That Was Then, This Is Now
We Need a New Kind of Leader
Civilized man has been around for approximately ten thousand years. You might be of the opinion that there has been a steady increase in the depth and breadth of the development of civilization. I would suggest that you think twice about that. How different are we from the ancient Egyptians or Mesopotamians? I’m no anthropologist, but I find it intriguing that we understand these people. We “get” Socrates and Plato. We “get” the parables such as Icarus flying too close to the sun. His arrogance destroyed him. Yes, we get that today, in this world. How about Sisyphus attempting to roll that rock up that hill? Have we not experienced attempting to get everything in our lives in order, only to have it blow up on us? Failed marriage? Fired when we thought we were doing great? Or how about Diogenes searching for an honest man? That parable speaks to the essential truth that none of us is entirely honest, least of all with ourselves. I like to say that, if Diogenes ever shines his light my way, he’ll at least have to slow down and take a closer look, before he keeps on looking.
If none of these tales is familiar to you, you might do well to check them out. You might want to think about the extent that we are, in our fundamental form, not so very different from our ancient ancestors. There are countless parables, through all of time, and they are as relevant today as ever. The Three Blind Men and the Elephant. The Emperor’s New Clothes. (Personally, I think the Emperor’s New Clothes is more relevant today than ever. And, no, I don’t apply it to any single man or idea.)
But wait! This is an essay about leadership. What about leadership? Well, let’s go back in time and ask what made a good leader. Like today, a good leader would instill confidence and get people to unify behind him/her. He would likely keep the council of some other wise persons who would, among them, determine the best course of action for all. Right? Just as it is now, it was then. Oh, but today there is a difference!
Back in the day, and until only a few centuries ago, leadership could be intuitive. There was relatively little scientific or engineering knowledge, so a leader was one who could organize a hunt, or lay out the land that people would farm. This was generally more organized than people today give credit for. Indians (Native Americans) knew to rotate crops. They developed hybrids. They practiced selective breeding. They built storehouses for grain, such that they would have it in reserve for the years when there were crop failures. Other civilizations did much the same. As civilizations became more agricultural, they became more adept at manipulating their environment. Eventually they developed waterpower for mills, and so forth. But all of this was essentially intuitive. That is, an average person could look at what was being done, and comprehend it.
I’ve sometimes speculated that as late as the eighteenth century, people such as Thomas Jeferson and Ben Franklin knew all that was known about science. There just wasn’t that much that was known. They knew of Newton, and Copernicus, and Ptolemy and so forth. ALL of what they knew would fit in one book!
So, what qualities did a leader need up until then? Just what I said at the beginning; the ability to instill confidence, the ability to build consensus, and a certain amount of common sense. There was little science to running civilizations. It was more about establishing a workable bureaucracy and keeping things organized. It would have been nice if leaders of the time knew science well enough to know about disease prevention, weather forecasting, nutrition, physics, chemistry and biology. But they didn’t. Leadership ability and organizational skills were going to have to be enough.
And that was as good as it got, until sometime in the nineteenth century. Yes, that’s when capitalism hit. But capitalism is more of a result than a cause. What was the cause? Science and technology. It became possible to process huge amounts of iron. The steam engine was invented. Just those two things made railroads and steamships possible, which led to large scale production and shipping of nearly everything: food, furniture, farm implements, textiles, lumber, etc. Capitalism could not make any of this happen simply as an economic system. There first had to be the science and technology to make it possible. THEN capitalism could make it happen.
Love capitalism or hate it. Just remember, your feelings about it are irrelevant. Without it, we’re no more advanced than the Mesopotamians. We live in an age of technology. We can’t live without it. But, you want it to be more environmentally friendly, right? So do we all. Believe it or not, Exon Mobil doesn’t like oil spills any more than we do. The execs at BP breath the same air as the rest of us.
So, there is little to no argument that we need to be good stewards of the environment. But what are you going to do about it? Ban pipelines? Why? Because they sometimes spill? Well, yes, they do. But pipelines replace railroad tank cars, and spills from railroad tank cars are generally more hazardous, more damaging and more frequent than spills from pipelines. Had that occurred to you? Has it occurred to your favorite politician? Does your favorite politician have the engineering chops to sort through all the various factors to make the best decision on behalf of all of us? Probably not. How many politicians can you name that have engineering or physical science degrees? That’s a problem. It didn’t used to be a problem because science and engineering as we know them today, didn’t exist. What science and technology that there was, was intuitive. Not anymore.
In this world of science and technology, we need leaders who are adept at science and technology. Only a century or two ago, anyone could call themselves a doctor. And one doctor was about as good as another, given that none was aware of bacterial infection, nor of antibacterial products. Today, we DEMAND much more of a doctor. Much, MUCH more. So, why do we accept so little expertise from our leaders? They must be fully knowledgeable concerning the technological world in which we live. Oh, you think, but they need only HIRE the experts. Really? And how would technologically ignorant politicians even RECOGNIZE competent engineers and scientists?
No, we need leaders who ARE the technologically competent people. We no longer need soothsayers and prognosticators, and we have little use for consensus builders. We need people who can develop solutions that can only be solved with a thorough knowledge of physics, chemistry and higher math.
Let me give some examples of how yesterday’s leadership is failing us completely, concerning today's issues. You have, of course, heard about climate change. OK, now what do you KNOW about it? No, not the politics of climate change, the SCIENCE of climate change. Here’s a quick quiz: name all the nationally recognized people you can who are experts on climate change. Try to name ten. Go ahead, write them down. Now, how many of those people are actual climatologists? My guess is, NONE of them. You DID write down politicians, celebrities, and media wonks. Am I right? I’d say that’s a problem.
Oh, but the people on your list consult the scientists, right? How do you know that? What scientists have they consulted? Have any of your favorite climate celebrities ever said something along the lines of, “You know, I was just talking to famed climatologist, Dr. Strangelove, and he said…” Has your favorite celebrity ever suggested that they have ever even consulted with climatologists?
Let’s try this one: Of the science teachers you’ve had that taught about climate change, have any of THEM ever named a climatologist and discussed their findings? I hope to hell they did, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
So, how much of the SCIENCE of climate change do you actually know? You know that CO2 causes climate change? OK, what else? Anything? You know that we need to reduce CO2 “…before it’s too late, or life on earth will be decimated”, right? What climatologist told you THAT?
Right about now, some readers are calling me a denier, and cussing me out. Just remember, I was an earth science teacher, and I was TEACHING climate change nearly fifty years ago. No, CO2 does not singlehandedly cause climate change. There are multiple factors. Yes, man is adding CO2, and that’s probably not a good thing. We really should do something about that. But, what? Do what some Hollywood celebrity tells you? Or your favorite politician? I’ve got a better idea. Do what SCIENTISTS and ENGINEERS tell you to do. The trouble is, you have no idea what that is. Am I right? Well, why DON”T you know? Chances are it’s because today’s civilizations are being run by the same sort of people who ran them in ancient times; good leaders with an ability to maintain bureaucracy. Yes, that has its place, but it does worse than nothing when it comes to engineering our way into a brighter future. Such people, today, are just in the way.
How about COVID? Well, there’s a hot potato. Besides that we all really wish that it had never happened, there is a wealth of varying opinions about how it should have been handled. But perhaps we can all agree that it should have been handled by scientific and medical experts, and not by politicians, Hollywood celebrities, and media “thought leaders”. THAT was a mistake. That was a HUGE mistake. Why did you let that happen? Why didn’t you seek out those scientific and medical experts? You might say that you did; you watched them on your favorite news program. Well, was that program on FOX or CNN? It made a difference, didn’t it? You are sure that one was mostly right and one was mostly wrong. Correct? I don’t care which side you took. I care that you took a side. SCIENCE DOESN’T HAVE SIDES.
You were told that the vaccine would keep you from getting COVID, and that it would keep you from being contagious to others. You were told that, but it was never true. You were told that by celebrities, politicians, and “thought leaders”, but you were never told that by an immunologist. You never heard any immunologists say that, did you? Can you NAME an immunologist?
Are you getting my point? The people you trust and believe and pay attention to are the people you should be ignoring. They are destroying your future. The COVID pandemic didn’t have to be as bad as it was. It wasn’t scientists who screwed up. Climate change will continue to happen because it’s natural, and we’ve had overall global warning for the twelve thousand years that the ice age has been closing (but we’re still in it, so far). Yes, man has had an effect, and we need to address that, and we are. But climate change will happen regardless. You might have been thinking that if we eliminate man’s effect on climates, climate change will stop. If you think that, you’ve been listening to the wrong people. That’s right, you’ve been listening to the celebrities, the politicians, and the soothsayers. That might have gotten you by, any time up until about a hundred years ago. Not anymore. If you are sick, you want a real doctor, not a shaman. And if you want to “save the planet”, you need science, not politics.
As long as people allow themselves to think that their future hinges on which party they pick, we are doomed. Consider that the people who most demand our attention are often the least able to contribute. If we recognize that our future depends, not on trusting in politics, but in doing the hard work of keeping ourselves as informed as possible by the people who actually know what the hell they’re talking about, I think we have a bright future.