Foolish Consistency and the Flip Flop

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay “Self-Reliance” stated “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.” This has such relevance in this election that I just felt the need to bring it up.

His point is that establishing a position and sticking to that position regardless of circumstances is foolish and intellectually lazy. I contend that there are some great principles that are non-foolish consistencies (starting with “Thou shalt not kill”). What should not be consistent is your response to events. There is nothing wrong with giving a leader a strategic negotiating position that allows a diplomatic solution. When that leader then uses that position for reasons outside of the original intent and by the way bungles tactically, it is entirely appropriate to criticize the action. It would be unconscionable of John Kerry to do otherwise. The president on the other hand says that we need to stay the course and it was all the right thing to do, demonstrating that he is a man with not just a “little mind”, but also of small spirit.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anthropogenic Global Warming

Image
I will call people who believe in anthropogenic global warming (AGW), warmists, those who are less certain, denialists. I hope it insults both sides equally. My BS degree is in earth science. I work for an oil company. I believe in the scientific method. I believe that government has a legitimate role to play in society. I am not a Neanderthal. I have biases. Some may think that because I work for an oil company, I desperately want to see the warmists fail. Look, I'm too close to retirement for anything that happens now to have an effect on my personal earnings or career, so I don't think that comes into play. And by the way, I live on this planet. If humans are doing something to damage the planet, I want it to stop. I want us to take action to fix and reverse the harm. I may be retiring within fifteen years, but I hope to live a lot longer than that, and I want my kids to inherit a good place. I have read a lot about the science, politics, and economics of the CO2/glob
Read more

Fun With Boat Electronics

The lightning strike was close by. We could see that it had hit one of the boats just down the dock from ours. Phew. It wasn't a direct hit we said from the dry comfort of a nearby restaurant. But things happened. In the days after the strike, several electronic systems on the boat were not working properly. Autopilot was out and the sound system was sketchy, Wind instruments worked intermittently. VHF radio worked, but could not read the GPS signal. The helm digital displays (IS40) worked intermittently. Although pretty competent with computers and networks generally, I had never done any work with a boat network. Work was busy, so we had the boat dealer's mechanic take a look at it.  His conclusion was that there was a problem with the chart plotter. We weren't really interested in buying a new chart plotter, but if that was the problem...  On the word of the mechanic, we were able to get a partial refund under warranty from Simrad. We even upgraded to the next size chart
Read more

Staking My Claim to MicroSnaking

Image
Project management processes often show the project progression by moving between the project team to do the work and a meeting with management to allow the project to move on to the next step. One expression for this sinuous depiction is "snaking." You can see the resemblance to a snake in the graphic. This type of process management is typical in Waterfall or Phase Gate processes.  Agile processes have become more common in recent years. They describe an iterative process with rapid testing, feedback, and turnaround. It actually looks quite similar, but rather than taking a few months, it takes a few weeks. Rather than going high on the chain of command, it goes up a level or two. Sometimes there are not phase gates at all, just continuous up and down. This up and down feedback, I am calling "MicroSnaking" or "micro-snaking." I'm the first. I stake my claim. The term is free for all to use. Knock yourself out.
Read more