyes fixed on an aspirational horizon of fortitude. The other choice, escaping—riding the comet—renders the allure of madness; to thumb one’s nose at reality while indulging the impulse of selfishness. To ignore science and party with friends at old watering holes. To expect our institutions to suddenly rise up to save us as we spiral into self-absorption. To run away to the fantasy of a romanticized past—however distant and fanciful—to alleviate the quarantine blues.

As we stare at the last days of this crisis—the Age of Deceit—the selection process is underway.  The list of individuals, companies, organizations, and governments that comprised yesterday’s heroes—those we held in the highest regard—will undoubtedly be selected for or against as a new list is revealed.  The wonderboys of yesterday, like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, are destined to become the pariahs of tomorrow. Companies that take their direction from investment bankers and tightly-wound lawyers may find their fortunes plummet as stewardship gains favor over exploitation. Those who bayed loudly from the pulpit to extol the promises of a white Christian nationalist renewal will be forced to reconcile their sermons, laced with more hate than love, as the offering trays return empty from the few left to listen. And governments will, once again, come to realize that leadership starts with service.

As I wrote in Saving America in the Age of Deceit, “the rudder on America’s ship of liberty [is] dangling from its hull.”  Out of greatness we have managed to create a stew of despair, dissonance, and dread.  Those who have succumbed to the impulse of selfishness—who embraced the allure of madness by grasping precariously onto the tail of the comet—will be forced to trade their gratuitous binge for the sober reality of tomorrow.  Those who set aside feeling good for doing good—the stouthearted and most resilient among us—will chart the new course of history.  Which are you?

By |2020-07-27T20:16:46+00:00July 19th, 2020|General, Leadership|0 Comments
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Saving America in the Age of Deceit

On this 105th day of March (or so it seems), we are nearly as close to election day as we are from the start of the pandemic, back when the novel coronavirus was supposedly a problem contained in a wet market in China, until it wasn’t.  To say things are a bit manic in America today is regrettably an understatement.  And while none of us (save perhaps Bill Gates) foresaw the pandemic, the economic, social and political upheaval that also feeds the current state of mania has been building for years.  The cycles of American history nearly guaranteed this moment.

Those of you who have followed my blog for the last ten years know that I warned of the probable rise of wannabe fascists in my post on March 12, 2010 titled, “The Next Neo: Neo-fascism.”  As America slid further in the direction of favoring deceit over character, culminating in the Trump presidency, I decided, in the spring of 2017, to take several threads of research I had been working and melding it into a narrative to explain how we got into this mess and how we can get out of it.  The result is now available at Amazon in both e-book and paperback, Saving America in the Age of Deceit.

Of Saving America in the Age of Deceit, Roger Cohen, columnist of The New York Times wrote,

“At once an incisive history and a guide to national recovery, William Steding’s Saving America in the Age of Deceit is an important book. It traces the American moral collapse that produced Donald Trump with remarkable clarity. Perfectibility became entitlement, exceptionalism turned to hubris, and narcissism supplanted individualism. With a historian’s sweep and a stoic’s determination, Steding traces a path to recovery of the American spirit through restored leadership, responsibility and sense of community. Erudite and readable, this unusual work inspires hope, for individuals and the nation alike.”

What a mensch.

So, please, reach into that purse of excess cash Trump gave us all to stimulate the economy and help support aging writers like me—$8.95 for an e-book or $14.95 for paperback.  Or, just read the last ten-plus years of blogposts at ameritecture.com and you will see many of the threads.  Although every day I face a country and world that seem less recognizable than the previous day, I also have faith in the American spirit and in our humanity.  The day I don’t is when I will enter a psychedelic pharmacology research program as a willing lab rat; or, rather than go fishing, I will stay fishing.  Or, both!

By |2020-07-19T20:59:35+00:00June 13th, 2020|American Identity, General, Leadership|0 Comments
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Hugs: The New Path to Power

Who could use a hug today?  Not the creepy doggy-dry-humping hug our president gives our flag, but a genuine loving hug from friends and family.  Hugs are, after all, a sincere expression of empathy.  I see you, I am with you, I am here for you, I am grateful for you, I love you.  But here is the thing about hugs and empathy.  When we embrace—whether a physical embrace or a verbal expression of empathy—power happens.  Empathy elicits compassion, and the resulting bonding that endows unity creates power.  The power to solve our biggest challenges—from Covid-19 to climate change—requires the empathy-compassion-unity troika on all fronts. Americans, and for that matter all of humankind, will not survive and prosper unless we come together to work for each other as one.

It is important to note, however, that empathy—as a word—is a toddler in the lexicon of the modern world.  The idea that we might recognize and feel another’s pain or challenges did not even have a name until the late 19th century when German aesthetics made einfühlung (meaning “in-feeling”) an area of inquiry in human and social sciences.  The English word, “empathy,” was later established by the psychologist Edward Titchener a little more than one-hundred years ago, in 1909.  However, the concept—a form of “sympathy”—had been around for centuries.  The 18th century Scottish philosopher, David Hume, wrote that “the minds of men are mirrors to one another” in his discussion of what we know today as empathy.[1]  Machiavelli (The Prince, 1532) and Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan, 1651), whose work remain staples in the world of international relations and leadership studies today, would not have considered proposing empathy as a descriptor of human nature or an element of leadership, but in their defense, the word was unavailable to them—in any language.

Obviously, empathy is not in abundance in our national leadership today.  Since Newt Gingrich turned the politics of Washington into a win/lose blood sport in the 1990s, empathy has been on the ebb.  Under Trump, empathy has been finally and completely eradicated from the White House as if his new discovery—Lysol—has been deployed as an empathy-killer, coursing through the ventilation system of the people’s house.  As a sociopath, by definition, Trump has no sense of empathy whatsoever.  He is unable to feel for anything or anybody but himself.  Notwithstanding his affection for flag poles, have you ever seen him embrace anyone, in any fashion?  However, this deficiency also establishes his Achilles heel.  Empathy-based unity is kryptonite to Trump’s superpower of divisive deceits, which is why he foments division—even during a pandemic—at any and every opportunity.  Divisiveness got him elected, and he is betting it will also get him reelected.  On the other hand, unity will defeat him and send him into a narcissistic spiral of self-destruction.  Indeed, if he is defeated, the most dangerous times for America in its history may well come between election night in November and the next inauguration on January 20, 2021; a smooth transition of power is highly unlikely.

Defeating Trump and the Trumplicans begins with hugs in the form of empathy.  (Note to Joe: keep your hands at your side and your nose out of women’s hair; your running for president, not auditioning for a shampoo commercial.)  Winning in 2020 will depend on who brings empathy to the table; an authentic recognition of the challenges all Americans face with equally genuine policy solutions that solve real problems confronting Americans regardless of party affiliation.  There are no “libtards” or “deplorables” in America, just folks trying to care for themselves and their families.  That’s what “We are all in this together” means.  But the popular pandemic sentiment must be actualized; rainbows that endure.  The candidates who understand this and communicate tenable hope will become the next representatives, senators, and president of the United States.

[1] See the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empathy/.

By |2020-05-08T16:58:46+00:00May 2nd, 2020|General, Leadership|0 Comments
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On Transcendent Courage

The following includes an excerpt from Saving America in the Age of Deceit.

Successful leadership requires the most important element of all: courage, more specifically, transcendent courage.  Courage is the spine of character; it is the synaptic command and control system for all other virtues.  We are all familiar with courageous acts; the firefighter who rescues the child from the burning building, the soldier who throws himself in the path of danger to save his comrades, or the passengers who uttered “Let’s roll” and gave their own lives to protect other innocent Americans that terrorists intended to kill at their target in Washington DC on 9/11.  There is no question these acts are heroic and worthy of significant praise, even reverence.  Are they born from courage?  Panic?  Desperation?  Are they reflexive or triggered from a deeply wired sense of personal responsibility?  Is courage inherited or learned?  Are courageous people attractive, intelligent, wealthy, or prophetic?  Do they attend church every Sunday?  Do courageous people necessarily perform heroic acts or is courage a state of being that may never be overtly expressed?

The etymology of courage, found in The Oxford English Dictionary shows that the word has been used to describe the “quality of mind,” heart, spirit, disposition and nature of a person which “shows itself in facing danger without fear or shrinking.”  This history of usage indicates a much broader notion of courage, which is revealed by perilous circumstances of life; circumstances that by their very nature are not within the control of the courageous.  9/11 pilot Mohammed Atta, who committed a horrific act when he flew American Airlines flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center, is heralded as courageous in many parts of the world.  Dutiful?  Absolutely.  Brave? Perhaps.  Fearless?  I doubt it.  Courageous?  I don’t think so.  But what if Mohammed Atta had flown his plane safely to an airport and freed the passengers?  What if others who are ordered to act in a manner they know is wrong face their circumstances by acting contrary to those orders?  More recently, what if more Republicans like Senator Mitt Romney had faced down Trump during his impeachment trial?  He took action in the face of perilous circumstances he did not control.  And, he did so, consistent with what I will call his truth: which is the first dimension of transcendent courage as a state of being.

The truth in transcendent courage is based in the simple reality that we know what the right thing is to do; the difficulty comes in listening to and honoring our sense of truth, allowing its transcendence and ours against the pressures of competing influences.  These influences take many forms and have many origins.  They may be internally generated, like greed; or, emanate from the pressure of peers, family members, superiors, or clergy.  Consequences imposed by these influencers, positive or negative, act to tether or suppress our truth.  A person possessing transcendent courage however, has immediate and undeterred access to their truth.  They do what they believe is right without regard to competing influences.  They are the most innocently (or unapologetically) honest among us.  They live in their truth all day, every day.

The second dimension of transcendent courage is the capacity to subordinate consequence to the importance of action; consequences are inconsequential.  Fears are faced down.  The prospect of immeasurable burden is accepted with grace and dignity. Physical pain, ridicule, even death are accepted as the inevitable partners of a courageous life; one which, above all, honors its truth.  Many, like Romney, arrive at transcendent courage by the commitments they have made to their God.  Others believe that actions taken consistent with their truth will mitigate the severity of consequence, in time.  I will suggest there is simply no other honorable way to express freedom.  If we hesitate to do what we know is right in the face of consequence, our own chains forever shackle us.  We abdicate our freedom.

The third dimension of transcendent courage is selflessness.  Selflessness enables us to honor our truth and readily accept consequences.  Many people define their lives by their service to others, consistent with servant leadership.  They measure their self-worth by the extent to which they make others smarter, healthier, happier, and safer.  Teachers, doctors and nurses, clergy, police, firefighters, paramedics, military, and community volunteers come readily to mind.  By their very nature or life choice, people who spend their time serving others have a significantly greater propensity to possess transcendent courage; they deserve our reverence.  Service to others teaches us the intrinsic value of selflessness.  It isolates the influence of adoration and remuneration from consideration.  It gives us the opportunity to embrace our humanity and feel connected to community while enhancing our self-esteem.  Selflessness produces that warm feeling many call peace.  Selflessness is the liberation of the soul from the oppression of our desires.  Think of those who have served you well in your life—who have enriched your life.  Are they profoundly successful, high profile, and wealthy, flamboyant people?  Maybe.  I’ll bet they are quite the contrary: quiet, unassuming, self-assured, and humble.

The fourth dimension of transcendent courage is self-acceptance.  Are you comfortable in your own skin?  Do you like you?  Have you resolved with yourself who you are?  People who have access to transcendent courage accept who they are and live lives bounded by dignity and imbued with grace. They are at peace with themselves, in the present.  Only when self-acceptance has occurred can our consciousness turn to the needs of others; only then are we open to leadership through service; only then is transcendent courage a natural state of being.

The fifth dimension of transcendent courage is the transmission of strength.  I’d like to tell you about Sara.  I met Sara at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas at the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders where she was being treated for an aggressive form of leukemia. I was a volunteer there for several years helping out with everything from restocking the shelves of videos in the infusion room to comforting patients who were having spinal taps to access bone marrow. I also spent a fair amount of time supporting the parents of patients; trying to help them make sense of the cruel hand they had been dealt.

Sara was five when she started her treatment and like most five-year old girls Sara liked everything as long as it was pink, purple or somehow related to Barbie. Sara had pale, crystal-blue eyes and strawberry-blonde hair, always gathered with a satin, clip-on bow. She loved to have her nails painted and preferred patent leather shoes. Soft and shiny was her style, which meant that both silk and fleece could be mixed in the same outfit without offending her aesthetic sensibilities. Sometimes she looked like a kid who had dressed herself while standing in her closet, blindfolded. Everyone who spent just five minutes with Sara loved her, including me. Sara is the most courageous person I have ever known.

During Sara’s three years of horror battling leukemia I never saw her cry out, whine or complain.  I will never forget the last few days before Sara’s death. Sara was the first one to accept what was coming. She helped everyone else through the painful anticipation of losing her. She smiled every moment she was awake. She never expressed concern for herself. She only wanted to make sure her mother, father, and little brother would be okay.  Sara’s legacy is the strength she transmitted to those around her.  Her courageous behavior made anyone who was in contact with her a better and stronger person. This is the fifth and final dimension of transcendent courage. Those who act courageously enhance the lives and behaviors of everyone around them. This is the true evidence of transcendent courage.

As we mourn those we are losing in the fight to contain Covid-19, and suffer our own inconvenience and disruptions due to social distancing, we must summon our transcendent courage in all of its dimensions and forms of expression.  If we do, we will emerge from this crisis a stronger more resilient people, and will then be able to shape our future rather than fall into a morass of listless self-pity and vulnerability.  The latter is just what Trump and the Trumplicans, and every despot around the world desire.  Please join me in assuring they don’t get their way.

By |2020-04-18T19:27:44+00:00April 13th, 2020|General, Leadership|0 Comments
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