Perspective – Page 5 – Jeremiah Stanghini

A Collection of Scriptures for Guidance: Taoism, Part 2

Note: the first two paragraphs are introductory and are derived from the first post in this series. I’ll continue to repost them, in case this is your first time reading a post from this series.

When I was still a doctoral candidate at Sofia University, one of the courses I completed was “World Religions.” This was one of the classes I enjoyed the most during my time at Sofia University. I’d never had such broad exposure to the world’s religions before and this class really allowed me to gain a better understanding of them.

One of the papers I wrote for that class really tied in the fact that I was in a clinical psychology PhD program. The purpose of the paper was to collect quotes from scriptures of the various world religions that I could use with clients/patients when I became a therapist. While I’m no longer pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology, the quotes I collected could certainly be of use, so I thought I’d share them here.

Today’s collection of scriptures for guidance comes courtesy of Taoism. Enjoy!

Anxiety

The man who has had his feet cut off in punishment discards his fancy clothes – because praise and blame no longer touch him. The chained convict climbs the highest peak without fear – because he has abandoned all thought of life and death. These two are submissive and unashamed because they have forgotten other men, and by forgetting other men they have become men of Heaven. You may treat such men with respect and they will not be angry. Only because they are one with the Heavenly Harmony can they be like this. (Chuang Tzu, 23)

Anger

A person in danger should not try to escape at one stroke. He should first calmly hold his own, then be satisfied with small gains, which will come by creative adaptations. (I Ching)

Death

Look upon life as a swelling tumor, a protruding goiter, and upon death as the draining of a sore or the bursting of a boil. (Chuang Tzu, 6)

Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point. Existence without limitation is space. Continuity without a starting point is time. There is birth, there is death, there is issuing forth, there is entering in. That through which one passes in and out without seeing its form, that is the Portal of God. (Chuang Tzu, 23)

Depression

He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent. He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty. He who is satisfied with his lot is rich; he who goes on acting with energy has a (firm) will.

He who does not fail in the requirements of his position, continues long; he who dies and yet does not perish, has longevity. (Tao Te Ching, 33)

Grief

The valley spirit dies not, aye the same;
The female mystery thus do we name.
Its gate, from which at first they issued forth,
Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth.
Long and unbroken does its power remain,
Used gently, and without the touch of pain. (Tao Te Ching, 6)

Guilt

The Tao in its regular course does nothing (for the sake of
doing it), and so there is nothing which it does not do.

If princes and kings were able to maintain it, all things would of
themselves be transformed by them.

If this transformation became to me an object of desire, I would
express the desire by the nameless simplicity.

Simplicity without a name
Is free from all external aim.
With no desire, at rest and still,
All things go right as of their will. (Tao Te Ching, 37)

If you liked this post, you might like one of the other posts in this series:

Primal Religions

A Collection of Scriptures for Guidance: Primal Religions, Part 1

A couple of weeks ago, I shared something that I wrote for a paper this semester about Canada needing to diversify its export strategy. The recent news of Edward Snowden reminded me of a paper I wrote this semester for a different course. Writing both of those posts reminded me that I’ve written plenty of papers that you might find interesting, so I thought I’d dig into my old files and see what’s worth sharing.

As the title of this post suggests, the quotes in today’s post are geared towards “primal religions.” Enjoy!

Anger

The fly cannot be driven away by getting angry at it. (Idoma Proverb, Nigeria)

When a man goes to sacrifice he must remain peaceful, without a hot heart. He must stay thus for at least a day. If he quarrels on that day or is hot in his heart he becomes sick and destroys the words of the lineage and of the sacrifice. (Luhya Saying, Kenya)

Death

Onyame does not die, I will therefore not die. (Akan Proverb, Ghana)

Some day the Great Chief Above will overturn the mountains and the rocks. Then the spirits that once lived in the bones buried there will go back into them. At present those spirits live in the tops of the mountains, watching their children on earth and waiting for the great change which is to come. The voices of these spirits can be heard in the mountains at all times. Mourners who wail for their dead hear spirit voices reply, and thus they know that their lost ones are always near. (Yakima Tradition)

Grief

Abuk, mother of Deng,
Leave your home in the sky and come to work in our homes,
Make our country to become clean like this original home of Deng,
Come make our country as one: the country of Akwol
Is not as one, either by night or by day,
The child called Deng, his face has become sad,
The children of Akwol have bewildered their Chief’s mind. (Dinka Song, Sudan)

Is Sunshine Really the Best Disinfectant: Edward Snowden, PRISM, and the NSA

In keeping with the theme from yesterday’s post about Edward Snowden and the leaks about PRISM and the NSA, I thought I’d share something that I was reminded of when I was watching some of the coverage of it earlier this week. Before doing that though, if you haven’t, and regardless of your position on whether he should or shouldn’t have done this, I would urge you to read the article and watch the clip about him in The Guardian.

A couple of days ago I happened to catch a segment of Morning Joe where one of the journalists who broke the story about the NSA, Glenn Greenwald, was on. The clip is about 20 minutes and there’s an interesting exchange between one of the hosts and Greenwald. The part I’d like to highlight today happens towards the end of the segment. I think it was Willie Geist who asked the question and included the phrase, “Sunshine is the best disinfectant,” in reference to getting the information about these programs out in the open. This reminded me of a paper I wrote for a Public Administration class and I thought it might be useful if I detailed some of the research I used for that paper.

The idea that “sunshine is the best disinfectant” with regard to public administration stems from the idea of government reform. In a 2006 paper in Public Administration Review, Paul C. Light defined four tides of government reform:

All government reform is not created equal. Some reforms seek greater eﬃciency through the application of scientiﬁc principles to organization and management, whereas others seek increased economy through attacks on fraud, waste, and abuse. Some seek improved performance through a focus on outcomes and employee engagement, whereas others seek increased fairness through transparency in government and access to information. Although these four approaches are not inherently contradictory — and can even be found side by side in omnibus statutes such as the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act — they emerge from very diﬀerent readings of government motivations.

These approaches also oﬀer an ideology for every political taste: scientiﬁc management for those who prefer tight chains of command and strong presidential leadership; the war on waste for those who favor coordinated retrenchment and what one inspector general once described as “ the visible odium of deterrence ” ( Light 1993 ); a watchful eye for those who believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant for misbehavior; and liberation management for those who hope to free agencies and their employees from the oppressive rules and oversight embedded in the three other philosophies. [Emphasis Added]

My point in sharing this article wasn’t to say that the idea that sunshine is the best disinfectant is good or bad, but merely to put it in context with some other ways of reforming government. You can decide for yourself which you prefer. In fact, there’s a handy table for differentiating the four:

And one more interesting table that shows you how government reform in the US has changed since 1945:

What’s the Status Quo From the Other Side: List of Biases in Judgment and Decision-Making, Part 14

It’s Monday, so you know what that means — cognitive bias! When I write that, I sort of imagine a “live television audience shouting in chorus: cognitive bias!” Wouldn’t that be fun? Well, maybe it wouldn’t, but it’s kind of funny to think about. I’ve only got a couple of more biases that I’d like to mention, so let’s get right to today’s — the status quo bias.

The status quo bias, like many of the previous biases we’ve talked about, is exactly what it sounds like: a preference for the how things currently are. You may even look at this bias as some people’s inability to accept change or a fear of change, but that probably wouldn’t be completely accurate. Let’s go back to one of those journal articles we looked at in previous biases — Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias:

A large-scale experiment on status quo bias is now being conducted (inadvertently) by the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Both states now offer a choice between two types of automobile insurance: a cheaper policy that restricts the right to sue, and a more expensive one that maintains the unrestricted right. Motorists in New Jersey are offered the cheaper policy as the default option, with an opportunity to acquire an unrestricted right to sue at a higher price. Since this option was made available in 1988, 83 percent of the drivers have elected the default option. In Pennsylvania’s 1990 law, however, the default option is the expensive policy, with an opportunity to opt for the cheaper kind. The potential effect of this legislative framing manipulation was studied by Hershey, Johnson, Meszaros, and Robinson (1990). They asked two groups to choose between alternative policies. One group was presented with the New Jersey plan while the other was presented with the Pennsylvania plan. Of those subjects offered the New Jersey plan, only 23 percent elected to buy the right to sue whereas 53 percent of the subjects offered the Pennsylvania plan retained that right. On the basis of this research, the authors predict that more Pennsylvanians will elect the right to sue than New Jerseyans. Time will tell.

Another example:

One final example of a presumed status quo bias comes courtesy of the Journal of Economic Perspectives staff. Among Carl Shapiro’s comments on this column was this gem: “You may be interested to know that when the AEA was considering letting members elect to drop one of the three Association journals and get a credit, prominent economists involved in that decision clearly took the view that fewer members would choose to drop a journal if the default was presented as all three journals (rather than the default being 2 journals with an extra charge for getting all three). We’re talking economists here.”

You can see how important this bias would be for your life in making decisions. Should I sell my house (when the market’s hot) or should I hold onto it? You might be more liable to hold onto your house, even though there are economic gains to be had by selling it and, in fact, there are economic losses by keeping it!

As we’ve mentioned with some of the other biases, this bias can operate in tandem with other biases. For instance, think about the scenario I just mentioned and how that might also be similar to the endowment effect or loss aversion.

Ways for Avoiding the Status Quo Bias

1) Independent Evaluation

It really can be as easy as this. Have someone (or do it yourself) do a cost-benefit analysis on the situation/decision. In this way, you’ll be able to see the pros/cons of your decision in a new light. Of course, you may still succumb to the status quo bias, but you might be less likely to do so.

2) Role Reversal

While the independent evaluation makes “good sense” in trying to avoid this bias, doing some sort of role reversal will probably be the most effective. That is, look at the decision/situation from the other perspective. If it’s a negotiation, imagine that you’re in your negotiating partner’s shoes and you’re actually doing the trade from that side. Evaluate the deal. This may help to shake loose the status quo bias.

If you liked this post, you might like one of the other posts in this series:

Martin Luther King, Jr. Almost Didn’t Give the “I Have A Dream” Speech

A few weeks ago, I happened to be visiting the Lincoln Memorial — again. While I still live in DC, it seems prudent to take advantage of this opportunity that many Americans (and non-Americans!) only get when they’re on vacation. Anyway, while at the Memorial, I happened to stop and listen to a tour guide who was talking about Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s famous speech. Not ironically, he was talking about it because he was standing on (or thereabouts) the same spot where MLK delivered the speech in the 60s. The spot (just in front of) the Lincoln Memorial is the highest one is allowed to give a speech from.

Anyway, that’s a bit tangential to the point of this post, so let’s get to it. As the tour guide was speaking, he was explaining how MLK came to be on those steps on that fateful day in August of 1963. The speech was one of nine keynote addresses (Note: I’ve been looking for this statistic somewhere online and haven’t found it, so I could be misremembering exactly what the tour guide said). MLK didn’t sit down to write the speech until the night before the address, as he’d been pretty busy with the events of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The night before, MLK along with some of his most trusted advisors (Clarence Jones being one of them), sat down to write the draft. When they were finished, MLK went back to his room with the speech. The next day, while giving the speech, Jones noted that MLK had done quite a bit of deviation from the draft they’d written the night before.

The most remembered part of the speech, “I Have A Dream…” was not part of the original draft. Surprised? I certainly was when I heard the guide say this. Would you also be surprised to know that MLK first gave the speech when he was a teenager? He first delivered the speech in church when he was a teenager. It had been something that he’d worked on and given before, but as I said, it wasn’t part of the original text he was to deliver on August 28, 1963. So, then, how did he come to say those famous words?

Mahalia Jackson.

She was MLK’s favorite gospel singers and one of the few women near the podium on that day in August. Here’s a short clip of Clarence Jones speaking with Tavis Smiley about the book he published in 2011 called: Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation. In the clip, Clarence Jones explains that it was Mahalia who shouted out to MLK, “Tell them about the dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!” (Note: WordPress won’t let me embed the video from PBS, but you can watch it here. Jones talks about Mahalia very early on in the interview.)

Incredible, eh? Can you imagine how different the ~~USA~~ world would be if MLK hadn’t given that speech that day? Can you imagine how different it’d be if Mahalia hadn’t shouted to MLK to tell ’em about the dream?

And if you’re interested, the text of the speech.

Thirty Leaders and Two Followers: Can We All Be Leaders?

A few weeks ago, I was preparing to teach by re-reading the chapter for which the material we’d be covering in class. Part of the class session was going to be spent on leadership. Granted, this is an undergraduate textbook in organizational behavior, I was truly disappointed to find that of the 30+ pages on leadership, there were only two — 2 — pages spent talking about followers. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a successful leader without followers.

One of the broader issues here is math. Of all the people in the world, how many of them do you think will be leaders? Of all the people in the world, how many of them do you think will be followers? I’m not saying that people shouldn’t strive to be leaders or be the best they can be, but based on our current definition/understanding of leadership, not everyone will spend a great deal of their time being a leader. In fact, most people will spend the majority of their lives being followers — and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, many of the people that we think of as great leaders were — in fact — once followers. Some say you have to be a good follower before you can be a good leader, but I’m not really going to get into leadership philosophy right now.

Instead, I wanted to draw to your attention to the amount of time we spend thinking about, talking about, and teaching leadership and the absolute void with regard to following. For instance, a quick Google search returns over 450,000,000 results for leadership, but only 420,000 for followership. You might think that’s not a fair comparison, so what about how to be a good follower or how to be a good leader? Follower returns: 54,000,000 (though I think some of these might be returning religious results). Leader returns: 1,350,000.

While leadership is more revered, it certainly seems like there’s room in the popular literature for a few great books on followers and how to be a good one.

Metta World Peace, Chad Ochocinco, World B. Free, and Mark Super Duper!

A couple of years ago, one Ron Artest decided he was going to change his name. Ron Artest might not be a name you recognize unless you watch or are a fan of basketball (NBA). Artest has played for 5 NBA teams (Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets, and currently, Los Angeles Lakers). He’s had a number of accolades during his career, too. The thing that Artest will most be remembered for is what he did in September of 2011 — changed his name to Metta World Peace.

World Peace wasn’t the first athlete to make a wild name change like this. In fact, a few years before World Peace, there was one, Chad Johnson, an NFL receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals who changed his name to Chad Ochocinco. But Ochocinco wasn’t the first, either. There have been many athletes who’ve made name changes that would seem rather odd to some:

In 1985, a football player decided he was going to make his nickname more official, so he changed his name from Mark Duper to Mark Super Duper.
In 1981, a basketball player by the name of Lloyd B. Free changed his first name to World, making his name World B. Free.
In 1971, another basketball player, this one by the name of Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr, decided to change his name. You’ll probably recognize him by the name he chose: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
In 1964, a famous boxer by the name of Cassius Clay decided he was going to change his name to Muhammad Ali.

As I said, World Peace and Ochocinco are certainly not the first athletes to change their name. Though, of the athletes I’ve mentioned only Super Duper seems to have made the change for ‘innocuous’ reasons. The other three (and World Peace) were making the change for religious reasons or because they were trying to make a point. There was another basketball player a couple of years ago who made the change so that he would be more accepted by the Japanese people (as he was immigrating there). A baseball player in the 2000s decided that there were one too many “Johan Santana’s,” so he changed his first name to Ervin.

When I first started this post, I expected to find many more athletes who had changed their names for reasons that some people might find strange. Instead, I’ve found a number of athletes who’ve changed their names for reasons that I think most people would think were worthy. In fact, one of my favorite name changes (and one I didn’t know before I started writing this post) comes from Maurice Jones-Drew, a football player:

Maurice Jones’s grandfather, Drew, succeeded in his one goal: to see his grandson play through his first two seasons at UCLA. And after Drew suffered a fatal heart attack at the end of the second game of Maurice’s third season, the younger Jones altered the name on his jersey in tribute.

Religious Pluralism: Isaac and Ishmael

I’ve recently started re-watching The West Wing. I don’t remember what prompted it, but I’m really glad that I have. I first watched the series a couple of years ago — before I was to start business school. The show was really engaging and that made it easy to watch multiple (3, 4, and 5!) episodes at a time. Now that I find myself nearing the end of my formal business education (graduate with an MBA in a couple of months), re-watching The West Wing has been quite different. I feel like I have a better handle and understanding of the nuances to the plot. That’s not because I’ve seen it before (I hardly remember the ‘minor’ plot lines of the series), but because I’ve learned so much in the last 2 years.

I’m into Season 3 and the first episode that airs in Season 3 is one that’s not part of the plot. That is, it’s a play — with the characters of The West Wing, but it’s not part of the timeline of the show. This episode airs about a month after 9/11. Well, the actors/actresses can do it better than I, so here’s the introduction to the episode that aired:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSAMKvADVhg

When I was watching the series the first time, I don’t remember watching this episode — I was too eager to carry on with the plot. Since I knew what was going to happen, I thought I’d take the time to watch this episode. I thought it was very well done. I tried to imagine how I might be feeling back in October of 2001. Would I be upset? Would I be typecasting? Would I have understood the nuances of different religious beliefs? Different sects?

I’ve had a hard time finding critical reception for this particular episode, but of those articles I was able to find, there’ve been mixed reviews. From what I can tell, that has more to do with what appears to be something against Aaron Sorkin (the creator of the show). While some found the “teacher-student” paradigm a bit hokey, I thought it was a great way to convey an important message. Anyway, if you get the chance, I highly suggest watching the episode. If you’ve got Amazon Prime, here’s the link to the episode on Amazon that you can watch for free: The West Wing – Isaac and Ishmael.

As an aside, there was another really great episode that I saw recently. This one was part of the plot of the show, but it dealt with a really important issue: post-traumatic stress disorder. I was surprised when I clicked over to the Wiki page for this episode to find that it had only won one award (and helped Bradley Whitford win an Emmy). If I’m keeping score, this has to be one of the top 5 episodes of the series. Here’s the Amazon Prime link: The West Wing – Noël.

Perspective and the Framing Effect: List of Biases in Judgment and Decision-Making, Part 5

Since I was going to talk about the framing effect last week (and opted for the planning fallacy instead because of circumstances), I thought I’d get into the framing effect this week. The framing effect is a very easy bias to understand, in that it’s not as complicated in its description as some of the other biases are. In short, the framing effect is how people can react differently to choices depending on whether the circumstances are presented as gains or losses.

The famous example of the framing effect comes from a paper by Kahneman (who I’ve mentioned before) and Tversky in 1981:

Problem 1: Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the programs are as follows: If Program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved. [72 percent]

If Program B is adopted, there is 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved, and 2/3 probability that no people will be saved. [28 percent]

As you can see from the percentages in brackets, people opted for the sure thing. Now, let’s look at the second part of this study:

If Program C is adopted 400 people will die. [22 percent]

If Program D is adopted there is 1/3 probability that nobody will die, and 2/3 probability that 600 people will die. [78 percent]

Did you notice something? Program C is identical to Program A, and yet the percentage of people who were opting for Program C dropped tremendously! Similarly, notice that Program D’s percentage went way up — even though it’s the same thing as Program B. This is the framing effect in action. Is it frightening to you that we’re so susceptible to changing our mind based simply on how a choice is framed? If it’s not, it certainly should be.

Ways for Avoiding the Framing Effect

1) Reframe the question

It may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t consider “reframing” the frame with which they are looking at a situation. For instance, in the example from earlier, instead of looking at it as a choice between Program A and Program B, someone could reframe Program A so that it looks like Program C and do the same with Program B, so that it looks like Program D. As a result, one would then be getting a “fuller” picture of their choice.

2) Empathy — assume someone else’s perspective

Many choices implicate another in a situation. As a result, it might be worth it to put yourself in the shoes of that other person to see how they would view a given situation. This is similar to the reframe, but is more specific in that it might serve to help the person remove themselves a little bit from the decision. That is, when we’re faced with a choice, our personal biases can have a big impact on the decision we make. When we imagine how someone else might make this decision, we’re less likely to succumb to our personal biases.

3) Parse the question

Some questions present us with a dichotomous choice: are apples good or bad? Should we exercise in the morning or the evening? Are gap years helpful or harmful? When faced with a question like this, I would highly recommend parsing the question. That is, are we sure that apples can only be good or bad? Are we sure that exercising in the morning or the evening are our only options? Often times, answers to questions aren’t simply this or that. In fact, more times than not, there is a great deal of grey area. Unfortunately, when the question is framed in such a way, it makes it very difficult to see the possibility of the grey area.

If you liked this post, you might like one of the other posts in this series:

Could Washington, DC, Use a Little More Selfless Service?

During a trip I took earlier this year, I happened to pick up a USAToday. I don’t often read the USAToday, but that has more to do with the way that I aggregate articles. As I was reading, I came across an op-ed about Tulsi Gabbard, the newest member of the House of Representatives from Hawai’i. In the context of what had just happened with the drama of the fiscal cliff, there were some important points that I want to highlight:

The problem in Washington today is that legislators almost always act based on how they think their actions will help or hurt their political careers. An antidote to our epidemic of partisanship can be found in the “great tradition of conciliation” in which American statesmen from Thomas Jefferson to John Kennedy put the good of the country above the interests of self, party, or region. This tradition could be revived, if only we would heed the words of George Washington, who warned against the “mischiefs of the spirit of party,” or of Patrick Henry, who exclaimed, “I am not a Virginian but an American.”

It could also be revived by an infusion of the Gita’s principle of selfless service. If Democrats and Republicans could learn to cast their votes without first (and foremost) calculating the costs and benefits to their personal careers, Capitol Hill would start to look a less like a battlefield between rival clans and more like the arena of compromise and conciliation our Founders intended it to be.

Selfless service.

How often do we hear that phrase used in the context of politics?

The irony of this op-ed about selfless service is that a day later, I heard this same point echoed on conservative talk radio. Dennis Praeger and his call-in guests were opining that politicians weren’t concerned about the big picture — they were focused on what was going to get them elected and keep them elected. How interesting, eh? While I don’t know that the author of the op-ed is liberal, the fact that he’s writing about diversity in Congress (and about a Democratic House Member, in particular) might lead one to believe that he might be. There’s also the fact that he wrote a rather pointed post for CNN around election day last year. So, it’s safe to assume that back in January of this year, we had people on both sides of the ideological aisle talking about how important it is for politicians in America to start thinking about what’s good for the country rather than their district, party, or reelection chances.

While I’m totally on-board with a bigger picture perspective, I would wonder how to reconcile not keeping the interests of my district in mind when voting. Isn’t that how people get elected in the first place? I’m going to represent you in Washington… I’m going to represent what’s important for our town when I get to DC… How could one turn one’s back on one’s district?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, but it’s a conversation worth having.