Three Thoughts, Three Failings

Too often of late I have found myself saying three things.

The first is cursing the ideology of those around me. Though, to be fair, it is not their ideology itself that I curse. It is the blindness and zeal with which they pursue that ideology. Conviction and fortitude are desirable traits, but they must be tempered with wisdom and questioning. Too many ideologies concern themselves with solely the means or solely the ends. Both must be fully accounted for. Sometimes evil must be done to avert the greater evil. Sometimes nobility must be sacrificed for the greater good or the lesser evil. Always you must question and review your beliefs. Nothing is permanent. Nothing is always right. Some moderation if you please.

The second is "the author had a great idea. It's a pity he got most of the way through it, took a sharp right turn, and drove deep into the fields of stupidity". Ideas are attractive. New ones, old ones, shiny ones, disturbing ones. They have a way of festering within us. It is tempting to consider the world a simple place of black and white where our one idea can explain everything, where our one ideology can answer everything. The world is not that simple nor that easy. Our world is a wondrously complex and confusing place. We must resist the urge to apply our ideas in an extreme manner. Moderation is valuable, and whilst there are oftentimes when moderation must be applied in moderation, there are far more times when moderation should be applied without moderation. Extremism of any form is undesirable – most of the time.

The third is a self-explanatory statement:
Too often we fight against that which we hate and despise, instead of fighting for that which we love and believe.

It is this last idea that I have dwelt on the most of late. The affliction seems so prevalent. In myself, in my friends, in student politics, in life.

Terror. Hatred. Anger. These seem to be our motivations to fight. Where are the noble reasons? Where is the love? the honour? the belief?

Why must we always be laid low by our desire to survive? Where is our will to stand in the gaze of history and unflinchingly put ourselves forward for what is right and proper?

For what is right and proper both in means and in ends. For what is right and proper not only for ourselves but for our loved ones, our neighbours, and those we have never met.

George Bernard Shaw wrote "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

I disagree with him. The reasonable man adapts himself. The unreasonable attempts to adapt the world. Therefore, all change depends on the unreasonable.
There is a difference between progress and change. All progress depends on a different person. It depends on the ideal person. The person who is both reasonable and unreasonable. The unreasonable person seeks to impose their vision of the world upon everything. The reasonable changes their vision. The reasonably unreasonable person imposes their tempered vision upon the world. They take the truth, the belief, and the loves that they know and they bring them to the world as best they can. They ignore their hatreds, their prejudices, their biases. The unreasonable person believes they can reshape it all to their supposedly perfect vision. The reasonably unreasonable person knows their vision is just as flawed, just as horrid as the world around them. They seek not to do away with what they hate, but to nurture and support the good that is already present. It is through their actions that true progress, true improvement is achieved.

Pliny the Elder said "True glory lies in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read".

Fighting that which we detest deserves no story. A diatribe against those we hate deserves no readers.

The truly great fight for their beliefs not against their fears.

Two Evils Do Not Make A Good

There are moral absolutes.

Killing another human is always wrong.
Torture is always wrong.
Standing idly by whilst someone unwillingly dies is always wrong.
Allowing someone to suffer is always wrong.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of things that are always wrong. Just the first couple that come to mind to make my point in this rather short post.

There are moral absolutes.
There are situations in which all of your options involve the violation of a moral absolute.
There are situations in which you must choose which evil act to commit.
There are situations in which you must commit an evil act to stop another evil act, lest you commit an evil act by allowing an evil act to commit.
That still means you did something evil. Even if it was the least evil of options.

And yeah, that means you're pretty much screwed when it comes to getting through life with a clean conscience.

Deal with it.

Life isn't fair. Life doesn't understand the concept.

Sometimes the best we can do is to try to minimise the harm we do.

The world would be a better place if more people realised that:
we cannot always do the good or right thing; and
the necessity of committing evil to avert evil does not render our evil act good or right, nor excuse or justify it.

Life isn't fair. Life isn't just. Life just is.

On the Failing of Principles

The ultimate test of an individual or organisation’s beliefs comes in times of adversity. It is easy in the good times to stand up and say “We believe in these things. We will live by this code."

Many individuals and organisations claim to hold ideals similar to those listed below:

* That being active within and supporting the community is a worthwhile and important function of business.
* That being loyal to and supporting one’s staff is an integral part of doing business.
* Less commonly held – That products and services should be sold only to those who need them and to whom they will help.

It is at times like the current global financial difficulties, that you get to see which organisations hold these beliefs in truth and which merely adhere to them for the PR benefits. Those organisations which scale back or renege on their community support pledges, those organisations which retrench their entire Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) departments, those organisations which render once-valued and experienced employees redundant, and those which embark on heavy-handed, non-needs-based selling programs with the sole excuse of “difficult times may lay ahead” have missed the entire point of their good works.

We need the good works of the various CSR departments more so in times of difficulty than in the good times. When more do you need experienced and highly competent staff than when work loads are increasing and pressure is mounting? Why is it suddenly acceptable to carte blanche ignore your previously stated core values?

I appreciate that there are times when one does need to make sacrifices to maintain the viability of an organisation. A group that runs itself into the ground trying to help people benefits no one in the long run.

There are times when redundancies and cut-backs are warranted and necessary. But I question how many of the redundancies in recent months were warranted and how many were merely Executive Management or the Board taking the opportunity to cut costs without taking the blame personally.

Boards and Senior Management have a duty and a responsibility to their employees and their communities to stick by their principles in both the good times and the bad.

A wise company should forever keep itself in a trim and well structured manner such that redundancies are never necessary.
A wise company should invest in its CSR department the most heavily when it’s community is in the most need – even if that means investing less in the good times and building a capital reserve for the bad times.
A wise company should function such that it need never make the choice between survival and sticking to its principles.

I have no doubt that many people will be saddened to discover that companies they admired or supported do not truly value the principles they claim to.
I will, no doubt, be saddened to discover how many companies try to hide their transgressions, to silence discussion within their ranks about redundancies, the cancelling of CSR programs, or to discover that when times get tough their employers put the pressure on the sales rather than providing the service and support they claim to hold as the essential priority.

Growth and financial success are not everything.
Indeed, they are nothing without a flourishing society in which to enjoy them.

Books, Crises, and Random Contemplations

I've been reading more lately than I have generally managed in recent years. I recently finished George Soros' new book The New Paradigm for Financial Markets - The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means. I found it rather lacklustre, though it did get me thinking and reignite much of my interest in some core economic theories. I've even been reading some journal articles just for the hell of it. So, if I gained nothing else from Soros' writings, then at least I got to read some interesting articles.

I've just started on a new book, though I expect it to take me quite a while to get through. The End of Charity: Time for Social Enterprise by Nic Frances.
If I gain nothing else by reading this book, then I'll have retaught myself the general principle that one should not buy a book on the strength of its title alone. The opening chapter was bland and dull at the best of times. Though clearer and more fluently written than Soros' piss-poor effort, it has still meandered across the countryside, failing to present a solid picture.
I should probably reserve judgement until I have read more than one chapter.

I'm not sure if it's simply the current relevance, or a result of my recent readings, but I'm discovering that I do in fact have some interest in the theory of financial markets. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if my disinterest was a result of my first real exposure to financial theories.
First and second year macroeconomics looked at financial markets without ever actually teaching us anything about them, so my first real exposure to the relevant theories was the third year course - Money, Banking and Financial Markets. I'm not sure if it was because the lecturer was painful to listen to, or because I was somewhat out of my depth (having a mere smattering of economics courses under my belt at that point - barely the core first year courses, and only some of the core second year courses), but I really hated all the theoretical crap of the financial markets.
Part of me also wonders if it was because I had so many intuitive problems with the models we studied. (Models I've gone on to look at off my own back and those that I was exposed to in third year core theory seem to take many of my intuitive concerns and bring them in to the fold).

Regardless of the source, I now find myself with a keen interest in the financial markets. I don't expect it to last. My interests rarely do. In the meantime, I hope that it will make for some interesting reading.

I've been rethinking my plans for the future over the last couple of months. At first it was just a desire to avoid returning to a student's income coupled with a thorough enjoyment of my job. Recent changes at work, and running out of big new things to learn (at least in the immediately foreseeable future), are decreasing my desire to stay with my current employer in to the future. I still thoroughly enjoy the job, I'm just quite aware now that I will outgrow this particular pond sooner rather than later.
At some point in the future my desire to move through things at a fast rate is probably going to catch up with me and cause me some problems, until then I guess I'm stuck looking at areas where I can actually progress at a rate that I'm happy with. In other words, I should probably learn some patience somewhere along the way.
Returning to the rethinking of plans, I'm now thinking that there are perhaps better ways to accomplish my goals than going full-speed towards a PhD and a life in the comfortable halls of academia.
Firstly, by all accounts working for the University would drive me rapidly insane. As much as I tend to enjoy playing around with a bit of bureaucracy, the University takes it to extremes. And those extremes seem to strip the ability to do good, or act efficiently straight out of the equation.
Secondly, I'm beginning to think that I'm more interested in working in an executive or director type roll than I am in working anywhere else. I'm also inclined to think that my particular mindset and set of natural talents is better disposed towards that sort of work than towards academic research.
Thirdly, I would be able to meet my financial goals more readily outside of academia.

On the other hand, economics is cool.

Either way, I'll still be looking at undertaking honours in 2010, so I guess it doesn't really matter at the moment.

Okay. Now that I've rambled on about nothing in particular for several hundred words, I'm going to wrap up with a short list of a couple of things I'm working on (or plan to work on) for either here or Integrated Questions. With a bit of luck, I'll have them all up before Christmas.

* A response to George Soros' new book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets - The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means. In a nutshell, I'll be arguing that Soros comes very close to unveiling a brilliant idea, before veering wildly off the road and into a nearby tar pit. Also, he needs a better editor. And a better ghostwriter.

* A friend recently started posting a personal manifesto of sorts on her blog. Her first instalment convinced me that I should stop talking about doing the same and actually just start doing it, as a living document of course.

* A short piece of vitriol regarding the especial importance of sticking to one's principles in times of crisis or stress.

I would be most appreciative if any of my (six - according to Google Web Master) readers would poke me in to actually posting those pieces.

Of Changes Heeded and Ignored

A blog post should be many things.
Most importantly it should be readable.
The post that I just deleted before hitting publish lacked that essential quality.
A complication, I imagine, of writing at two o'clock in the morning without a coherent plan or aim in mind.


I want to talk about change. Specifically, I want to talk about the way that life can at once seem to be both vastly different to just a few scant months ago and yet be exactly the same. I never cease to amaze at the human ability to take even the most extreme of changes and remold it to fit our peculiar beliefs, habits, and desires.

At the same time, it saddens me in many ways.

Still, from time to time, some real change seems to occur around me. The last couple of months seemed to be one of those times. A new job. A real job. A job that I love.
More importantly, a job that gives me a great deal of self-esteem and pride (not that I really needed any more ego). The routine and stability that my job provides seems to provide a large number of benefits to my psyche and general happiness. Not to mention that I'm kept interested and stimulated by the constant need to learn another process or product. And, of course, I can't go past the rather positive feedback that I seem to continue to accrue.

I don't know if it is related to the routine and stability that the job provides, or if it is merely a coincidental timing - but I seem to have suddenly gotten to a stage with a Games Development project where publishing is inside the realms of possibility. Previously I'd never even get close. Now, suddenly, I find myself both highly motivated and highly confident in my ability to get this material out there.

Better yet, I'm writing on a regular basis again. Finally, a skill that I highly value and that I recognise needs constant practice to maintain anywhere near the standards that I expect of myself, and I'm actually using it again.
Albeit at times poorly.

Yet, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
A ridiculous portion of my time is still spent on the same two things - whining about certain aspects of life, and staying up in to the wee hours of the morning watching horrifically bad TV shows.

I find it saddening, intriguing, and reassuring all at once that humankind can be so resilient in the face of any change. We have an intrinsic ability to take a situation and make it our own. No matter what happens, we seem to be able to make it about ourselves. I find that to be rather promising.

Though I should perhaps just find it to be rather narcissistic.

Short Term Solutions for Long Term Gain

Welcome to my new blog.

These days it almost seems as if I create blogs more often than I actually update them. I must confess, to my eternal shame, that at least one blog I've created remains postless.

A friend of mine told me today that blogs are meant to be running streams of consciousness and not essays, that I put too much effort in to my writings. A fair criticism, but one that I feel the need to defend myself from. Integrated Questions was always meant to be professional and, to be honest, perfect.

I recognise now that I too often let the quest for perfection lead me to creating naught at all. Thus, this blog is a born - Divided Answers. An unfortunate twist on the perfection of Integrated Questions, this blog will be a stream of consciousness. I'll post here about the latest events that have piqued my interest, curiosity, and outrage.
More importantly, I intend to use this blog in conjunction with Imaginary Ripples to ensure that I write at least every other day. It is oft-said that practice makes perfect and it's perfection that I am so desperately seeking.

Welcome to my blog. Please ignore the mess.