Culture: Fixation on Experts

KENNEWICK, WASHINGTON - As I have so often cited in this blog, New York Times columnist David Brooks had an insight today in his appearance on NPR's All Things Considered that I think runs beyond politics to general North American culture. When critiquing President Obama's response to the oil spill, Brooks faulted the general trend of the Obama administration to bring in a panel of experts, often from academia, to figure out what to do in a situation instead of empowering the people at the scene or on the front lines of a crisis situation.

Indeed, a number of commentators have joked that in response to the President's"angry" statement last week, he would open a commission on posterior kicking to not only to select "whose ass to kick" but also determine who was the most qualified person to actually take that action (could it be anyone except Kenneth Feinberg?) and then evaluate the effectiveness of the punishment. That's a far cry from an on-site boss reprimanding or even firing employees on the spot when something has gone wrong.

I think this runs far deeper than the Obama administration. I think it is cultural in North America. Ever hear of an apprenticeship lately? The idea of people learning how to do jobs from people that have done them for years seems to have become anathema to management. Now the way to do things is to eliminate the expensive, experienced people who know how to do things and re-define jobs so that they can be done by cheap workers with no experience. To make sure that experienced workers and their trade skills aren't advantaged, new rules are implemented to slow down the experienced workers and ban the way they have been doing things efficiently since those techniques might pose a "safety risk" to the new, unexperienced employees that might not understand them. The new people can be trained in new practices that make the "old heads" shake their heads.

A classic example is in a realm that I have been hearing stories about recently, railroading. Trainmen today still need to learn a rulebook, but it isn't the same rulebook that I found in the museum I visited yesterday. The new rulebook has some changes based on technology (obsolete dispatching practices no longer appear and rules about contemporary ones do appear), but mostly it is longer to include bans on practices that railroaders had used since the earliest times.

While it could be argued that longer, heavier trains make a new emphasis on safety necessary and certain old "efficient" techniques might be unsafe in the modern environment, it seems that the emphasis on trade skills is alarming to the "old heads." I remember encountering a local train about fifteen years ago with a very experienced conductor and brakemen and an engineer that was completely new to the line, having ridden it on a dinner train only once. The conductor didn't consider this engineer qualified, and the train did not go outside of yard limits on that line that day as a result. I remember him telling me, "Twenty years ago, this would have never happened--they would never send out an unqualified engineer, even on a branch line."

It would be nice if the oil spill reminded the culture that the people who work on things on a day to day basis on this continent know something about what they do. However, it seems far more likely that it will be used as justification for a whole new round of theory-based changes in an industry that already knew how to conduct its operations safely but chose not to for financial reasons. Considering that this kind of thinking seems to be coming from the very top, I don't see anyone being able to challenge it.

Politics: Agreeing with Brooks Again

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Several times in the past, most notably in this entry, I have praised New York Times columnist David Brooks for taking a very real-world approach to his conservative views. I may disagree with Brooks on many issues, but I never get the impression that Brooks lives in a different world with different facts than the world I live in, something that often happens with other prominent people on the right in the United States.

One of the things that I think makes Brooks so valuable is that in the spirit of other, less ideologically-identified columnists like David Broder, he tends to take the pulse of the public extremely well, even when public opinion is turning against his preferences. He understood the depth of anger against the Republicans in 2008 early, and understood what Barack Obama was tapping into against Hillary Clinton.

I believe Brooks picked up on another trend last Sunday during the roundtable discussion on Meet the Press, which I haven't heard him discuss elsewhere. (Brooks seems to appear all over the place; I usually hear him at least on NPR's All Things Considered and the PBS NewsHour each Friday.) While discussing the current tide against Democrats in the United States, Brooks noted that people are turning to the Republicans because they are dissatisfied with government action. However, they don't really want no government action, they just want more effective government action. They distrust THIS government, but they want to trust government. By calling for preventing or undoing all Democratic initiatives, the Republicans run the risk of over-reaching as much as they claim the Democrats have.

I suspect Brooks is correct. The TEA party may want government completely out of their lives, but those people have already been voting Republican. The independents that determine elections--and elected Scott Brown in Massachusetts--want government to actually achieve something. The party that figures that out and manages to actually seem effective will probably do quite well this fall. Somehow, I doubt either party is listening.

Politics: So That's Why I Like David Brooks!

TORONTO, ONTARIO - For some time now, I've been surprised how often I listen to New York Times columnist David Brooks and think he has a good point even when I disagree with him--and I don't always disagree with him. The conservative Brooks appears each Friday with liberal E.J. Dionne on National Public Radio's All Things Considered and with liberal Mark Shields on the Public Broadcasting Service's News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and sometimes on other programs as well.

Today, Brooks finally made it really obvious why I can stand him. In his appearance on All Things Considered, he responded to a question about the Obama's housing plan by explaining the Republican position, but then saying this:

I guess my counter-argument would be that we are not only individuals. We have a system--a system we all share. And the system right now is so unsteady that we have no individual responsibility in our own system because the economy is so unsteady. Sometimes, if you deserve a job, you get laid off, and if you don't deserve a job, you don't get laid off. The government's fundamental responsibility right now is to make sure that the system is stable.

In other words, David Brooks understands the need for balance between individualism and communal responsibility. If things are too out of balance, then not even basic conservative principles work anymore.

Just on Monday, this blog focused on how Barack Obama understands the same point from the liberal perspective. David Brooks has now made it clear that he understands it from the conservative perspective, and not only that, but he sees it as essential to his own conservative viewpoints being applicable. His world view requires a degree of balance just as much as Barack Obama's world view.

I've said for some time that I could work with conservatives if they were all like David Brooks. Now, I understand why. I may disagree with Brooks on the best way to run the economy or the role of taxation, but he understands that the playing field has to be fair in order for free market principles to function properly, and that government on occasion may have a role in ensuring that this is the case. He actually thinks through the practicalities of a given situation, instead of just relying on an ideology.

More Republicans used to be able to think like Brooks. They used to be able to see when compromise in the short term actually helped their position in the long term. Now, one needs to look no farther than the California budget battle to see how too many Republicans behave, refusing to compromise on taxation no matter the circumstances or the lack of balance inherent in a situation.

I daresay that if Republicans took their cues from David Brooks instead of Rush Limbaugh, the United States would be in a lot better shape right now--and in the long term, a healthy United States economy is one in which free market principles have the best chance of succeeding.