Going High Concept

Readers of this blog know that I advise job seekers not to sell themselves, but to buy them.

You will do better in a job interview if you show how much you understand the company that is interviewing you and how much you want to be part of their culture. This tactic is far better than touting your virtues, your successes, and your achievements.

An article from the Harvard Business Review reminded me that even when you are not selling yourself, you should know how to present yourself. And to do it clearly, concisely, in a way that relates to the job you want, in one sentence that you can pronounce in fifteen seconds.

In other contexts this is called high concept.

When Daisy Wademan Dowling presented this idea, she called it the elevator pitch. It assumes that you are trapped in an elevator with a hiring executive for a short period of time and need to find the right, high concept pitch. Link here.

Dowling offers the example of the executive assistant whose elevator pitch was: "I can make any boss shine."

Dowling considered this to be a great pitch. It is. It is far better than saying: I am a great assistant, or I am the most efficient assistant there is.

The concept works because she is not selling herself; she is showing that she understands what the job really entails. And she is basing her pride on the effect her work produces on others.

She is not asking what the job can do for her; she is showing what she can do for her employer.

The Great American Torture Debate, Part 2

Among the world's great battle cries, we can count: "Give me liberty or give me death;" "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes;" and "We shall never surrender."

In our new moral order these have been replaced by President Obama's: "waterboarding is torture.... We will not torture."

To help establish this new moral order Jacob Weisberg of Slate.com has decided that we should all feel guilty that our country waterboarded. Weisberg asserted, without very much thought, that waterboarding an inhuman monster like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is morally equivalent to interning innocent Japanese-Americans during World War II. Link here.

To Weisberg and his fellow guilt-trippers, it does not matter whether waterboarding worked or whether it saved lives. Their argument does not reside on pragmatic considerations.

It resides on moral absolutes. If Obama said it is torture, it is torture. If Obama said it is wrong, it is wrong. So much for moral complexity.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the purpose of this guilt-mongering is mind control. To do penance for your sins you must think as Weisberg does, like squishy leftist.

So much for the free trade in ideas.

Now, we all need to do penance because waterboarding, in Obama's and Weisberg' and Maureen Dowd's words, is corroding our character.

They all believe that when we betray our ideals our character suffers corrosion.

In that they are surely mistaken. Character involves your role in society and your relationships with other people. It is not based on how deeply you love an idea, or how many lives you are willing to sacrifice to demonstrate that love.

A traitor who declares that he loves a higher truth more than he loves his country is not a person of character. He is a traitor.

Building character involves fulfilling your duties, obligations, and responsibilities to other people. When it comes to leadership, a leader shows character by protecting his people, not by letting them die to assert his superior virtue.

No parent of character would ever refuse to use any means necessary to protect his or her children. Period.

Winston Churchill understood this well. Whether or not Churchill condoned torture is subject to debate. Yet, the man who ordered the firebombing of a civilian population center did not allow his war effort to be hamstrung by excessive moral scruples.

Surely, Christopher Hitchens was thinking of Dresden when he pronounced Churchill to be: "ruthless, but humane."

Listen to Churchill's great battle cry: "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender...."

Weigh the rhetorical force of those words, and ask yourself whether Churchill should have concluded... "and, by the way, we shall never torture, because then the Nazis would win."

Obama's policies remind me more of Woodrow Wilson's than of Churchill's. His statements on torture and on America's new-found moral supremacy remind me of Wilson's famous statement: "There is such a thing as a nation being too proud to fight."

Like Obama Wilson wanted to lead by moral example. He explained, in a rhetorical and syntactical embarrassment: "The example of America must be a special example. The example of America must be the example not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being so right it does not need to convince others by force that it is right."

Wilson made this statement in early 1915, within months of the onset of World War I, after a German U-boat had sunk the Lusitania, murdering over a thousand people.

Led by former President Theodore Roosevelt, a large group of Americans was pushing Wilson to join the war on the side of the allies. In the lines quoted above Wilson explained why he decided to sit it out.

For reasons that will puzzle Jacob Weisberg peace did not instantly break out in Europe. Countries did not fall over themselves trying to follow the American example.

What followed Wilson's morally-inspired squeamishness was three years of unexampled carnage, followed by a pandemic that killed tens of millions more, followed by the rise of totalitarian dictatorships and another World War, this one costing the lives of tens of millions more.

Does Wilsonian high-mindedness make you feel any better about that.

As you know, Wilson did eventually intervene. Within a few months the war was over. Unfortunately, it was too late to stop the historical aftershocks. According to George Kennan World War I was the defining catastrophe of the twentieth century.

You may consider Woodrow Wilson a great beacon of moral clarity, a vizier of peace and justice, a representative of America's highest ideals. The blood-soaked fields of Flanders tell a different story.

Is the "Ethicist" Sending Us On a Guilt Trip?

You have to be much smarter than I am to understand how winning an Emmy for writing jokes makes you an authority on ethics.

Whether it was brains or something else, the editors of the New York Times chose Randy Cohen, formerly an award-winning joke writer for David Letterman, to pen a column called "The Ethicist."

Most Sundays the anguished souls who write to Cohen want to know things like: whether they should give alms to the poor in India, and, if they don't, should they feel guilty about it?

And most of the time the well-written and witty column serves up sanctimonious moralizing that offers help for people who want to live their lives politically correctly.

All of which proves that the joke is really on us. Among ethicists Cohen's chief distinction is that he does not know what ethics is.

Along with his weekly advice column, Cohen now also writes an online column where he tackles larger and more lengthy ethical issues.

Last week the question was: Should Ruth Madoff have known that her husband was a crook? Did she have an ethical duty to inquire about where the money was coming from? Link here. (See also the interesting comments by Times readers.)

For present purposes we will ignore the issues of criminal and civil liability. Those are clearly matters for the authorities.

Cohen's focus is elsewhere. He asserts, rather blithely, that the wife of a wealthy man has an ethical duty to ask where the money is coming from. In other words, she has no duty to trust her husband; she has no duty to be loyal to her husband. She must abandon trust and loyalty and become a fearless and fearsome interrogator.

She must ask the kinds of questions that Cohen, who is obviously out of his depth here, thinks that any rational person would think of.

When the happy couple is tucked into the marital bed, she must (ethically) turn to her husband and ask: How can you be earning such consistent returns? Why hasn't Goldman Sachs invested in your funds? If we're so rich, why aren't you in jail?

Anyone who follows this advice will turn her boudoir into a Star Chamber.

To see through the scam Ruth Madoff would have needed complete access to the company books and sophisticated knowledge of accounting, finance, and investing. The SEC missed it. Many highly sophisticated investors missed it. Why would a spouse be able to catch it.

In case you missed the politically correct moralizing, Cohen expands his point.

Before you bite into that hamburger, you must find out whether the cow that provided the meat suffered needlessly while being put to death.

Before you lace up that new pair of Air Jordans you must know whether the Chinese workers who produced them are allowed frequent coffee breaks.

And before you buy that new laptop make sure you figure out whether the company that produced the battery has been polluting rivulets in the pristine Laotian countryside.

Cohen pays lip service to the fact that if anyone were to take him seriously and follow his instructions, the world economy would quickly grind to a halt.

His purpose lies elsewhere. He does not want to control your behavior; he wants to control your mind. He wants us all to feel guilty, and to engage in periodic moral self-flagellation.

Ultimately,he wants us all to think the way he does. He is more than happy to guilt-trip people into agreeing with him.

The moral of the story is this: ethics is not and should never become a guilt trip.

Will Pessimism Bring You Happiness?

Alain de Botton is the current master of pop philosophy. By liberally borrowing from the great sages of the past, he has written a series of popular books about how we should live our lives.

Full disclosure: I have not read a single one of them.

Have I been missing anything?

That question was lurking in my mind when I was reading de Botton's article, "For a Happier Life, Shake Off Your Misplaced Optimism," in the Financial Times. Link here.

This would not be a very bad piece of advice, if de Botton had left it at that. Unfortunately, he takes his idea a few steps too far and advises us to discard all of our optimism.

To be happy, he says, we should overcome our optimism, our bourgeois belief in progress, and our can-do spirit, the better to contemplate everything that can go wrong in life.

If paradox could cure, this would be a panacea.

The philosophy that is going to lead us from pessimism to happiness comes from the Stoics. "It may be time to revisit some of these teachings, not to add to our misery but precisely so as to alleviate our sorrow."

Obviously, syntax is not his strong suit.

De Botton makes two points, both of which are worth considering: first, if we assume that the worst is inevitable, then we will not be as likely to blame ourselves when it arrives; second, if we contemplate the worst, we can better prepare ourselves for its arrival.

De Botton summarizes his argument in the following passage. Please be kind enough to ignore the jumbled syntax: "If we do not dwell on the risk of sudden calamity, in the money markets or elsewhere, and pay a price for our innocence, it is because reality comprises two cruelly confusing characteristics: on the one hand, continuity and reliability lasting decades; on the other, unheralded cataclysms.

If pessimism will really make us happy, then cognitive psychologists like Martin Seligman who tell us that we can overcome depressing by learning to be optimistic are selling us angel dust. Cognitive therapy is just setting us up for calamity.

A cognitive psychologist might reply that optimism and good habits are more likely to help you through turmoil than will a mind filled with horrid thoughts.

Be that as it may, the notion that we should be prepared for the worst sounds a bit like Nassim Taleb's concept of the black swan. For Taleb a black swan, an unheralded cataclysm, causes damage because no one could have predicted it.

De Botton wants us to prepare. Taleb explains that if we could have predicted a black swan event, then we would have prepared for it and mitigated its damage.

Had we all known that 9/11 was going to happen, we would surely have taken steps to stop it.

Personally, I find Taleb more persuasive on this point.

De Botton's prescription for happiness leaves something to be desired. He borrows from a great thinker, and declares: "... we must, argued Seneca, hold the possibility of the most obscene events in mind at all times."

Unfortunately, this sounds like as prescription for extreme video games and internet porn. I would doubt that a diet of Resident Evil and MadWorld, followed by an internet porn kicker, is going to lead to happiness.

In other words, the point is overstated. We should have some awareness of the worst-case scenarios. It is certainly one factor that should enter into investment decisions.

Just as clearly, you should not spend all your time cultivating visions of doom and gloom. Not only will this prevent you from ever getting anything done, but, as Winifred Gallagher offered in her book, "Rapt," it is depressing and bad for your health. See my posts about focus. Links here and here.

It is one thing to know that you should drive carefully because you do not want to get into an accident. It is quite another to sit behind the wheel musing about all the possible catastrophes that can befall you on your way to your grandmother's house.

The former is prudent; the latter will cause you to take your mind off the road.

Remember that philosophers do not have any responsibility for running a company or a country. They are in the business of thinking, of entertaining bizarre fantasies and visions, of stretching the limits of imagination.

They can obsess all they want about it because they do not have to show up for a job every day, meet a production schedule, set policy, or ensure that the factory is running smoothly.

De Botton is correct to say that mindless optimism is not the solution. But mindless pessimism is not either.

The former might leave us unprepared for ruin, but the latter will sap the energy and initiative needed to do the hard work of rebuilding.

Choosing the Right Coach

I've said it before, but it bears repeating. When choosing a coach (or a therapist) you should avoid those who resent your success, who hold you in contempt, or who feel happy when you fail.

These thoughts came to me when I was reading an article by trading coach Doug Hirschhorn in The Daily Beast. Link here.

Hirschhorn brags that he has counseled thousands of Wall Street traders. If that is true, he has not spent very much quality time with very many of them.

Now that many of them are down on their luck, he seems to feel vindicated, as though their failures justify his own decision not to work as hard.

Hirschhorn also seems frustrated by the fact that so many of these traders refused to take his advice to slow down. The point suits him well since he also wants to exculpate himself for the financial meltdown.

Why did they reject his advice? He reasons that the Masters of the Universe were hooked on their work like addicts who are hooked on drugs.

Dare I say that this is not a flattering way to characterize your clientele.

Rather than defend his clients, Hirschhorn joins the chorus of those who are scapegoating them. He shows them as people who were psychologically defective. At least he does not call them narcissists.

By his account Wall Streeters feel entitled to their giant bonuses because they work all the time, 24/7, and sacrifice their private lives on the altar of the god Mammon.

They believe that they are worth millions because they missed their daughters' dance recitals.

So, you work very, very hard, you earn a ton of money for your firm, and you feel that you should be compensated for your skill and effort.

To Hirschhorn this means that Wall Street traders and bankers are suffering from a sense of entitlement; they are addicted to their bonuses.

As I said, resentment and contempt drip from his word processor.

Have you ever heard of an individual who puts everything he has into his job and does not care about his compensation and recognition?

Coach Hirschhorn also seems to believe that traders are spoiled brats, like the professional athletes who justify their salaries by saying that they have short careers.

But in his next breath he adds that these people are rewarded for making large sums of money for their employers. They are being paid for performance.

Is there anything strange about being paid to perform? Does that make traders the moral equivalent of the compulsive gambler and sex addict? Does it have anything to do with the feeling of entitlement manifested by people who expect to be paid not to work?

Hirschhorn also notes correctly that Wall Street is a meritocracy, a competitive arena where people strive to excel.

Well and good. But it is also an arena where people bear tremendous responsibilities.

Wall Street's Masters of the Universe were paid to make the system run. We learned how important that was when the credit markets froze last fall.

Should the people who make it run be well paid? Yes, they should. But how should they be compensated when the system runs aground?

At present many former Masters of the Universe are defensive about their roles in the financial crisis. More than a few are angry that they are being scapegoated for the crisis, no matter whether or not they had a role in it.

Under the circumstances they feel obliged to find a rationale for their bonuses. And they need to explain why they should be paid well even when they have a bad year.

Are these rationalizations the real reason why they are feel that they deserve their bonuses? Probably not. They are that best that some of them could come up with on the fly.

One thing these people do not need is the contempt and derision of those who are trying to help them. Out of such an attitude precious little help will spring.

Choosing the Right Mate

It is always good to find scientific evidence that proves something you already knew. Recently, Brent Roberts, a University of Illinois psychologist, demonstrated that you can improve your health and well being by choosing a more conscientious mate. Link here.

The research adds a new dimension to studies that show that an individual's conscientiousness will improve his well being. It shows that we are directly affected by the conscientiousness of the person we choose as a mate.

This means that when you are choosing a mate you should give more emphasis to conscientiousness. It also says that if you fall in love with someone who lacks this quality, you should limit your attachment to that person.

All other things being equal, character should be allowed to trump passion.

I am assuming that Roberts (and whoever else does this kind of research) chose the term "conscientious" because it feels more ethically neutral than the term I prefer: character.

According to Roberts, a conscientious person is more organized and responsible, more reliable and trustworthy, more disciplined, and more in control of moods and impulses.

Obviously, he is describing a person of good character.

The opposite of conscientious is neurotic. Roberts describes neurotics as moody and inconstant, anxious and worried.

But where Robers described conscientiousness in terms of good habits, he defined neurosis in terms of inconstant emotions.

Perhaps he felt a need to cover up the fact that neurotics tend to indulge bad behavior, and that they do not want to hear about it. Neurotics are unusually resistant to seeing their behavior as contributing to their moodiness. And they become unhappy when they are told that they can solve their emotional problems by improving their character.

Why does this make neurotics unhappy? First, because it makes them responsible for their moods, and second, because it empowers them to do something to stabilize their mood, and third, because it tells them that insight is not going to set them free.

And yet, we should all know that systematic bad behavior will undermine relationship harmony and produce the kinds of emotional vicissitudes that characterize neurosis.

Roberts is intrigued by a gender disparity in his research results. Even a though a man's well being will be compromised by having a neurotic wife, no matter how good her character, he discovered that a woman's well being will not be compromised by having a husband who has good character with a bit of neurosis thrown in.

This is a peculiar result, especially if you consider character and neurosis to be opposites. Roberts finds it all rather strange too.

When asked about whether a woman should prefer a conscientious man with some neurosis over a conscientious man without much neurosis, he responds: I wouldn't recommend it.

The problem here lies in the way the concepts are defined. By making conscientiousness a function of behavior and neurosis a function of mood, Roberts can find good people who are moody. It would be far more difficult to discover good people who are irresponsible, unreliable, and undisciplined.

A neurotic is not simply a conscientious person with a bad mood. After all, everyone has a right to an occasional bad mood.

Someone who never has a bad mood is likely to be emotionally stunted. And thus not the most conscientious person either.

Besides, I have never seen a woman who thrived after mating a man who is moody and inconstant, who is irresponsible and unreliable. We do not need science to know that such qualities are destructive of everyone's well being.

Needed: Focus, Part 2

Picking up where I left off yesterday...

For fear of seeming superficial we direct our attention to life's dangers and horrors. Most of us want to belong to the ambient culture, especially the one that therapy has defined as "healthy."

We do it by showing enhanced awareness of everything that can and has gone wrong, to the detriment of what is going right.

To counter this unfortunate tendency, Winifred Gallagher prescribed directed meditation about the good things in life. To sustain herself through her cancer treatment, she retrained her mind to ignore the negative and focus on the positive.

When we feel threatened by potential dangers our minds are unfocused. When we have been traumatized we shift into pain avoidance mode and scan the world for cues that might signal imminent pain. Our eyes dart around, looking for signs of trouble.

To overcome that tendency we need to regain focus. And we need to get out of ourselves and out of the self-preservation mode that we fall in whenever we have suffered a trauma.

Then we can regain the focus and concentration needed to enjoy life and to work effectively.

Gallagher shows that we can, with sufficient work, gain some control over what our minds focus on, and that, by gaining such control, we can improve our mood.

It is an important lesson. Evidently, it derives from cognitive therapy. Less evidently, perhaps, it runs counter to the psychoanalytic practice of free association.

As a condition for treatment, psychoanalysis prescribed a lack of focus, a willful ignorance of the outside world. Its patients could then undertake an introspective journey into the hidden horrors of the forgotten past.

Also, psychoanalysts insisted that their patients say whatever came to mind, regardless of the effect it might have on any listener.

If an analytic patient made his thoughts into a coherent and logical statement, he was, by definition, allowing his thoughts to be censored. Thus he was not following the rule and was a bad patient.

Through the practice of free association, psychoanalytic patients were trained to speak in disconnected fragments, to be unfocused, to dart from one subject to another, looking for trouble.

By training people to master the unnatural habit of free associating, psychoanalysis was helping them to become socially dysfunctional.

If the therapy culture, with its focus on trauma and grievance, is mass-producing depression, then psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on a mind that speaks in disconnected fragments, is underwriting this production, one patient at a time.

The moral of the story is simple. If the culture is inducing habits that make you feel depressed, your mood cannot be analyzed as a product of a childhood trauma or poor parenting.

You might just be trying to be a member in good standing of a peer group that has bought into the therapy culture. And there is nothing abnormal about that.