Quote of the Day -- Warren Buffett

Read 500 pages like this every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest.

-- Warren Buffet

Quote of the Day -- Bernard Berenson

I would I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.

-- Bernard Berenson

Do "Great Men" Make a Dramatic Difference?

We recently saw the wonderful movie Darkest Hour, focused on Britain and Winston Churchill during a critical time in the early days of World War II and the fall of France. The film dramatically contrasts Churchill's insistence that the only option for dealing with Hitler was militarily, versus the desire of Neville Chamberlain and others to attempt negotiation. It culminates with focus on Churchill's tremendous ability as an orator to arouse the patriotism of his fellow countrymen. Of course, with hindsight we know that Hitler's crimes were far worse than anyone knew in 1940 and that negotiation wasn't a viable option. I can't help but wonder what the world might be like today if a "great man" like Churchill hadn't arisen at exactly the right time? 

The great man theory was popular in the 19th century, with Thomas Carlyle as one of its leading advocates: "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." Great, of course, shouldn't be confused with good. You can easily argue that the history of the twentieth century was shaped indelibly by another "great man," Adolf Hitler. Which leads to the counter-argument, also popularized in the 19th century by Herbert Spencer, that "such great men are the products of their societies, and that their actions would be impossible without the social conditions built before their lifetimes" (Wikipedia).

Most historians agree that the disastrous Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I led to the economic and social conditions in Germany that in turn led to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. We lacked "great men" at Versailles to rise above their justifiable grievances and think about the long-term consequences of bitter revenge. Conversely, we can thank the "great men" at Yalta for doing a better job of negotiating an end to the second great war from the perspective of Europe, although they laid the foundation for the Cold War.

Many great thinkers and writers are intrigued by the trade-offs between larger-than-life individuals versus the surrounding economic and historic conditions as the primary drivers of historic events. Stephen King famously tried to answer the question asked by all of us of a certain age: "What if Kennedy hadn't been shot?" Ultimately, he surmises (spoiler alert) that Kennedy's idealism would have led to an entirely different set of problems than what we experienced with Nixon, but serious problems nonetheless. I guess his bleak view of a world led by Kennedy is supposed to make us find his loss less tragic, but I can't help but wonder? What would the world be like without the untimely loss of Lincoln, or Martin Luther King, or Bobby Kennedy, or Paul Wellstone? The mental exercise of imaging the impact of a great man is simpler than envisioning different societal circumstances.

Which brings me to another "great man" (meaning larger-than-life, not heroic or even good), Donald Trump. In the midst of his presidency, it's difficult to have any reasonable perspective on the lasting impact he will have. Analyses of the factors that drove his election and its potential long-term implications are already extensive.  I was struck this week by an article focused on the international implications of a single wildly offensive remark made by Trump: "Trump's Insults Will Nudge African Nations Closer To China." Despite the arc of history that brought us to this point, it is hard to argue against a "great man" view of history when we see the dramatic effects rippling across the globe each and every day.

Quote of the Day -- Arnold J Toynbee

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.

-- Arnold J Toynbee

Quote of the Day -- John Rohn

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

-- John Rohn

Quote of the Day -- Franklin Roosevelt

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

-- Franklin Roosevelt

Quote of the Day -- Ronald Reagan

(Yes, really, Ronald Reagan -- or an insightful speech-writer)

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. 

-- Ronald Reagan

Quote of the Day -- Erma Bombeck

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.

-- Erma Bombeck

Quote of the Day -- Epictetus

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

-- Epictetus

Maps and Perspective

Last week was a tough week to be an American who values attributes like civility, honesty, and respect for other cultures. According to a reliable "witness," our President (a.k.a. racist-in-chief) referred to immigrants from Africa and Haiti as coming from sh#%hole countries. You could hear people around the world literally gasp. And then you could hear the apologists on Fox News declare that the President was just representing what the average Joe in a bar in Wisconsin would say. First, I think that many average Joe's in Wisconsin would probably cringe at that generalization, just like people around the world cringed at our President's generalization.  And second, I don't want an average Joe from Wisconsin as my president. I think the president should be smarter, better-educated, and more qualified than I am. He should be someone I look up to, not an object of disdain.

I wonder how much our President or the average Joe knows about Africa? I'm sure he's never visited. Does he have any idea how big it is, how many countries it contains, what languages the people speak?  I recently stumbled across this map in my internet wanderings. It's a great perspective on the vastness of Africa -- it can hold the United States, China, the Indian subcontinent and big chunks of Europe. I know from personal experience that the drive through the Serengeti, which is just one part of one African country (Tanzania), seems endless. Africa is immense and immensely diverse -- not to be dismissed with the wave of a hand or a thoughtless remark.

On the other hand, we know from experience in our US elections that size is not necessarily the most important measure of value and importance. People have struggled with many different ways to represent the relationship between population, geography, and electoral votes in the US states. This is the best one that I've seen. While it's true that both the US Senate and the electoral college are designed to make sure that rural America has a voice, this map demonstrates that their voice has become disproportionately loud. We live in an urban world. We live in a diverse world. And we need to find a way to better represent that in our political system. (By the way, you can find much more detail about this map and the ideas behind it here.) 

Maps like statistics can be useful or they can be misused. And they can also teach us that size isn't the only thing that matters.