Timeless Advice from President Lincoln--The Importance of Respecting Others

 

President Lincoln had a deep belief in the importance of respecting other people in the quest to achieve productive outcomes.  He was an enemy of self-satisfaction and any “know it all” attitude.   

As author Jon Meacham writes, Lincoln believed that to hector or condemn another person, to tell them that they are wholly wrong, was not a path to agreement or reform but to intransigencies. 

 

“If you would win a man to your cause,” Lincoln wrote, “first convince him that you are his sincere friend.  Therein this drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high road to reach and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment to the justice of your cause.  On the contrary, assuming to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart and although your cause be naked truth itself, transformed with the heaviest lance…you shall no more be able to pierce him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a  straw.”  

We so need to honor this truth today. We have to stop shouting at each other; vilifying one another. In our domestic politics. In our foreign relations. Even sometimes in our families.

The Rise and Fall of the Neo-Liberal Order

 he Rise and Fall of the Neo-Liberal Order:  America and the World in the Free Market Era

by Gary Gerstle

 

This book, in a fresh and very competent way, overviews the history of the past 100 years, 1920-2022.  It does it in less than 300 pages.  Deeply researched and fluidly written, the story reveals dimensions of this history that I found incisive and many new, despite having lived through most of it. 

 

He channels his story on the foundation of two movements as he describes them:  the New Deal, put in place on the run by FDR following the Great Depression.  It lasted through the 1960s and 1970s, brought down eventually by a combination of the Vietnam War (which split the Democratic Party), racial relations and the economy, which went into a steep decline in the 1970s.  From that sprang Neo-Liberalism, helped along tremendously by the peaceful demise of the Soviet Union and the opening up of China and the rest of the world to commerce.  Neo-Liberalism, a broad term often used in a dismissive and derogatory way today, embraced a belief in open markets, individual initiative, de-regulation of finance (elimination of Glass-Steagall; growth of mega-banks), communication (elimination of "fairness doctrine," creation of Fox News, MSNBC, etc., Twitter, etc.), businesses (opening the road to creation and expansion of tech giants like Google; Facebook and consolidation of businesses like airlines) and education.  Like the New Deal, it captured the support of both Republican and Democratic administrations (including, for example, Eisenhower who continued many of the policies instituted by FDR). 

 

Neo-Liberalism turned out to be a defining and unifying order of political economy embraced, as Gerstle sharply points out, by Republicans and Democrats from Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Obama. 

 

Its breakdown has been caused by a tremendous fission in trust and relationships in the United States including among the political parties.  These differences have become moral differences in their character, not just differences in policy. The decline in trust from a level of 75% of the public trusting the government "to do the right thing all or most of the time" in 1958 to 20% in May 2022 traces to many factors, including importantly the disclosure of Nixon's break-in of the Democratic Headquarters and subsequent resignation (trust declining to 36% at the end of his presidency) and then further declining due to the misbegotten invasion of Iraq (declining to 25% at the end of G.W. Bush's administration). 

 

I believe two other causes of the breakdown in public trust and confidence stem importantly from 1) the adversarial, non-stop trampling in broadcast and print media and on social media platforms of the motives, efficacy and moral worth of the opposition, and 2) from the breakdown of the makeup of the family.  Gerstle marshals sobering statistics to demonstrate this. Nationally, a staggering 30% of babies are now born into single-parent homes, up from only 10% in 1965. 

 

The decline of trust in every institution (other than the military) has been well documented, including by me in other posts, and I won’t rehearse the data here.  However, I would state that my two greatest concerns about this country--concerns that I find the hardest to see how we’re going to overcome, are the decline of trust in our institutions* and in each other and in the breakdown of the American family.

 

If I were to critique Gerstle’s book, I would cite a couple of points.  While he makes the case compellingly that the two parties have been united in their view of the right "political economic order,” I don’t believe he provides enough emphasis on the nuances of their differences on cultural issues.  He does point out how the Neo-Liberal philosophy embraced both a spirit of cosmopolitanism, open borders and an attachment to diversity (Democratic) compared to a much greater attachment to family, patriotism, religion and other so-called traditional values (Republican).  

 

I also believe he should have brought more emphasis to how dramatic geo-political changes post-1990 have fractured the free trade, cosmopolitan ethos that prevailed in the post-1990 spirit of Neo-Liberalism.  The passage of MFN for China, the WTO, all were premised on China’s entering the Free World to a far greater degree than is obviously happening. And the spirit on democracy which in 1990 showed signs of animating much of what was developing in Russia has disappeared at this moment.

 

I also wish Gerstle had spent more time addressing the totality of what was happening on the global front and, as part of that, recognized that our illusory belief post the fall of the Soviet Union that the world was aligning almost as one behind our view of the right political-economic order led us to step back on seeking better diplomatic understanding with potential adversaries, Russia and China in particular.   Instead, we pretty much put aside what their future interests and fears might be. 

 

Related to this, Gerstle’s treatment of the last 40 years should have put more emphasis on the importance of human agency.  He does emphasize, correctly, the decisive role of Gorbachev.  But he doesn’t touch on the importance of the different roles played by Chinese leaders, from Deng Xiaoping to now President Xi or President Putin in Russia (including how his outlook toward the West has darkened over the last 15 years).

 

 

*Another sobering set of data showing the decline in spirit of the American public emerges from this recent WSJ-NORC poll. The percentage of people who say these values are important to them, have declined from 1998 to 2023 as follows:

 

Patriotism: 70%-38%

Religion: 62%-39%

Having Children: 59%-30%

Community Involvement: 47%-27%

Money (the exception): 31%-43%

 

Creating and Sustaining a Winning Culture--The "Smell of the Place"

 This 8 minute video presents the clearest and most actionable path to create a winning culture I have ever experienced. I first saw it it watching a video about 25 years ago of a session presented in Davos by Professor Sumatra Ghoshal of the London Business School. I watched it while exercising at home. 

Being greatly moved, I reached out to the Professor and asked him to come to Cincinnati to talk with our senior executives. He did. As I recall, they were similarly moved.

The metaphor, "The Smell of the Place" has played out in real life for me, again and again. 

Enjoy. .

John

On Tue, Mar 21, 2023 at 3:22 PM, JOHN PEPPER <jepepjr@aol.com> wrote:

https:/ / youtu. be/ UUddgE8rI0E

"Good Wars vs. Misbegotten Wars"

  

LOOKING FOR THE GOOD WAR:  AMERICAN AMNESIA AND THE VIOLENT PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS BY ELIZABETH D. SAMET

 

There is a great deal I like in this book, a great deal.  But as other reviewers have noted, for me it is flawed in drawing on too much detail and in a less than optimum, organized way, drawing on a huge array of not always relevant literary and film references.  Without a doubt, Ms. Samet’s research and her knowledge of Shakespeare, literary figures and film of the 20^th century and into this century are prodigious. 

 

I gained many new insights and much affirmation of what I knew and believed before:

 

1.      The sentimentalized memorialization of the Civil War aimed at bringing White people together, so well documented by David Blight.

 

2.      Fresh for me was how the myth of the Civil War was perpetuated by film in the 1940s and 1950s, particularly the Westerns.  They signaled moral equivalency for each side, failing to recognize that one side (the South) had undertaken war to preserve the enslavement of people. 

 

3.      Samet underscores the reality that all “war is hell.”  Soldiers enter it with a mixture of motives, many laudable but by no means all noble.  We have tended to glorify World War II, a necessary war if there ever was one,  through the work of Stephen Ambrose, Tom Brokaw and Steven Spielberg.  Yet, in drawing out this reality,  she undercuts the reality that there are some “good wars,” ones that are a necessity in the evil they seek to end. This is surely one of them.

 

I have long believed that there are wars of choice, wars that could have been avoided and some wars that could not.  World War II is a war that couldn’t have been avoided, not unless one goes back to the antecedents for Hitler and deny his existence.  I don’t think the Civil War could have been avoided either, not with the dichotomy of beliefs on slavery.  The Spanish-American War was, I believe, a war of choice.  So was Vietnam, in hindsight, misbegotten.  And the same is true of Iraq.

 

You can’t read this book without thinking about the war underway right now between Russia and Ukraine, supported by the U.S. and the European Union.  Was this war avoidable?  Historians will study and debate this forever.  I think it might have been avoided if one goes back to the different decisions that might have been made at the turn of the century.  While it was a narrow window, I believe there was the possibility that, with more foresight and courageous, imaginative leadership, a Pan-European security arrangement, including Russia, could have been put in place.  Whether it would have lasted forever no one can know.  But I think at that point in time, Putin was open to such an arrangement. 

 

By the time we reached 2014, however, with the expansion of NATO, including the prospective inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO and, importantly, the increasing paranoia of Putin that the West was out to surround him ( with enough circumstantial evidence to prove the case in his mind), the risk of war was high.  

Yet, individual agency still existed, in the person of Putin.  I suspect that many other Russian leaders would have reached the same decision he did, but I’m not sure all of them would have.   His belief that Ukraine was part of Russia, something he came to believe in more and more, might not have driven another leader as it drove him. 

 

“We are where we are,” as we tritely say.  But there is an enormous lesson to be learned in this for the future.  Boiled down, it amounts to doing one’s best to see the world as a potential adversary sees it.  We didn’t do that with Russia.  We failed to consider at the turn of the century what would be in the long-term interest of the U.S., Europe, Russia and the world.  We saw the world almost entirely through our lens. Now we confront the challenge of seeing the world as China (and much of the rest of the world outside the West) see it. 

 

Other insights: 

 

1.      Our quick 100-day victory in the first Gulf War allowed us to kick the Vietnam syndrome of having failed.  Positive confidence-affirming signals returned and a sense of hubris along with them.

 

2.      The attack of September 11, 2001 drew on analogies with Hitler which drove us to a flawed war on terrorism, which led us to the misbegotten decision to invade Iraq.

 

There is an aspect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that is especially tragic.  And that is that, even as the Ukrainians rightly view themselves as an independent nation, it is also a civil war in Ukraine.  Countless Russian soldiers are fighting, trying to kill men and women who are extensions of their own families.  There are human dimensions here that only time will reveal,  even as they are being carried out in blood as I write this. 

 

It’s hard to imagine the conflicted feelings—the horror—felt by a Russian soldier who thought he was going to Belarus for exercises and found himself invading Ukraine to kill someone who could be a friend or relative. 

 

Many of the Shakespearian plays which Samet cites were about civil wars in England.  The agony of those wars is being mirrored in Ukraine in ways that will eventually be written about in history and literature.

 

3.      Samet refers often to my favorite philosopher, Reinhold Niebuhr.   He brought a cautionary reading to history.  Beware, “if virtue becomes vice through some hidden defect in the virtue; if strength becomes weakness because of the vanity to which strength may prompt the mighty man or nation; if security is transmuted into insecurity because too much reliance is placed upon it; if wisdom becomes folly because it does not know its limits.”

 

Niebuhr believed that this risk had poisoned the evolution of Communism in the 1950s.  And it’s fair to say it has affected us, too, in the United States in our own history.  In fact, it is endemic to human nature.  Moral complacency and superiority can come to easily justify doubtful means to achieve ostensibly virtuous ends. 

 

American innocence—the faith in the essential virtue of our society that makes any critique evidence of ill-will--is more than cautionary.  It’s a warning.  Yet, we must not allow this to bring us to a position of ultimate relativism.  We must recognize that there are truths to be honored, nowhere better summarized than in the words of our Declaration of Independence:  “All men are created equal.”

 

All of this is a reminder of what I’ve seen in the lives of everyone, including myself.  We are curious compounds of good and evil.  Stubborn idealism comes at a price:  namely, an intolerance of complexity, compromise and ambiguity.  Yet, again, we cannot allow this to leave us awash in the foggy no-man’s land of relativism.

 

4.      Robert McNamara’s The Fog of War is worthy of comment.  McNamara’s story illustrates “the slipperiness of beginnings and ends, the refusal of war to stand still long enough to be shaped into a coherent story; the ambient fog obscures causes and consequences as well as ends and means.”

5.      Today, Samet asserts, we celebrate the veteran of World War II as almost an archetype of stoic humility rather than a readily identifiable individual.  Samet castigates this in a way that I disagree with.  For there are values, even if not always present, even if simplified in terms of motivation, embedded in the best of what happened in World War II. For example, the focus on loyalty, of seeking freedom over tyranny.  Yes, a bit of simplification on these values is not all a bad thing so long as it doesn’t disguise the fact that all war is hell. 

 

6.      Sentimental memorialization of the Civil War, with its invidious impact on race relations, continued well into the 20^th century.  In 1936, Franklin Roosevelt unveiled a statue of Robert E. Lee.  His speech tapped into the popular interpretation of the Civil War and Lee.  It also acclaimed Lee as not only a “great leader of men and a great General,” but also as “one of the greatest American Christians and one of our greatest American gentlemen.”  Roosevelt’s position may have been anchored in a genuine belief, but I doubt it.  It certainly was anchored in his need to get the Southern vote to win the presidency.

 

7.      Frederick Douglass foresaw in his 1875 speech what the reconciliation for the White race through the romantization of the Civil War meant as he plaintively asked:  “When this great White race has renewed its fallacy of patriotism and float back into its accustomed channels, the question for us:  In what position will this stupendous reconciliation leave the colored people?  What tendencies will spring out of it?”

 

Let me conclude as Samet concludes with timeless words from Lincoln.  She draws on his speech of 1838.  Lincoln was meditating on the theme of “the perpetuation of our political institutions.”  He did so, as he writes, with “a curious mixture of respect and impatience.”  The respect grew from his celebrating the importance and influence of the men who had created this country.  A few were still around.  They may have seemed to be “giant oaks,” but they were not giants, only men.  Heroes for their own time but not for all time.

“In his remarks, Lincoln respected the past without being paralyzed by it.  He understood the ways in which improvement must temper veneration and reason moderate passion. He recognized that only truth could conquer the dangerous distortions of myths,” Samet eloquently writes. 

 

And so Lincoln returns to what we find in the Declaration of Independence:   “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”  “That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”

 

That is what we were fighting for in World War II and achieved.

  

That is what the Ukrainians are fighting for at this moment.  It is inspiring.  It is not to be forgotten, not ever, and I doubt if it ever will be.  However, I hope in time we will seek to understand what led to this war and what we can draw from this understanding that might allow us to avoid a similar war in the future.

Countering our Quest to be "Spectacular"

 

The pastor at St. Bart’s Episcopal Church in New York last week offered one of his biting sermons.  It drew on the Gospel which recorded the three temptations which the Devil had presented to Jesus while he was wandering in the wilderness.  He challenged Christ, if you really are the son of God then turn these stones into bread.  Rebuffed on that, the Devil went on to offer Christ the world below them (they were standing on a high mountain) if Jesus would bow down and worship him.  Again rebuffed, the Devil came with his third challenge, for Jesus to throw himself down from a great height.  Again, Jesus said, “No,” returning to the fundamental truth that what really matters is following the words of God.

 

The pastor went on to talk about his dogged determination to “be spectacular.”  He went through a bracing confession of things that he and St. Bart’s pursued that in essence boiled down to trying to be "spectacular". 

He recounted how he and St. Barts sought to outshine other nearby churches through better programming; a more inspiring choir; a larger endowment and stronger sermons.  Yet, these are not the things that matter most, he said.  What matters most  is to be humble, to do everything one can to follow in the steps of Jesus and help each other on that journey. 

 

I haven’t written this simply to record a sermon. No, I do it because it reminds me of things I do which truthfully boil down to trying to “be spectacular.”

I focus on how much I read, on hoping more people will read my blog, I check to see how many “likes” there are on a photo of one of my grandchildren, I  check the price of P&G stock price too often, I count the number of steps I walk each day.  

 I don’t know if you’d call these things “spectacular,” but they are ego-driven and they are diversions from the much simpler and basic task of trying to make a positive difference in other people’s lives, especially my family's.

Pleading Once Again for Responsible Gun Legislation

 I first posted this blog almost five years ago. I do so again today after the murder of three more people in another mass shooting at Michigan State University.  Can't we finally act now?

As many as 50 people—50 men, women and children—might still be alive today if the common-sense gun policies supported by 80% of the American public were in place.  

That’s right.  Fifty people today, 50 more tomorrow, 50 every day after that, might still be alive if  we were acting  on what we know to be true.  

For someone of my age, this fight for life through the adoption of responsible gun policies recalls other fights for life through common-sense regulations. Fights including automobiles and tobacco.

Take automobiles. Today, about 35,000 people die annually as a result of automobile-related accidents.  That’s tragic, but consider that if automobile fatalities per mile were occurring at the same rate today as they were in the year I was born, those 35,000 deaths would not be 50,000, not 100,000, not 200,000, and not even 300,000.  They would be closer to 400,000 people each year. 

Back then, seeing this carnage, nobody talked about banning cars.  But they did come to demand common-sense 

regulations. Seat belts became required; so did airbags.  You were required to pass a driver’s test.  (How, I ask, do you justify requiring a test to drive a car and not a test to shoot a gun?)  You have to get your license renewed every five years.  There are fines for traffic violations and sometimes suspension of your license. 

Make no mistake.  These common sensed regulations didn’t come easily.  Car manufacturers complained about the cost of some of the safety devices. Drivers complained about being "forced" to use seat belts.  But the evidence prevailed.  So did common sense. So did public will.  

  

Or  take tobacco.

What if people were smoking today  at the same rate as when I was a teenager in the mid-1950s?  Almost half the population  smoked then, compared to 15% smoking today.  If that rate of smoking still prevailed, and if the linkage of smoking to mortality remained about the same, up to one million more people might have died last year from smoke-related diseases.  Instead of what is still a tragedy of almost 500,000 people dying from smoke-related illnesses, the death toll could be closer to 1,500,000.  

Believe me, getting common-sense regulations for cigarette smoking was a decades-long battle.  If you think the NRA is a strong lobby today, you should have seen the tobacco lobby.  It supported politicians committed to the industry.  It supported medical conventions and encouraged doctors to recommend cigarettes; I’m serious.  It lobbied against research to establish the linkage of smoking and cancer.  But we kept getting more data linking smoking to cancer, just as we are today on the linkage of guns to gun-related deaths.  

As a result, warning labels were mandated on cigarette packages.  Age limits were imposed on the purchase of tobacco; advertising was regulated to shield children from its influence; excise taxes were increased. 

What drove these changes in automobile and tobacco regulation?  There was increasingly compelling data and research. Above all, this research showed that automobile and tobacco related fatalities werematters of public health.  

We came to recognize that whether a person smokes is not just a private issue.  It's a public health issue.We learned the damaging impact of secondhand smoke.  

We recognized that how a person drives a car is not just a private issue.  It affects others.  It can kill others.  So we insisted that you had to have a license  and demonstrate you were able to drive.

Just as with tobacco and automobiles, owning a gun is not only a private matter. It is also a matter of public health. Tragically, we witness that every day.  So just as with tobacco and automobiles, use of guns must be regulated responsibly.

Importantly, changes in behavior resulting from the regulation of tobacco and automobiles also changed the “culture.”  It is no longer “cool” to smoke.   When I joined Procter & Gamble, there was an ashtray in front of every board seat.   You would walk into a store or restaurant and it could be “cool” to be smoking.  Movie stars were portrayed smoking; men and women. No longer.

It’s no longer “cool” to drive without a seatbelt.  It’s stupid.  That’s what strong social movements can do.  

Culture changes impact everything.  Including business.  Businesses stepped up to forbid smoking on their premises and encourage safe driving habits. 

We’re seeing businesses step up on the gun issue.  Walmart has banned the sale of assault weapons and now has increased the age to 21 at which one might buy a rifle.  Dick’s has done the same thing.  Rental car companies and airlines like Delta have stopped giving preferred discounts to members of the NRA.  Kroger has banned the sale of large magazines. 

 Businesses are getting the message. 

I urge you support businesses which are adopting responsible gun policies.  Let them know that’s why you’re shopping there.  And let those which aren’t adopting similar policies know you’re going to support their competitors.

Focus on electing candidates who support responsible gun policies and rejecting those who don’t.  Nothing counts as much as your vote. Demand to know exactly where a candidate stands on universal background checks, keeping guns out of the hands of people who have been involved in domestic violence and banning assault weapons and large magazines. 

The wind is at our back on this, but it’s going to be a continuing battle.I’m inspired how young people are taking the field.  Let us be worthy of their commitment.   

As I said at the outset, as many as 50 men, women and children might still be alive today if we had adopted responsible gun regulations.  This estimate is not a matter of sheer speculation.  Nineteen state already require background checks for ALL gun sales. In these states,  we are seeing up to a 40-50% lower incidence of gun deaths linked to domestic abuse, suicide and involving law enforcement officers.

These facts don’t call for banning guns. They don't call into question the practices of millions of responsible gun owners.  They don’t deny any reasonably interpreted right conferred by the Second Amendment.  They do call  for common-sense regulations of the kind we have applied to automobiles  and tobacco. Regulations that recognize that having a gun today is not only a private matter; it is a matter of public health.  Let’s act on what we know to be true.  Let’s demand that legislators, business leaders, everyone do the same.  Let’s start saving lives. We can do this.

*This an edited transcript of a talk I gave to a rally of "Moms Demand Action" in Cincinnati, Ohio on March 25  2018

It Has to Be Everybody or Nobody--"A Perfect Metaphor for Who We Are and Should Act as Fellow Human Beings

 I posted this blog initially almost eight years ago. Sadly, we have become even more polarized, globally and nationally. Will we learn to see each other as fellow human beings pursuing in the main the same goals: peace, safety and a decent standard of living for ourselves and our families? There will always be competition and sometimes we will face existential threats. But the plague of the other, founded on a lack of understanding and empathy, threatens the well being of each and every one of us and our planet.

John Pepper==1/21/2023

“IT HAS TO BE EVERYBODY OR NOBODY” – “A PERFECT METAPHOR FOR WHO WE ARE AS HUMAN BEINGS”

I have written in several places about the “plague of the other”; how often, usually out of fear or suffering from a lack of self-confidence, we choose to see ourselves as separate from each other and as superior to “the other.”

In the book, “Everyday Bias,”* which develops the reality that we all possess implicit biases, I came across a metaphor by the author, Howard J. Ross, that I found extremely compelling in this regard. 

Here it is.

*****

Many of us have seen the magnificent forests full of aspen trees that grow in large “stands” throughout the northern areas of North America.  The trees are extraordinary, ramrod straight, and often standing nearly one hundred feet tall.  There can be thousands of them in just one stand.  Still, we look at each of these trees and see it in its solitary magnificence.

But there is something interesting under the surface of these forests.  These trees are not at all separate.  Underneath the soil, they are connected by a common root system, and that makes each of these clusters of trees among the largest organisms on Earth.  A new tree grows because the root sends out a runner that then grows into another tree.  The largest of these is called “Pando” (Latin for “I spread”), and is located in the Fishlake National Forest in south-central Utah.  Pando covers more than 106 acres and has been estimated to collectively weigh almost seven thousand tons, making it the heaviest organism in the world.  It also is thought to be more than eighty thousand years old, making it one of the world’s oldest known living organisms.

And yet we see it as a lot of single trees.

The trees brings us to a perfect metaphor for we who are as human beings.  We look at the “other” as if he or she is separate from us.  We see the other group as a threat.  And yet, we are all deeply connected.   We share a common destiny on this planet.  We all seek pleasure and do our best to avoid pain.  We want what is best for our children and grandchildren.  All of us are the products of that which we have seen before.  And we are all (for the most part) unconscious about the “programming” that runs our thoughts and our lives.

We can transcend.  We can, through discipline, practice and awareness, find a new way to relate that honors our differences, yet also build upon our similarities.  While the potential for mass destruction looms broadly in the world and our global community expands, we are more and more invited to recognize, as R. Buckminster Fuller said, that “we are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully, nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common.  It has to be everybody or nobody.” 

That is the path before us.  It is indeed the “road less traveled” when we look at our common history.  But it is a road that is worth paving clear.

What could be a greater journey?

*”Everyday Bias, Identifying and Navigating Unconscious Judgments in our Daily Lives”