Fernando Lanzer's Blog, page 5
June 21, 2013
Brazilian National Anthem Revisited (in Portuguese)
Ouviram do Ipiranga as margens plácidas
Pois é… As margens plácidas do Ipiranga não estão mais lá; ele foi canalizado e enterrado sob toneladas de concreto, aquele concreto que impede a absorção natural das chuvas e provoca enchentes. O progresso é importante, mas pode e deve ser sustentável. Dá pra fazer isso tudo de um modo diferente e mais integrado.
De um povo heroico o brado retumbante
O brasileiro é um povo heroico, sem dúvida. Trabalha muito, luta contra a falta de infraestrutura, a falta de educação, segurança e saúde, batalha para que seus filhos tenham uma vida melhor. E o brado retumbante está aí, reverberando por toda a nação e pelo mundo. Até o Valcke (Secretário Geral da FIFA) ouviu.
E o sol da liberdade em raios fúlgidos
O sol da nossa liberdade tem, realmente, raios fúlgidos. Às vezes desaparece, encoberto por nuvens, tremula devido à poluição. Nossa liberdade tem sido fugidia: em certos períodos nos foi roubada. Quando, finalmente, elegemos governos que garantiam ser honestos (diferente dos outros) e justos para a população (diferente dos outros), o que se viu não foi diferente dos outros. Nunca antes nesse País se viu tanta corrupção e incompetência. O governo que prometeu nos libertar, jogou a polícia de choque contra um povo, com uma violência de fazer inveja a qualquer ditadura militar…
Brilhou no céu da Pátria nesse instante
O sol da liberdade está brilhando nesse instante, nas noites de Brasília, do Rio, São Paulo, Salvador, Recife, Fortaleza, Porto Alegre, Florianópolis… Mas apenas nesse instante. O que fazer para que esse sol seja perene e sustentável?
Se o penhor dessa igualdade
Mas, “de que igualdade me hablas?” Não temos igualdade no Brasil. Ela ficou na promessa do Joaquim (autor da letra do hino). Continua na promessa dos políticos e na nossa ilusão. Se queremos igualdade, ela precisa começar em casa, na família, entre marido e mulher, na maneira de tratar os filhos, na maneira de tratar quem é diferente de nós ou pensa diferente de nós. Igualdade já!
Conseguimos conquistar com braço forte
Em 1822, não houve braço forte. A independência foi um “jeitinho” luso-brasileiro, sem lutas, para garantir que o País ficasse na família, imitando o Sarney no Maranhão. O penhor da nossa igualdade ainda precisaremos conquistar com braço forte. Porém, como disse antes, a igualdade começa em casa.
Em teu seio, ó Liberdade
É ótimo estar no seio da Liberdade (os japoneses de São Paulo concordam) mas sem esquecer que a liberdade termina onde começa o direito do próximo (mais ou menos na altura da Aclimação), que merece respeito. Nada de abusar do seio da Liberdade.
Desafia o nosso peito a própria morte
Estamos vendo isso nos protestos agora: manifestantes atropelados, espancados, sujeitos a tiros (com balas de borracha e de chumbo), gás lacrimogêneo, spray de pimenta. E com o aumento da violência do Estado, aumenta o movimento desafiando a própria morte.
Ó Pátria amada, idolatrada, Salve! Salve!
Tudo por amor a essa terra. É emocionante ver o patriotismo brasileiro, a nossa terra é realmente idolatrada. Mas quem precisa salvá-la somos nós. Não adianta “delegar pra cima” para um político que se apresenta como “salvador da pátria”. O salvador é você. Não é nem Jesus, nem Maomé, nem Deus. Afinal de contas, “Deus está dentro de ti!” O salvador é você.
Brasil, um sonho intenso, um raio vívido,
Somos o País do sonho, sim, adoramos sonhar e isso é muito bonito… Os sonhos inspiram e emocionam, mas precisamos também agir, se não o sonho vira pesadelo. Vamos tornar nossos sonhos realidade e sonhar novos sonhos ainda melhores.
De amor e de esperança à terra desce,
O Brasil é o País da esperança, a última que morre, a que nos permite suportar a injustiça e a iniquidade. Mas esperar cansa, também chega de esperança! Precisamos de chegança. É hora de usar esse amor para fazer um País de verdade, de realidade.
Se em teu formoso céu, risonho e límpido,
A imagem do Cruzeiro resplandece.
O céu formoso não é mais “céu de brigadeiro”: tem poluição, tem greve de controladores aéreos, tem caos aéreo. Precisamos cuidar dos nossos céus também. Eles precisam do nosso amor e carinho, da nossa consciência ambiental, da nossa cidadania, da nossa responsabilidade. A Infraero é uma vergonha. E pra quem chegou agora: o “cruzeiro” não é a moeda falida que já tivemos, é o Cruzeiro do Sul, a constelação de estrelas que pode nos servir de guia.
Gigante pela própria natureza,
O gigante acordou, e acordou de mau humor… Agora precisamos usar esse tamanho todo e essa natureza toda para fazer um País que seja grande não apenas em tamanho geográfico, mas em valores humanos, em justiça e igualdade.
És belo, és forte, impávido colosso,
Chega de ser impávido diante da corrupção e da impunidade! Podemos fazer com que esse gigante deixe de ser belo e forte para poucos e passe a ser justo para todos.
E o teu futuro espelha essa grandeza.
O futuro fu… Deu no que tinha que dar: povo na rua, querendo mudanças já! Se a elite não entrar no bloco, vai ser imolada. Parem de se olhar no espelho, na academia, e tratem de engrossar o bloco da mudança, que a coisa vai engrossar! E os professores catedráticos universitários também: parem de se olhar no espelho, na (outra) Academia e venham praticar a teoria, que sem prática nada seria.
Terra adorada
Entre outras mil
És tu, Brasil,
Ó Pátria amada!
Sem esquecer das outras mil: o Brasil tem sido muito isolado, como povo: vamos olhar pra fora do País também. Ser a oitava economia do mundo significa assumir responsabilidades internacionais, acolher imigrantes e exportar conhecimento. Amamos o Brasil, mas não estamos isolados no mundo. Temos algo a fazer também em outros lugares para promover a paz, a justiça social e a sustentabilidade. O mundo não termina na esquina.
Dos filhos deste solo
És mãe gentil,
Pátria amada, Brasil!
Linda e enganadora frase… O Brasil é uma mãe que tem muitos safados pendurados nas suas tetas. Essa mãe gentil tem seus pecados (e graves): passa a mão por cima da corrupção, dos crimes, da impunidade… Não somos mais crianças. Chegamos à idade do desmame. Aos quase duzentos anos, já era tempo! Vamos cuidar da nossa mãe com amor, mas agora é nossa vez de sustenta-la, ela que por tanto tempo nos sustentou. Eu saí de casa e continuo visitando a mãe Brasil com frequência, zelando por ela. Cada um precisa fazer o que pode. Está na hora de retribuir e fazer um País do jeito que nossos filhos merecem.
April 21, 2013
Islam and Terrorism
The English-language media often highlights the links between terrorists (such as the Boston Bombers) and Islam. The implication is that the Islamic faith breeds or encourages terrorists. This, of course, is simply not true. So, what is behind all this?
Not a Jewish conspiracy either
Some people see conspiracies everywhere and many people have pointed out that several media outlets in the so-called “western world” are owned and led by Jews. To these people, the Jews manipulate public opinion by emphasizing content that favors their interests. Personally, I don’t believe in a Muslim conspiracy to dominate the world, just as I don’t believe in a Jewish conspiracy to manipulate public opinion against Islam. Call me naïve.
Unfortunately, there are radicals in every religion. Radicals tend to be filled with hate and try quite hard to contaminate everyone around them with such hate. They use religion (any religion) as an excuse to disseminate hate and acts of violence “in the name of God”. They are behind every “holy war” (what a contradiction in terms!) from pre-historic times to the 21st Century. If there is a basic struggle between Good and Evil, I would say that it is actually about Life and Destruction, or about Love and Hate, cutting across all religions and faiths.
Personally, I don’t like any of the religions I see around me. I like the Dutch 17th Century philosopher Spinoza who basically denied validity to all religious factions, saying that the relationship between any person and God is something very personal and individual; it should not be “regulated” by any other person determining the “right” and the “wrong” way of praying or talking to God.
I don’t need a person in funny clothes telling me what I should believe in. I find it quite absurd that in this day and age priests of any religion still go about telling people what to wear and what not to wear, how to behave and what to think and say. I find it disturbing when some of these priests actually burn books that profess a different religion and incite people to kill people of different faiths.
I don’t consider myself an atheist, as someone who does not believe in the existence of God. The God I believe in, for the record, is not an old bearded man in a robe, condemning people who behave or dress in a certain way. My God is the principle of Life (and of Love as a corollary), not the guy who will help me pass my mid-term exams.
Religion and terrorism
Religions are also community phenomena, they exist as social and political movements. They bring people together not only to adore God(s), but to fulfill a need for identity and of belonging to a community. That, of course, is a major drive for distortions such as. “it’s us against them, but don’t worry because God is on our side!”
This brings us to the links with terrorism. A terrorist, by definition, is someone fighting a personal war against enemies that cannot be vanquished through direct confrontation. The terrorist resorts to killing and hurting innocent people, spreading terror among the enemy population, as a war tactic used because the terrorist is unable to win his/her war using other methods.
Whether the person involved is labeled a “terrorist” or a “hero of the resistance” depends largely on which side is doing the labeling. During WWII the French who sabotaged the German occupying army were labeled as terrorists by the Germans. Since the Allies won that war, today they are hailed as heroes. The “terrorists” are the ones who did the same acts, but were on the losing side of the conflict. History is always told by the winning side.
In the 21st Century there is a global conflict between “the haves” and “the have not’s”. In most countries, “the haves” end up having even more as time goes by, and the “have not’s” have even less. This, of course, is not new. This is the stuff Marx was writing about and that drove the clashes between Capitalism and Communism in the 19th and 20th Century. As it turned out, it appears that Communism as a political system failed, in practice. The issue of inequality, however, persists; and if we don’t resolve it, somehow, we will have other revolutions to deal with, and they may end up making the Russian revolution of 1917 seem tame by comparison.
Scattered revolutions
The world is going global. This is not just about buying McDonald’s burgers when you’re in Malaysia and eating Sushi in Moscow; it’s also about Chechnyan immigrants fleeing Russian dominance in their homeland ending up in America, and American mercenaries fighting in Africa. People are moving around all over the world.
The French Revolution was 99.9% French, as the American Revolution resulting in independence in 1776 was also basically a local phenomenon in terms of geography. You can’t say the same in 2013: the revolutions in the Arab World (Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Syria) have people from all over the world involved directly and indirectly, fighting in them, spying, providing arms and information, taking advantage of trading opportunities, advising all sides involved or simply discussing them as if they were part of their neighborhood. Everyone’s involved.
Similarly, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement spread to a dozen different countries in a week. What started out as local quickly was replicated in different places and became a multi-national movement of “the 99%” everywhere.
What is driving all these movements is not religion. What drives them is discontent with the status quo, which is perceived as unfair and unchangeable. Against an insurmountable enemy, terrorism is employed as a tactic.
The “enemy” is whoever is perceived as maintaining the status quo. In a world in which the United States is perceived as being the dominant force, whose military budget exceeds the sum of all other military budgets on the planet, the US is also labeled as “the evil force behind all that is unjust in the world”. This labeling is one of the many burdens of Empire.
Every American leader becomes a Darth Vader. The Saudi leaders? “Maintained by the evil American Empire.” Mubarak in Egypt? “A puppet of the Americans.” The governments of Argentina and Chile? “They owe their survival to the Americans.” Central America and Mexico? “They are America’s backyard, financed by American money.” Central Asia? “All dependent on America, except the ones who became American enemies, such as Iran.”
In these scenarios, the “have not’s” look for meaning, like all people from all cultures have always done. Religion becomes a message of hope, of consolation, a crutch or supporting stick to help people continue walking on their journey in an unfair world.
Religions have a way of explaining the situation as being a conflict between “spiritualism” versus “materialism”. We, who are of the same religion, are the “spiritualists”; they, who are different from us, are materialistic and godless creatures, unworthy and evil.
This dichotomy is not only portrayed between East and West; inside the United States it is portrayed as what Nixon described as “culture wars”: the spiritualists are the farmers and small town inhabitants of the Midwest; the evil materialists are “the city folk” who live in the large metropolitan areas and no longer pray to God, they just think of making money 24 by 7.
It’s worth noting that, just before WWII broke out, the Nazis portrayed themselves as the spiritualists with a noble cause; the enemies were the materialistic Jews, Americans, French and English, who “only thought of making money” and who were “all soul-less creatures.”
Islam for spiritualistic revolutionaries
Islamic faith has recently become a receptacle for all those who feel treated unfairly by a materialistic society dominated by money-worshipping “false Christians”. Just as Christianism blossomed 2,000 years ago to provide consolation and hope for those who suffered domination by the Roman Empire, Islam is perceived by many as “THE” religion to provide similar consolation and hope against domination by the American Empire.
The Romans treated the early Christians as radical revolutionaries and fed them to the lions; the Americans treated the Muslims as radical terrorists and sent them to Guantánamo.
Reality, of course, is much more complex than this “black and white description”. It was also much more complex in Roman times.
Christianity was actually a peaceful religion that asked people to “turn the other cheek”. Islam, similarly, was also a peaceful religion professing the love of thy neighbor and even respecting other faiths.
Somewhere along the line of history the peaceful origins of these religions got diverted by radicals who totally perverted them. As a result we had the Protestant Reformation and afterwards a split into numerous sects within Christianity, all fighting bloody battles against each other. The Spanish Inquisition was just one such example of distortion. There were mass murders of people from different faiths also in France and in England. We don’t even have to go back that far in history: just look at the hate that was going on in Ireland until a few years ago. And all this is just among Christians.
Muslims have their own bloody internal struggles, such as the ones between Sunnis and Shiites. These have been going on for centuries; it’s just that before mobile phones and the internet, people in the West were not that much aware of what was going on in the Arab World, and vice-versa. Now that we are practically all interconnected, suddenly these conflicts are shown in your living room; now that we move to live anywhere on the planet, the mosques are not only in Cairo and the cathedrals in Paris: there are temples of every religion everywhere, and people of different faiths live and work in the same environment. Geography is not what it used to be.
The chicken or the egg or the priest?
Having said that Christianity provided hope against the Romans and Islam now provides hope against the Americans, let me stress that it is not religion that breeds radicals, but rather the other way around. Radicals of all faiths need a sense of purpose for themselves and they need religion to manipulate the masses in their favor and to convert skeptics into followers. It’s much easier to find followers if you are speaking “in the name of God”, rather than just for yourself. Radicals of all religions distort God’s message in their own image; there is no better example of “man creating God in his own image”, instead of the other way around.
Some radicals become priests. That’s when you have certain “imams” inciting jihad and certain pastors burning the Koran. Fortunately, they do not represent more than 1% of the congregation. It is the radicals, usually very vocal, and the press, who amplify their eloquence, who distort religions. It is not religion that turned peaceful citizens into terrorists; rather, it is radical individuals who turned to religion as a way of justifying their hatred for others. This is a fundamental distinction that needs to be made.
Terrorists are basically ill and their illness is very destructive: it destroys people around them and it destroys them as well, hence the link to suicide missions and actions that are essentially suicidal.
There is an important parallel to be made with dependent personalities and addiction.
People in general tend to underestimate the emotional and ethical reasons for people’s behavior. That is because it is much more difficult to explain and control behavior in terms of emotions and values. Therefore, people prefer explanations that are “rational” and/or explanations that blame “objective/external” factors for undesired behavior.
We blame alcoholism on alcohol; we blame drug addiction on drugs. Actually, what happens is that some people have “dependent” personalities, or are afflicted with a psychological disorder known as “dependent reaction”. Such people have a tendency to become addicted. They may become addicted to alcohol, to drugs, to religion, to sex, to loving another person. The problem is not the object/subject/person of their addiction; the problem is inside them.
Drug addicts cannot ever be “cured” from their addiction simply by removing access to the substance they are addicted to. They must either be “cured” psychologically through psychotherapy that basically strengthens their ego, their self-esteem, their balance; or (in most cases) the substance of addiction is replaced by something else, which is often religion. Drug addicts become addicted to religion and go out in the world proclaiming that “Jesus Saves” or the equivalent of that in whichever religion they adopt. Certainly religion is usually a much better and socially accepted form of addiction compared to drugs; it is much less harmful to a person’s physical health, in most cases.
Terrorists suffer from a similar affliction. They feel victimized by an unfair world; they feel life has no meaning and that their situation is hopeless. In desperation, they turn to a cause, they seek to find purpose in religion. Islam is sometimes chosen simply because it is a very convenient receptacle for all their frustrations.
They may be frustrated because they want to be billionaires (like in the unfortunate song by Travie Mc Coy and Bruno Mars). Where should they take their frustration? If they go to a WASP church, the pastor will tell them that all they need to do is pray hard and work harder. They will hear a similar answer if they go to a synagogue. These answers formulated by Christian and Jewish priests are not so much about religion as they are about culture. Jewish and WASP cultures are all egalitarian, individualistic and performance-oriented cultures. As such, they have similar work ethics and they all endorse a message that (overly simplified, I concede) says: “do your best, have faith, work hard, and eventually things will be all right and you might become a billionaire someday; just keep working and never give up!”
Now, that message may work just fine for individuals who already shared similar values since childhood. However, if you had different values that you learned as a child, and these values were more hierarchical, rather than egalitarian; collectivistic, rather than individualistic; and caring & quality of life oriented, rather than performance-oriented, (which is the case for 90% of the world’s population, by the way) then you might be more open to a different message.
An Islamic priest might say something different, more like: “my child, forget about being a billionaire; money and riches are not important in this world, and that Bruno Mars song is stupid anyway; focus on God instead and fulfilling His will; don’t look for riches, look for a simple life and be content with it.” To our twisted potential terrorist, this may be more appealing. The underlying message is: “it’s not your responsibility, it is God’s will; you don’t have to work hard, just relax and enjoy a simple life.”
For millions of peaceful people, this is just fine. For a disgruntled individual, one who has been bombarded for years by TV commercials advertising that the most important thing in life is what you have, and not who you are, the message gets distorted in reception. The potential terrorist twists that around and finds justification for his anger: he tells himself that “it is God’s will to destroy materialism and to destroy all those who worship materialism”. In other words, it is not enough for him to renounce materialism; he must act against all those who are still addicted to materialism. The Americans, who have taken consumerism to its highest levels, are a natural target. Plus, “they are responsible for all the unjust distribution of wealth in the world,” right?…
Mind you, the rage this guy feels is not so different from the rage that Moses expressed when he came down from the mountain and found his tribe adoring a golden calf; nor is it different from the rage that Jesus expressed when he expelled the merchants from the temple. The problem is that most Jewish and Christian priests these days have focused their sermons on other aspects, especially in North America and Northern Europe. They are losing their faithful in droves and they fear that if they denounce materialism they will lose the contest they are having against “Big Brother” and “American Idol” for young people’s “share of mind”.
When you compare Islam to Christianity, Islam comes out as much more spiritualistic and less materialistic. Go visit a mosque and a cathedral; the differences are striking. Plus, a devout Muslim should pray at least five times a day, wherever he or she is; a Christian is only required to pray once a week, “in Church, wearing his best Sunday clothes”. Therefore, those who still have hope of “winning” in the material world, stick to Christianism and Judaism; those who have lost all hope of “making it” tend to be drawn towards Islam.
Don’t get hung up on the religion thing
Now, as I’ve said at the beginning, I am not a religious person myself, so please forgive me if I have offended those who are. I have a quite critical opinion of all religions, as I see too many selfish priests in all of them manipulating people to satisfy their own interests, rather than God’s.
My point here is simply to stress that it is wrong to think that Islam breeds terrorists. In many ways, you could argue that Islam is more evolved than Judaism or Christianism. It is the newest of the three, by about 600 years after Christ. The problem is not with Muslims, or Jews, or Christians (or Protestants or Catholics).
The problems we need to face are the growing inequality all over the world and the growing need for a sense of purpose. The combination of these two may result in chaos. We need to address both, focusing on one only is not enough.
We need to develop a new world economic order which will reduce inequalities. That order is probably not going to involve Socialism in its 19th Century connotation, but it will also not involve the reckless Capitalism that we’ve seen throwing the world into crisis in 2008. We need something different, smarter, more balanced and sustainable.
We also need to develop value systems which give people a sense of purpose. Again, this will not involve going back in time for 200 years and turning conservative. Most likely, we need something new and progressive that exalts life and love beyond traditional geographical borders. A new spirituality for the New Millenium, involving cross-border integration.
For further reading, I recommend “Occidentalism” by Ian Buruma; and “On Love: Towards a non-religious spirituality” by Luc Ferry. And, of course, my own book: “Take Off Your Glasses”.
www.lcopartners.com http://fernandolanzer.com www.itim.org
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March 6, 2013
Emotions Behind Austerity
Culture values are behind everything we do, so it will come as no surprise that they also influence the economic policy choices of government leaders. Culture also affects the reactions of the people to those policies, creating a vicious or virtuous circle, depending on how you prefer to look at it.
The funny thing is, culture values even affect people into thinking that economic policies are rational. They are not.
We all like to think that political leaders who make decisions on economic policy, and the economists who provide the scientific support for the decisions, are all looking at issues with the best of their analytical capabilities. We tend to forget that they are all human and as such are unconsciously influenced by their emotions, their personal values and the values of the culture they were brought up in.
In Northern Europe and North America especially, there is an excessive valuation of rationality, to the point of denying the equal importance of values and emotions. There is still in place a long-outdated belief that beliefs are less important than reason… What a paradox! Because, indeed, the notion of a “supremacy of reason” is, in itself, a value-judgment.
Reason, values and emotions
As we examine both macro-economic problems and also micro-economic problems (business management issues), we need to understand that they are not driven by reason, but rather by equal amounts of reason, values and emotions. Without looking at emotions and values, any analysis will be incomplete and will lead to erroneous conclusions and mistaken solutions.
In macro-economic terms, the (wrong) consensus among economists has been that our troubles originated in the fact that governments have spent too much. The ensuing conclusion has been that governments need to spend less in order to balance their budgets.
Initially, the general public tends to agree with the diagnosis and also with the proposed solution, although the fact is that they do that for the wrong reasons. People make the mistaken analogy with their own personal budgets, thinking that when they spend too much and incur in excessive debt, the way to fix that is to simply spend less. Austerity is the solution. “I have been spending more than I should; I have been misbehaving; I need to restrain my indulgence, exercise more discipline.”
A new-born baby has no self-restraint. When it is hungry, it eats to maximum capacity. It doesn’t stop until filling the belly completely. And when it feels like pooping, farting or pissing, it does all of that, often at the same time. No restraint. It is only as it grows older that the baby learns, from its parents, that pooping anywhere you want, anytime you feel like it, is “not good”. Also, eating sweets before mealtime is “not good”. The baby is not allowed to survive only on Oreos and as it grows older it learns to follow a balanced diet, exercise regularly and enjoy everything responsibly. It also learns that everything good in life is either illegal or fattening.
Throughout this process, we develop a feeling called “guilt”. Hundreds of books have been written by psychologists about guilt: how important it is for driving socially acceptable behavior and how damaging it can be when there are imbalances in it. Too little guilt breeds psychopaths, such as serial killers, politicians and investment bankers. Too much guilt breeds psychotics, neurotics and religious fanatics (although some of the latter are actually psychopaths in disguise).
Help, the paranoids are after me!
As Freud once said, we are all neurotics, to some degree. We all have some degree of imbalance in our guilt, that is: we sometimes feel guilty about something that we did not need to feel guilty about.
This (finally!…) leads us back to austerity. We all have a certain feeling that we probably should save more and spend less, even in places like Germany and China, where the savings rate is much higher than in the US, where spending is actually bigger than earnings (resulting in debt). Actually, in places like Germany and China, the predominant values of the culture are precisely that it is more important to save for the future rather than indulge in spending in the present. And THAT is the reason their savings rates are higher.
Because of this guilt about spending (for some people the feeling is bigger than for others, but we all have it to some degree) we are quick to agree that “austerity” is good public policy. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, a reflex without thinking. Saving money is good, no matter what the circumstances. It means exercising restraint and we have learned since early childhood that restraint is “good” and lack of restraint is “bad”. This is such an ingrained belief, such a strong value inside us, that we react emotionally against anyone who challenges it. So, naturally we support governments who talk about austerity.
Not only that, but we are also quick to condemn those countries who apparently have been spending too much, like a brother-in-law who spends all his money on fast women and slow horses, then comes to you asking for a personal loan. However, we need to realize that countries are not exactly like annoying brothers-in-law.
In first place, the spending of countries is basically decided by their government, not exactly by their people. No government holds a referendum about the budget for next year. So, it’s unfair to blame the Greek people in their totality for a situation that was not created deliberately by the Greek people in totality. It is actually much more complicated than that.
The same kind of awareness needs to be in place about our own country’s economic policy. Emotionally, we may feel that austerity is the right medicine. Besides, we’ve also been taught that the best medicines are the ones that taste the worst… And we swallow them as punishment for misbehaving.
This tastes awful… so it must be good medicine!
“Yes, Mom and Dad, I misbehaved, I feel guilty and I need to be punished, as punishment allows me relief from my feeling of guilt, and then everything can be all right again and we can start over.”
It works in psychology for an individual, but it does not work like that in economics for a country. We need to come to terms with that distinction, once and for all. The way things are right now, the countries with the toughest austerity policies (like the UK) are punishing themselves into a deep hole, like an individual who feels so guilty that he ends up committing suicide.
Many Brits have been brought up with familiarity to strong punishment, even physical punishment at home and in classrooms. The debate over the abolishment of physical punishment in schools was very controversial in Britain, with many standing up and defending physical punishment, arguing that “it builds character and resilience”. So perhaps these people think that economic recovery should necessarily entail a lot of hardship, the more, the better.
Well they should seek their masochist satisfaction in other ways. As the commercial success of “50 Shades of Gray” demonstrates, there are a lot of people out there who like reading about sex and punishment, perhaps secretly wanting to be punished, and many willing to provide the means of satisfying that demand. This should be about literal and literary screwing, not about the economic kind of screwing which punishes millions who have done no wrong and do not deserve it at all.
Therefore, we should direct our wish for punishment to other channels and let the economy recover through policies that really make sense for recovery. These policies involve more government spending, to stimulate demand and create jobs.
The tailor of Porto Alegre
Some economists argue against it, fearing that more spending and “quantitative easing” (the euphemism for printing more money) will generate inflation. They are right, to some extent. In theory, when you have too much money circulating, it stimulates increases in prices, which amounts to inflation. In practice, what we have seen in the last five years is that we are a long distance away from inflation. The additional money that has been put in circulation has not had an inflationary impact, because… it is not circulating.
The Fed’s injection of a few trillion dollars in the system has caused an inflation… in stock prices only. The Dow Jones index is now at the same level it was (just over 14,000 points) before the crisis began in 2007, exactly six years later. The money ended up in equities, which is indeed a way of financing companies, but in reality the companies have not turned the influx of capital into more production and more jobs.
Corporations and banks are all sitting on the money. The cash reserves of companies and financial institutions have never been so large. The private sector is not spending, is not investing and is not generating jobs. It’s up to the public sector, the government, to spend, invest and generate jobs.
The difficulty is accepting that this is not a “bad” thing, because it seems to go against our values and emotions. Even though we have no solid rational arguments, we just “feel” that “it’s not right”. We need to become aware that we are supporting austerity for emotional reasons, rooted in our childhood, and not because it will actually solve our economic problems. We may feel righteous about austerity, but we are plain wrong in adopting it as an effective solution to our economic problems.
When you see people protesting against austerity in Greece, Italy or anywhere else, they may be right… Emotionally, austerity may feel like the right thing to do, but in order to resolve complex economic issues we need to look at it from all angles: emotions, values and reason.
And we need to understand that simply printing more money will not solve the problem. Basically, there is already too much money in the global economy. That’s not the problem.
Paulo Nardin was my tailor in Porto Alegre, back in the 70’s and he used to state a simple truth: “money doesn’t disappear; it just changes hands!” People talk about the economy saying “there is no money in the market”, but the issue is always that somebody is sitting on the money. My tailor went on: “When business is good, I make suits for entrepreneurs and executives. When the economy turns sour, I make suits for lawyers and bankers. There are always some people making money and some people losing it.”
The simple & stupid approach
Yes, we all like simple solutions. We like the KISS acronym (Keep It Simple, Stupid). However, the stupidity may also be in over-simplifying complex issues. As one of my former colleagues used to say “for every complex problem there is usually a simple and WRONG solution!…”
In companies, when profit goes down the knee-jerk reaction is to cut costs. There are two stupid mistakes most companies engage in when doing this:
1) they immediately assume that increasing revenue is impossible, so they take that option off the table and focus on costs alone; and
2) they find it easier to simply cut costs across the board and issue directives that have become hallmarks of stupidity, such as: “we must reduce 10% of our costs”.
It’s amazing how many large multinational corporations still make such gross mistakes in the 21st Century.
Revenue can always be increased; but it takes more intelligence and effort than it takes to cut costs across the board. You need to come up with different sales strategies, new products, creative ways of approaching potential clients. That takes creativity and intelligence.
Cutting costs also takes creativity and intelligence, if you want to make it work. Cutting 10% across the board is as stupid as telling yourself “I have to lose 6 kilos, so I will just amputate one of my legs, that should do it! It’s quick and straightforward, does not require a lot of thinking… no time wasted, now I can go back to doing the stupid things I was doing and that got me in this mess in the first place, DUH!!”
Cutting costs across the board means that units which were over-spending will continue over-spending, but they will just over-spend 10% less… While units who were doing a good job of maximizing output with minimum expenses will now have to severe an arm and a leg to comply with the stupid directive, hurting the business even more by reducing their capacity to generate revenue.
It’s the same with countries, by the way: austerity measures usually diminish the overall economic activity, which means the government collects less taxes and therefore increases its deficit. It makes things worse, as the UK is so brilliantly demonstrating since 2011 for all the world to see.
In order for cost cutting to work, it needs to be replaced by cost management, which means taking a critical look at all your processes and finding SMARTER ways of doing things, which will cost less and generate more revenue. It’s all about process optimization, something that doesn’t get enough attention. You may find that some units can reduce 25% of their cost, while others can only reduce 2%. The issue is: asking people to use their brains before reaching for the scissors (or the chainsaw).
In some cases, it may be necessary to spend more, to make investments, in order to increase efficiency and maximize productivity. It also takes a different emotional attitude when you say “we need to fix the economy, let’s discuss how can we invest one trillion euros to stimulate growth”. The key is, of course, to invest wisely, and not just throw money at the problem.
The smartest investments that companies and countries can make usually are related to education and development. Not simply in acquiring more knowledge, but also in learning how to think critically, how to act ethically and how to understand the emotions driving people’s behavior.
Business leaders, politicians and economists should start with themselves: learning how to develop their rational, emotional and ethical capabilities; then generate the means for all others to do the same. We can probably solve any issue more effectively if we start by looking at the issue from these three angles: reason, emotions and values.
www.lcopartners.com http://fernandolanzer.com www.itim.org
See also my book “Take Off Your Glasses” at amazon:
February 23, 2013
Work and Leisure In Your Life
Your life and your work.
Ben Clayton-Jolly, a great professional in the area of helping people and teams become more effective, sent me this article by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Embrace Work-Life Imbalance. Ben was struck by the distortions in the article and the fact that they are “an example of the hypothesis put forward by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist on the imbalance in our current society, which celebrates left hemisphere values and perspective over right hemisphere subjectivity.”
I agree. And I was moved to comment on each of the article’s arguments, because I think they are dangerous to society, in as much as they serve the purpose of manipulating people to remain addicted to work, rather than to find the proper balance in their lives between the ability to work and to love other people.
I have transcribed the article below, and I have added my comments in italic.
I think it is important to discuss the issues raised, so that we can help to build a better, more balanced world for ourselves and for generations to come.
Mr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic’s article has been published on the web by “HBR Blogs”. I do not know him, maybe he’s a great guy. The ideas in this article are leading in a direction which encourages workaholism and may drive people to illness. They must be challenged.
Maybe this is actually an “Onion” article… A piece meant to be sarcastic, and the author is just pulling our legs, as if making a practical joke, meant for “April Fools”. It would give me great relief to find out that there are not people out there who hold the beliefs expressed in the article…
But, maybe there are people who really defend these points of view which I would prefer to consider “a joke”. So, just in case… Here are my arguments against embracing “work-life imbalance”.
“Embrace Work-Life Imbalance”
Why is everybody so concerned about work-life balance?
Probably because they are hurting from too much meaningless work… Though the author seems to think that people are just complaining because they are wimps or have nothing better to do!
According to one urban legend, based on 1950s pop psychology, workaholics are greedy and selfish people who are bound to die from a heart attack.
Not really.
Indeed, not really. Workaholics, by definition, are people who are addicted to work. They are not necessarily greedy or selfish, but they are suffering from dependency on work, to an extent that it can lead to self destruction, like any addiction.
As the great David Ogilvy once said: “Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They do not die of hard work.” This is especially true if your work is meaningful.
I’m not so sure that David Ogilvy was really so great, to begin with. Some people described him as a greedy and selfish bastard; maybe he was just a workaholic… In any case, the fact that he said that “people do not die of hard work” does not make that assertion true, just because he said it… It’s actually bullshit! People do die of hard work and there are millions of people who die every year from that, due to stress, cardiovascular disease, fatigue, immune system disorders, and all kinds of physical and mental illnesses.
Most of the studies on the harmful effects of excessive work rely on subjective evaluations of work “overload.”
Work “overload” is indeed something that may be called subjective, but this does not mean it is less harmful or even less deadly… It’s not as if whatever is “subjective” should be considered unworthy of attention and ignored! People live, and die, very objectively of “subjective” causes; so we should give these causes proper attention and see what can be done about it.
They fail to disentangle respondents’ beliefs and emotions about work. If something bores you, it will surely seem tedious. When you hate your job, you will register any amount of work as excessive — it’s like forcing someone to eat a big plate of food they dislike, then asking if they had enough of it.
Overworking is really only possible if you are not having fun at work. By the same token, any amount of work will be dull if you are not engaged, or if you find your work unfulfilling.
Yes, that is true, nothing to argue regarding these aspects. It’s not “the amount of work” that kills you, it’s the kind of work that gets you and how you feel about your work. So I guess the subjective beliefs and emotions that you have regarding your work are important, after all.
Maybe it’s time to redefine the work-life balance — or at least stop thinking about it.
Redefining it is a welcome attitude. “Stop thinking about it” is plain stupid. You don’t just recover from addiction by “not thinking about it”! That is precisely what is so dangerous about this article: it’s like addressing alcoholism by just “not thinking about it”. You are just reinforcing the addict’s attitude of denial and accelerating him/her to self-destruction. Not good.
Here are some considerations:
Hard work may be your most important career weapon.
The first thing you need to ask yourself is whether your “career” is more important than your health, your family, your friends, and your own survival. And what is the purpose of your having a “successful career”. Is it an end in itself or is it a means to a different end? Why do you do what you do? What options do you have?
Indeed, once you are smart-enough or qualified to do a job, only hard work will distinguish you from everyone else.
Again, simply not true. Work smart, not hard! Hard work does not distinguish you from others in terms of career success. Smarter people have more success. Millions of people work hard and their careers are failures. How can you work smarter, rather than harder? That’s what you should focus on.
Workaholics tend to have higher social status in every society, including laidback cultures like those found in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, or South America.
Not true, once again. Especially in laid-back cultures, success is linked to being smart, and not to working hard.
Every significant achievement in civilization (from art to science to sport) is the result of people who worked a lot harder than everyone else, and also happened to be utterly unconcerned about maintaining work-life balance.
Significant achievements are usually the result of a special talent AND hard work. Talent alone will not get you so far, true; but by the same token, hard work alone will not get you very far either. The myth that “hard work is all you need” serves to keep millions of people dedicated to doing meaningless work, mindlessly. It serves the purpose of exploiting people.
Exceptional achievers live longer, and they pretty much work until their death.
Not exactly. Yes, exceptional achievers work until their death, but that is often a premature death, due to excessive dedication to what they do, and only to what they do. Exceptional achievement is a combination of talent and dedication, inspiration AND perspiration. The notion that achievement “is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration” is a myth created to keep people focused on their own sweat, rather than on what they find “sweet”.
Unsurprisingly, the 10 most workaholic nations in the world account for most of the world’s GDP.
That’s fine if you want to measure success by GDP… But that is also a distortion. It means that “whoever makes more stuff, wins” and life is not that simple. There is a value judgment behind this: is the purpose of your life “to work” or is it something else? Freud said that the secret to mental health was simply to be able to “love and work”. That’s a more balanced approach, rather than having to choose one over the other.
Engagement is the difference between the bright and the dark side of workaholism.
If only… Workaholism is an addiction, and there is no bright side to that. It’s like saying that there is a bright side to being an alcoholic, because you get to meet a lot of interesting people on your way to an early grave…
Put simply, a little bit of meaningless work is a lot worse for you than a great deal of meaningful work. Work is just like a relationship: Spending one week on a job you hate is as dreadful as spending a week with a person you don’t like. But when you find the right job, or the right person, no amount of time is enough. Do what you love and you will love what you do, which will also make you love working harder and longer. And if you don’t love what you are doing right now, you should try something else — it is never too late for a career change.
Once again, not exactly. Work can be compared yet one more time to drinking alcohol. Both should be enjoyed responsibly. You can kill yourself drinking Chateau Lafitte Rothschild (if you can afford it) just as you can do that by drinking cheap Bourbon. Moderation is the key. Don’t become dependent. You need to understand what is your own personal limit, regarding alcohol and regarding work. There is an optimal level of stress at work: when you are at that optimum level, you feel engaged; when you are over that level, it damages your physical and mental health. When someone is describe as “a workaholic”, we are not talking about optimal stress levels here, we are talking about addiction and dependency. Each person needs to understand his/her own threshold about this. It’s not that easy to make that distinction. Just as an alcoholic will deny his dependency and rationalize his addiction, driving him deeper into self-destruction, the same happens with a workaholic.
Technology has not ruined your work-life balance, it has simply exposed how boring your work and your life used to be. Did you ever try to figure out why it is so hard to stop checking your smartphone, even when you are having dinner with a friend you haven’t seen in ages, celebrating your anniversary, watching a movie, or out on a first date? It’s really quite simple: None of those things are as interesting as the constant hum of your e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter account.
Ridiculous… That’s like the humorist who said he drank to make people more interesting! It’s a nice joke, but if it’s rationalizing your addiction, it’s less funny… If you find “the hum of your e-mail” more interesting than your friends and family, or going out on a first date, then you need to “get a life”! You are sick, my friend, so stop kidding yourself and get professional help.
Reality is over-rated, especially compared to cyberspace.
Wow! Now we are really talking mental illness here! Maybe this guy needs professional help; and he is dangerous if he is stimulating other people into becoming addicted and dependent.
Technology has not only eliminated the boundaries between work and life, but also improved both areas.
I guess the author is talking about workaholics who are unable to “switch off” from their work, and who remain involved with their e-mails and phone conversations about work, wherever they are. This is like saying that thanks to technology you can feed your addiction wherever you are, whenever you feel the urge. It’s like having an endless supply of cocaine in your pocket, always. The issue is not the technology, it is the addictive behavior that needs to be treated like the illness it is.
People who have jobs, rather than careers, worry about work-life balance because they are unable to have fun at work. If you are lucky enough to have a career — as opposed to a job — then you should embrace the work-life imbalance. A career provides a higher sense of purpose; a job provides an income. A job pays for what you do; a career pays for what you love. If you are always counting the number of hours you work (e.g., in a day, week, or month) you probably have a job rather than a career. Conversely, the more elusive the boundaries between your work and life, the more successful you probably are in both. A true career isn’t a 9-5 endeavor. If you are having fun working, you will almost certainly keep working. Your career success depends on eliminating the division between work and play. Who cares about work-life balance when you can have work-life fusion?
Whether you have a “job” or a “career”, the issue is how you feel about it and what will it lead to in the future. It can be fun to get drunk every weekend, some people do it. When it leads to liver disease, that’s when they realize they might have a problem. Feeling a sense of purpose in your career may be fine, but what happens when you retire, or when you get physically ill? Your sense of purpose in life should not depend only on your work, but it should be also linked to your family, friends, and community. Remember the “love” bit, not just the “work” bit. Do both. That’s the real “fusion”. Perhaps indeed the problem here is thinking that life and work are two different things, which they are not. It’s all part of your life. Individualistic cultures tend to look at work and life as separate entities, and dedicate separate slots of time to them. When you work, you’re not having fun; When you’re having fun, you are not working. Collectivistic cultures tend to mix the two more frequently; they tend to make more jokes at work, and will work more often after hours or on a week-end, if necessary. In individualistic cultures, people will defend their leisure time from “invasion” by work issues. Collectivistic cultures are more permeable. I’m not talking about the total amount of work here, neither am I talking about whether the work is particularly engaging or boring. I am merely pointing out that in some cultures there is a clear distinction between work and leisure, while in other cultures there is a thinner border between the two.
Complaining about your poor work-life balance is a self-indulgent act.
Complaining and doing nothing about it is perhaps self-indulgent. Denying that you have an addiction is worse… If you feel bad about your work, it’s OK to express how you feel and to consider what you could do about it. Repressing your feelings, or denying the issue, will only increase tension and increase the damage to your health.
The belief that our ultimate aim in life is to feel good makes no evolutionary sense.
Actually, it makes all the sense in the world… Why do you work? Because it makes you feel good. Of course, it’s more complicated than that… But the author seems to imply that “feeling good” is actually bad for human evolution, and it’s not. THAT is the distortion, and a big one at that. All work and no play is bad. All play and no work is also bad. The good thing is the “fusion”, remember?
It stems from a distorted interpretation of positive psychology, which, in fact, foments self-improvement and growth rather than narcissistic self-indulgence. This misinterpretation explains why so many people in the industrialized Western world seek attention by complaining about their poor work-life balance. It may also explain the recent rise of the East vis-à-vis the West — you will not see many people in Japan, China, or Singapore complain about their poor work-life, even though they often work a lot harder.
Indeed, there are a lot of misinterpretations involved here… China has grown economically, thanks to the culture’s focus on hard work, that is correct. That does not mean that you would like to see your children working on a sweat shop 16b hours a day, because that will create more wealth for your grandchildren. Japan has actually been stagnant for the past 20 years, so it’s not a good example. Singapore has had its ups and downs, and has been largely criticized for being too authoritarian. There are gives and takes involved here. The core issue that the author seems to be struggling with is what Hofstede identified as “Masculinity”, which I prefer to label as “Performance Orientation”. This cultural value dimension is high in China, in Japan, in Singapore, and also in the American and British cultures. It is much lower in Scandinavian cultures. So who is right and who is wrong? We could debate this endlessly, but there is no “absolute” right or wrong in terms of culture, there is just “different”. Personally, I think that a more balanced view is preferable, but that’s just me. I tend to agree with Freud on this one: “love and work”. High performance-oriented cultures like the US, UK and Japan, tend to reinforce work addiction, since they value performance at work much more than they value quality of life or caring for others.
Unemployment and stagnation are in part the result of prioritizing leisure and pleasure over work.
In part yes, and in part, no. Japan’s economy is not stagnant due to lack of dedication to work; they are the most performance-oriented culture in the world, as shown by research. It’s more complex than that. Unemployment and stagnation cannot be explained by a single factor, though we would love to have a very simple explanation… There are other culture dimensions at work here, and there are economic and political circumstances which are different among these countries.
In short, the problem is not your inability to switch off, but to switch on. This is rooted in the fact that too few people work in careers they enjoy. The only way to be truly successful is to follow your passions, find your mission, and learn how to embrace the work-life imbalance.
Almost there, but just off the mark here… Yes, you should follow your passions, but if your passion is drinking yourself to death, maybe you should reflect a bit before pursuing it. Also think twice before following that urge to buy a machine gun and shoot everyone you see at a nearby school. People are complex. There is no “quick fix” that will give you sustainable happiness and success. Addiction (to work, to alcohol, to love, to anything) is a serious personality disorder, which needs to be properly treated with more than just checking into some “rehab” center which will keep you off drugs for eight weeks. The danger in this article is that most of its arguments can serve the purpose of justifying addiction and steering people away from finding a balanced, sustainable solution for their lives (including their work).
Also see my book “Take Off Your Glasses” on amazon.com:
February 14, 2013
“Lincoln” disappointing
Maybe it was too much “hype”, my expectations were set too high.
I can understand why some people might be moved by the film, but I think that stems from patriotism, from a love of America, rather than a love of cinema.
I found the film dragged on slowly at times, the dialogues were overly long and theatrical. Those long dialogues with elaborate language are the makings of a good book, but not of a good movie.
Daniel Day Lewis was a very good Lincoln, yes. Yet, I would not choose his performance over that of Denzel Washington in “Flight”. Lewis seemed like a good actor making a very good “impression” of Abraham Lincoln; but a bit too much like an impression and not enough like portraying a real man.
I also found Spielberg’s directing a bit less stellar than other works he has done. I would not rank this among Spielberg’s “top five” works. Comparing it to another Spielberg film on slavery, I would prefer “Amistad” instead.
There were too many clichés, the whole film had an air of “fake”, rather than “real”. The initial battle scenes were so “fake” that in the session I was sitting in, laughter erupted in the audience as the same black character was shown repeatedly punching a confederate soldier in the face, in two different angles, as if they were in a high school play…
From seeing the film, one would be led to believe that half the Union Army consisted of black soldiers… while history tells us that in those days only a few were even allowed to enlist, and only in a couple of “coloured only” units. This was “artistic license” carried too far.
The whole sequence on the voting of the 13th Amendment was a bit insulting to my intelligence. Several characters were tallying how many votes were still necessary for the proposal to pass: 11, then only 8, then 6… and after that there was a quick sequence of votes, during which I counted six “ayes”. So the math was done! Yet Spielberg continued to build suspense, when there was no more… When the Leader of the House expresses his desire to also vote, the audience is led to believe that his vote will decide the outcome, when it was already decided. And by then, even the characters in the film new the final count, as they were adding votes on their notes… He votes “aye” and still, it is as if the outcome was not known, but it meant they were at least two votes ahead of the required minimum! Yet, everyone sits in absolute silence, no celebrations, no expression of muted joy, as if only when the official announcement is made, will we know if the proposal has passed! And as the announcement is made, the difference is TWO votes more than the minimum needed, so indeed it was already known to all present.
Spielberg could have done better: he could have shown more clearly that, if the House Leader would have voted “nay”, the proposal would not have passed; but he didn’t do that, turning it into a missed opportunity.
“Lincoln” is not a bad film, mind you. There are some fine moments here and there, and I thought it was courageous from the producers to show all the dirty politics going on, including those dirty deeds carried out by Lincoln himself. THAT was realistic, rather than profiling him as an almost holy figure.
And it was amusing, almost surreal, to see Republicans fighting against slavery and Democrats defending it… What happened to those ideals a hundred years later? It seems that both parties have been involved more with economic power struggles than any ideology, from the very beginning.
“Lincoln” is well worth watching. But it’s no surprise to see that “best film” awards have been given to other contestants in other competitions before the “Oscars”. It’s just not quite as good as it could have been.
