The only businessman I trust is Seth Godin. If you are not familiar with his work; Godin is an entrepreneur who focuses on marketing.
But as opposed to our well-known titans of industry, Godin doesn’t blather on about how great he is or screw over whole countries so he can grab a little more cash or embrace fascism because nobody loves him or explode rockets left and right.
Those examples are not made up.
In any case, Godin wrote a recent article in which he explained the shitshow that we are living in. Well, he didn’t use that term because he’s a lot classier than I am, and he is politically nonpartisan. But his analysis holds up when trying to figure out how a corrupt gang of incompetents, loudmouths, and lunatics took over the US government.
Godin explains that “expertise and firmly held beliefs don’t always go together,” and he uses the following diagram to illustrate the idea:
As Godin points out, “plenty of well-trained professionals have earned the right to have strongly held beliefs,” a contingent that includes “surgeons, jugglers, and historians,” among others. Professionals combine expertise with strong beliefs.
Then there are the innovators, who have “plenty of experience and training and have chosen to be flexible.” As Godin points out, “when an innovator suggests a counter-intuitive or even nutty concept, it might pay to listen carefully.” After all, they have some idea of what they’re talking about.
Most of us, at some time or another, will fall into the category of curious. This is when we “don’t have a lot of domain knowledge, but we’re able to ask intelligent questions and to listen carefully to the answers.” We’re being curious when we’re honest about our lack of expertise. Ideally, we engage with others in the spirit of goodwill and exhibit a willingness to change our minds.
It’s that upper-left quadrant, where ignorance meets strongly held beliefs, that we encounter the foolish. These are the people who have “little in the way of expertise, and are generally unwilling to change their assertions or goals.” As Godin puts it, “Alas, social media has elevated the foolish.”
Think of the influencer who failed high school biology but still insists that vaccines are dangerous. They have no expertise in the field but refuse to listen to data or logic. Or better yet, consider the secretary of health and human services.
Now imagine a whole administration full of people who have no experience, no training, and no clue about what they’re rambling on about, but are convinced that they are brilliant.
The professional, the innovative, and the curious wind up getting steamrolled by an incessant, aggressive horde of the foolish.
And that’s how we got here, to this most unhappy place.
That’s how we got present-day America.
