“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Exiting the office I pull open the door to the hall to find a solitary butterfly frantically seeking a familiar environment as its wings beat furiously against the stale air of corridor with no ventilation. Mesmerized I watch unable to decide what to do, captivated by the poetic movement I watch the dieing moment of something remarkable and beautiful. The hall is devoid of any recognizable refuse in which each of us can seek comfort. Graceful pirouettes are silhouetted against the battleship grey drab interior of the hallway as panic increases in the frightened winged insect. Concerned that I might injury this fragile butterfly I decide to ignore its plight after staring listlessly for an extended period as pity swallows me. As helpless as the trapped butterfly, I turn my back retreating into the false sanctuary of my office. The image continues to haunt me as I wonder if the butterfly was able to escape the confines of the barren cold hall, while knowing that its fate was sealed the moment I turned my back on it. As the door snaps shut with a deliberate finality my mind recites a phase buried in the subconscious since childhood “There But for the Grace of God go I”.
This simple witness of desperation in the reality of hopelessness was the perfect idiom to one of the most disheartening personal repudiations I have endured in over thirty years of business. The residual effect won’t be understood for many years to come, as I restructure my views of the world that surrounds me. The sense of disbelief is debilitating as I find it hard to accept, so let me try to explain. We have a client that I have worked on and off for in excess of thirty years, always attempting to bring value to our relationship. In considering the needs of the client we saw and opportunity to expand their mission by understanding of how sustainability could be implemented in their business model. Recognizing that they did not have the resources to invest in the future we voluntary donated our time and effort to create the vision and the consensus to adopt this very forward plan of environmental leadership. Our personal investment was in the thousands of dollars because it was the right thing to do. After presentations to the board, president and complete acceptance of the direction, we identified a funding program unknown to the owner. We then invested more of our time at modest cost to them to write a grant in which they received almost a million dollars to implement the program we devised.
Elated at our success we were informed that according to procurement policy they where required to request public bids for the implementation of the grant program. Somewhat disappointed we understood the process and responded to their request for proposals which required another substantial investment of time. Being short-listed with three other firms for the project we prepared for an interview investing more of time and energy. To our surprise we received a call from the procurement officer notifying us that the selection committee was unable to make a decision and requested that we provide our best and lowest offer by 9:00 the following morning. Ignoring the fact that the process they requested is know in the industry as bid shopping which is illegal in many states, we worked late into the night trying to option out as much of the services we were providing as possible without negatively impacting the quality of the product we were attempting to deliver. Throwing caution to the wind we pared our original proposal to the bare minimum and reduced our fee basis by thirty percent.
Four days later we received a call that we were not selected for the project because we were still a couple of thousand dollars higher than the other firm on a one million dollar project. So after spending thousands and thousands of dollars on their behalf to create a project, have it approved, find the funding source, and acquire the grant funding, we were not selected because of a cost spread of a couple of thousand dollars. This single act of betrayal by a client is by far the most brutal disregard to value I have ever experienced in over thirty years of professional service and it will forever change my naive approach based on the inherent morality of public institutions being able to understand the value proposition. The most disheartening concept is that this action is not unique, but is a common business practice of our new economy, a false belief that a few dollars stripped from a thoughtful planning process will benefit the greater good. In reality short sighted planning ends up costing the institution hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in the long run, but it is impossibility for bureaucrats to conceive the relative value of money over time. As a society we are removing the basis underpinning of our economy, when we will forego value for economic decisions purely based on cost. Why not concede that the greatest economic force in the world is not longer willing to invest in its future. Is there any question why China and India are manufacturing empires as we continue to fool ourselves into believing that our nation in not past its pinnacle of greatness and is on the verge of eminent collapse.
My cynical opinion of society’s inability to act toward a collective good has been bolstered today and is becoming a repeating theme of my alienation from society. I was trying to determine a title to this blog post and stumbled on the title “Eclipse of Reason”. Just to kill some time I queried the title on the internet and was riveted by what came up on the screen and how relevant is was to my understanding of what is happening in this new economy or with society in general, although I had a difficult time placing my sentiments into words.
In 1946, Max Horkheimer wrote a book called “Eclipse of Reason” which was influenced by Nazi power in Germany. He was outlining how the Nazis were able to make their agenda appear "reasonable", but was also issuing a warning against this happening again. Horkheimer believed that the ills of modern society are caused by the misuse and misunderstanding of reason. If people use true reason to critique their societies, they will be able to identify and solve their problems.
“Eclipse of Reason deals with the concept of "reason" within the history of Western philosophy. Horkheimer defines true reason as rationality. He details the difference between objective and subjective reason and states that we have moved from objective to subjective. Objective reason deals with universal truths that dictate that an action is either right or wrong. Subjective reason takes into account the situation and social norms. Actions that produce the best situation for the individual are "reasonable" according to subjective reason. The movement from one type of reason to the other occurred when thought could no longer accommodate these objective truths or when it judged them to be delusions. Under subjective reason, concepts lose their meaning. All concepts must be strictly functional to be reasonable. Because subjective reason rules, the ideals of a society, for example democratic ideals, become dependent on the "interests" of the people instead of being dependent on objective truths.”
In order to understand Horkheimer’s premise we need to define both Objective and Subjective reasoning. “Objective Reasoning - Of or pertaining to an object; contained in, or having the nature or position of, an object; outward; external; extrinsic; -- an epithet applied to whatever is exterior to the mind, or which is simply an object of thought or feeling, and opposed to subjective. Objective means that which belongs to, or proceeds from, the object known, and not from the subject knowing, and thus denotes what is real, in opposition to that which is ideal -- what exists in nature, in contrast to what exists merely in the thought of the individual.” As explained by Sir. W. Hamilton. In other words Objective Reasoning is Objective is something that deals with or is learned because of another object, not your own experience.
On the other hand, “Subjective Reasoning – is defined as especially, pertaining to, or derived from, one's own consciousness, in distinction from external observation; relating to the mind, or intellectual world, in distinction from the outward or material excessively occupied with, or brooding over, one's own internal states.” Or in simple terms Subjective Reasoning is something that deals with or is learned by your own experience because you are the subject. Society has clearly shifted from objective to subjective reasoning and this is an ominous turn when subjective reason is dependent on the "interests" of the people instead of being dependent on objective truths. In terms of my experience the committee selected the other firm on the subjective belief that they would save some money as opposed to the objective truth that such a decision is going to cost much more in the long term. This decision was made with little regard to the fact that the other firm had no investment in the project which equates to less commitment to success, has little understanding of the project program which requires the owner to pay the other firm to get up to speed on the background information and has rewarded the concept of less critical thought toward solving the technical issues which always increases operational costs.
In this new economy the “interests” of the people are distilled to an over simplistic policy of least cost as professed by the financial accountants which run everything into long term failure though quarterly accounting which is devoid of projecting long term value. Think of the stupidity of this philosophy in practical application. Why change the oil in your car, when you can save $19.99 this week. Why take your high blood pressure medication, when you can save $2.50 today. Somehow we have decided that screwing everyone out of a few dollars will benefit us, when in reality we are undermining the value of loyalty in business relationships. Our next contact with this owner will be devoid of added value and will focus on the only principal they understand which is screwing them out of money at every possible opportunity. It is a truly sad testament to how far our once powerful business model has fallen. More concerning is how hard a landing society is going to receive unless we change our direction. Just try to compete with $2.00 a day labor from Indonesia especially if we discount quality. We can cry and bitch all we want about the trade deficit but don’t ask the individual to change their spending habits and buy American made goods what cost more.
Society has entered a new economy in which it values only the bottom line at the complete disregard for cost-benefit or added value. Honestly this mentality will destroy this nation and forever change the balance of commerce overseas. It is sad how quickly the world has declined and how acceptable this practice of lowest expectations has become. This post may be construed as sour grapes or a bruised ego, which has incited this negative rant, but look around and see the ideals that once were held so dearly now lie bleeding in the street.
I found an affinity with that small butterfly desperately confined by a reality larger than itself, in its attempts to seek a solution in an impenetrable situation. Unwilling to recognize the brutality of a sparse future in which nothing you can do will alter the outcome. Today both the butterfly and I toil in obscurity against a system than does not care and will not morn our passing. For an entire life I have held the fervent belief that if enough people screamed loud enough society would hear. It has become apparent that humanity is deaf, dumb and blind, unable to lift itself above the rising tide of benign apathy which will soon drown us all. As the old customer service joke goes “Today is not your day, and tomorrow doesn’t look good either.”
"To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence."
Friedrich Nietzsche
