My friend made this comment:
Brooks explains the advantage of devotion to institutions (social functions) rather than personal happiness (psychic profits), e.g., "...a farmer’s relation to her land is not an individual choice that can be easily reversed when psychic losses exceed psychic profits. Her social function defines who she is..." I'm not sure what I think.I replied with this comment:
I like the article. I think there is a balance to be found between the two ways of thinking. Sometimes the institutions need changes. But I think I agree that sometimes the basic foundations of those institutions should be left alone. I do agree that excessively individualistic thinking is one of the most destructive aspects of our culture right now.Another friend from college responded with:
I'm not sure the article spoke to the balance Rebecca mentions as much as I'd like. I don't think there is any institutional practice that is beyond questioning. I think it is important to teach students to question the status quo. But it is also important to arm them with tools to help them discern things that should be changed from things that should not. One should always question, but with an open mind to the possibility that the way things are is best. The author seems to allude to a point that there are institutions that work so well or do so much good one should not question their practices, and I disagree.To which I then replied:
I agree that education should provide the tools to question the status quo and then discern what should be changed and what should not. (I would also argue that the vast majority of modern educational institutions fail at this task gravely, but that is a different post.)Does anyone else have comments or input on this subject?
Then the question becomes how do we discern what is good and what is not? Is there some standard to use? What is that standard? Either social institutions are judged against a standard, or they aren't. If there is no standard, then the discernment is all subjective. It becomes on "me" or a selfish "us."
But if there is a standard, then maybe the standard is wrong and we should move the standard. The standard doesn't "feel right" to me, so it should change? It is too hard, so it should change? It's not "fun enough"? Where does that end? It ends the same way.
When you get down to it, either there is some kind of objective reality...objective truth, if you will, or there isn't.
If there isn't any sort of objective truth, then we can educate until we're blue in the face with little effect. If there is no objective reality, then we have nothing left other than self-centeredness. We will ultimately be most concerned about looking after our own interests, rather than the interests of others (the community). (Philippians 2:4) Everyone chooses their own moral code. Those that are loudest may get policy enacted to support them. Perhaps not.
Without that objective moral code in place throughout the social institutions and society as a whole, we ultimately decay into the situation we are in today. That code becomes so decayed that actions that would have once been nearly inconceivable become such common practice that a whole system collapses. In this case, the bankers and money managers became so concerned with their own interests, they forgot the larger role they played in society.
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When I read the NYTimes article, I am struck that the article is a counterpoint to what we often hear about making changes to institutions. In being a counterpoint, I agree with the comment which mentioned that he does not seem "balanced". But I think that is more a function of the fact that he means to present an alternate point of view; he obviously feels the "individualistic" and change-oriented view has been presented ad nauseum.
But what we really do need is balance. That balance is (1) to recognize and maintain institutional wisdom and (2) to recognize and change institutional ignorance. Where there is wisdom, it behooves us to pursue it. Where there is ignorance, it is in our interest to update institutions in alignment with the new facts on the ground.
While the erosion of the "banker's code" may have participated in the calamity before us, that is a cop-out. Institutional knowledge would have said little about hedge funds, about the AAA-rated mortgage-backed securities, the huge capital inflows into America, and their source, the capital outflows from Asia. These were new items, and institutions didn't know what to do with them, so the institutions changed to try to do right. In the end, they got it wrong, but that's because they screwed up, not because they weren't following what the institutional wisdom would have told them. This screw-up will now go into the institutional wisdom and hold future bankers from the same mistake.
As a concluding remark, I should mention that the Great Depression was caused by some who were following institutional knowledge, not those who sacrificed it. Thus, I think the argument in this article rings somewhat hollow.
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