posted
I mentioned this in the religions thread, but it is actually based in a question Survivor was asking at the last OSC book signing we went to. Now it is possible I don't understand the question. It had to do with why we tolerate idiots in authoritarian structures.
I think one large part of the reason is that certain kinds of idiots are very good at getting things done.
But I think another reason is that if you have someone who is brilliant, there are all kinds of ways that less brilliant people can pretend to assume part of that persons aura. This is why young people tend to dress like rock stars.
In a general, he may have keen insight that results in him making authoritative statements. But the people around him only see the authoritative statements, and so they can adopt that manner. The very fact that the insights are keen means that most people won't be able to tell the difference in what motivates the genuine authoritative statement or the pretend authoritative statement.
Well, I'm not 100% sure what this has to do with writing. Except that it is a general matter of human nature which I think many of us are trying to explore.
I guess another point would be that neither the true genius nor his imitators are genuinely aware of the differences between themselves. If an imitator were aware, they would be some kind of sociopathic evil type dude. But in general, they just want advancement and try different things until they get it. Or they do the things that people who get advanced do.
quote:It had to do with why we tolerate idiots in authoritarian structures.
Because we don't want their jobs?
Because we're content to just complain about them and not actually do anything about them?
Because most of us (well, not me) want someone to tell us what to do so that we don't actually have to make a decision and then live with the consequences?
Because we're wimps?
[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited August 30, 2005).]
posted
The question related specifically to why we have a) a distinction between officers and enlisted in our military, and b) a promotion system that relegates actual command abilities to a minor point that is mostly judged subjectively, by persons that may have little or no actual command experience. I never did get around to asking it, though. That's the real problem with asking the big questions. Sometimes, they're actually big.
Humans tolerate idiocy in authoritarian structures for the same reasons they vote for idiots, hire idiots, obey idiots, and tolerate idiots generally (not just in authoritarian structures). First, idiots are much easier to find than non-idiots. Second, most humans can't tell the difference, because they are themselves idiots. Both of these are the result of widespread idiocy, and clearly the problem would go away if idiocy were less common.
My question was more specific. Given that idiots form the bulk of your population, can you create a system of military command that tends to put non-idiots in charge short of actually fighting a war and killing off your idiots' soldiers? Of course, I tried to pose it more politely so it ended up taking a bit too long, and the question never actually got asked. (Also, I'm terrible at being polite)
posted
>>Given that idiots form the bulk of your population, can you create a system of military command that tends to put non-idiots in charge short of actually fighting a war and killing off your idiots' soldiers?<<
posted
But you work from an assumption that people either are or are not idiots. I guess one of the underlying assumptions of military promotion is that leadership and insightfulness develop with experience and practice.
Posts: 366 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
I hope that just because someone does something that appears to be idiotic it does not mean that person is really an idiot. (Unless I am driving my car, and the person doing the idiotic thing is driving another car. Then, without doubt, that person is an idiot.)
This topic brings other things to mind, though, too. And they can be used in story themes, so they're relevant to writing.
Idiot plots--when the author has the MC do something idiotic so there will be a story.
(Often found in romance novels where there would be no story if the two idiots would just talk to each other instead of assuming the wrong thing and getting their feelings hurt for 300 pages.)
(Also found in some fantasy and/or adventure stories when the MC goes on an idiotic quest, or travels on a dangerous route against his/her supposedly better judgment because it's some kind of short cut.)
The form versus function idea also brings to mind the question of how acting "as if" something were true actually affects the truth of that thing or affects the belief of the person doing the acting. (See Heinlein's DOUBLE STAR, as a possible--or maybe not--example.)
posted
I'm with Scott Adams on this one. We're all idiots -- sometimes. Placed in the wrong situation, setting, or circumstances, we will all do things that are really dumb. People in the public eye are more likely to be caught, not necessarily more likely to be stupid.
Posts: 491 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
On "acting as if". I think this worked until people started telling other people to do it, and then the quality of the results had a sudden drop off. I'm thinking now of success and motivation literature. Perhaps it is the case that when you are acting as if, not in order to act as if but in order to get some other result (usually to make money) you are not really acting as if toward the target.
The ability to act as if is always going to be limited by one's belief and paradigms concerning the target state. I guess this goes back to my first post where I was saying people don't always understand what the quality is about the person that they are emulating, so they just seize on the most noticeable characteristic.
I've just had a lot of personal heartbreak from people acting as if they were rich. How is it in this one area that acting as if will result in the opposite being the case? But I like to think that acting as if you love someone can result in love.
I have a romantic notion that all people have some capacity to love and so know how to act as if. Or if they approach it right, they can at least treat others as they themselves want to be treated. Since people aren't money, they are more likely to run into problems treating it the way it wants to be treated.
I feel like I know how money wants to be treated. But it seems strange to me that other seeming intelligent and otherwise functional people cannot. It doesn't like to be stretched. It doesn't like to be sent to where it doesn't technically exist. If you ignore it, it will find ways to make you pay attention to it. If you can't understand these things, surely you would bear some kind of mark on your countenance, like heavy black eyebrows or assymetrical eyes or those other things that tell us who the bad guy is in a movie.
posted
Love is that way too, though. Simply trying to express "more" love without understanding what produces and invites love will rapidly run you out of "love".
Just as simply making a lot of "authoritative" statements without knowing what gives a statement real authority will rapidly run you into another hole.
And yes, we're all idiots. That's why my question was specific. A lot of people, almost anyone, can occasionally hit on the right tactic in a given situation by accident. But some people do it very naturally, and a few just don't make stupid tactical errors.
Even if they happen to be idiots about love, or money.
posted
Hmm, I guess you're right about the Love thing. It has to do with someone having a basic misconcept about what one or the other thing means. So I think when we get back to the military authority question (or it could be a more general issue of leadership) I guess we already summed it up that most people who have "leadership" don't really know what it is or how to transfer it to others. Perhaps it is a talent that cannot be taught.
I'm entertained by how many different books Stephen R. Covey has tried to write about how to be successful. I mean imagine if you've actually been trying really hard to live the 7 habits for years and years only to have him announce there was this 8th all encompassing habit that he forgot to tell you about to begin with. I guess it's bad enough that I was tempted to buy the 8th habit boot. I suppose the Nth habit must be "don't tell everything you know".
P.S. It almost makes me want to get bach to that "Ethics of Effectiveness" book I was excited about writing a couple of months ago.
[This message has been edited by franc li (edited September 01, 2005).]
posted
I went to a leadership workshop. One exercise was some trivial task (generate a definition of leadership in 10 minutes). So about 3 of us assumed prominent roles: someone to write on the flip chart, a timekeeper, and me: I was moderator. Nobody else seemed to want a role.
At the end, I asked people offline who complained about the other 2 leaders: why didn't you take a leadership role, if you didn't like how it was being done? But they didn't want to do that: too scary. Maybe they knew people would complain about them! So I think this is part of it. Followership is often more fun. Let somebody else be leader.
I'm not just sniping at them. I like leadership, but I also like followership. It's often more relaxing.
(Something I noticed about myself in this: I picked moderator role. Very unlikely to be sniped at much, and I didn't have to provide content. A *safe* leadership role.)
posted
I've always thought that non-idiots tend to not want the same things as idiots. For a start a non-idiot would be less inclined to believe that money cures all than an idiot. A non-idiot will also realise all the potential dangers and so be more hesitant than an idiot, and sometimes hesitancy is as dangerous as making a snap-decision.
But really it's all a matter of perspective. Everybody thinks they make good decisions. It is the hardest thing to accept that others might make better ones. A strong leader is one who is prepared to accept this and to implement another's idea as strongly as if it was his own.
The military issue probably has something to do with those in power maintaining their own power. In England the differences between commisioned officers and non-coms came from class distinctions. And if you didn't obey orders you'd be shot or demoted.
We all want different things and it is impossible to make a high-level decision that makes everyone happy. Tax issues are the ideal example of this. So even if you are a genius there will always be people who think you are an idiot.
posted
Yeah, to be a non-idiot you have to not care what the idiots will say about you. Maybe there are no actual idiots, just different definitions of idiot. Of course, I do have beliefs that some defintions of idiot are less flexible than others. To drug addicts, anyone that isn't really fascinated with drugs is a dullard.
Posts: 366 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
Well, I wasn't defining "idiot" as "someone that everyone else agrees is dumb." I define it as a person that believes a given course of action will have a result that is entirely different from the actual result that course of action would have, and then chooses a course of action based on that misapprehension.
There are two kinds of idiocy, active idiocy (neurotic) and passive idiocy (paranoid). The active idiot believes that a course of action will have desireable consequences even though it always has negative consequences in practice. This idiot ignores all the bad results, attributing them to anything other than the course of action that led to those results.
The other kind of idiot is always believing that a course of action that would naturally lead to a very desireable result has some desperate flaw known only to that idiot. It's usually hard to prove that someone is wrong when they claim that something wouldn't have worked if it wasn't tried.
Being able to avoid both kinds of idiocy requires substantial ability to predict the actual outcomes of various courses of action. It doesn't usually require having fundamentally different desires, though. If a person really desires something evil, then we can just say that person is evil, rather than stupid. After all, there are a good many problems that money does solve. If you only care about solving those problems, then you may not be a good person, but that doesn't make you an idiot.
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