The Bowl of Curiosities: 8 January 2019

In the Bowl of Curiosities, I keep the objects that catch my attention or peak my curiosity. In 2019, my In the Bowl of Curiosities, I keep the objects that catch my attention or peak my curiosity. In 2019, my intention is to be disciplined about curating and publishing the things I find interesting.

The image for this post is by Photo by Sasha Freemind and is available from Unsplash.

Article(s) of Interest

This section has articles that I read, and thought were interesting.

Nudge is a concept in behavioural science, political theory and behavioural economics which proposes positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions as ways to influence the behaviour and decision making of groups or individuals. In 2008, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

Nudge has been described as Libertarian Paternalism, which raises some interesting ethical questions. The following three articles offer perspectives on the ethics of Nudge Theory.

Steven Poole, Not so foolish, Aeon, 2013. We are told that we are an irrational tangle of biases, to be nudged any which way. Does this claim stand to reason?

Cass Sunstein, The Ethics of Nudging, 22 November, 2014. A robust defence of the ethics of nudging.

The Ethics Centre, Nudge nudge, wink wink, (2018). ‘Not all of those using the psychology of nudging have Sunstein’s high principles’.

From the Library

There are so many leadership and management books produced every year. Most, in my view, are filled with meaningless drivel. So, I am revisiting the books that shaped my thinking about people, work and organisation.

Technology and Change: The impact of invention and innovation on American social and economic development by Donald Schon, 1967.

I’m a bit of Schon fan. The idea behind and the name of this website comes Donald Schon. Not unreasonable to expect that his books would make an appearance here.

Technology and Change is a deep inquiry into the nature and character of technological change. To quote from the book:

There is a conventional wisdom about the process of technological change. According to it, change is the passage from one stable state to another. At any given time, we are aware only of stability. By selective inattention and by making the signs of change taboo, we hide ourselves from the evidence of change. But when we look back, we can see that change has occurred. We seem then to reside in the new stable state and to look back on an old one, with a mysterious leap in between. This is a kind of quantum theory of change.  

He argues that our view of change is essentially one of stability, we see our nations, institutions, religions, businesses and industries as enduring through time. But seen after-the-fact these stable features of our lives are constantly changing but through some mental magic and historical revisionism protect ourselves from awareness of these changes. Schon’s argument throughout the book is that this self-deception is going to be difficult to sustain as the rate of change increases. The challenge of technology is the disruption of the stable state. In response the problem is one of ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ the opportunity to flourish.

Over 50 years later, disruption (usually technologically driven) is an activity willingly undertaken by firms seeking to stay ahead of competitors. Indeed, individuals are seeking to ‘disrupt’ themselves through ‘life hacks’. But while we are experiencing the change predicted by Schon, have we given inherent creativity more chance to flourish or still practicing self-deception in new ways?

This is Schon’s early work and it is possible to see all the theories he goes on to develop in their nascent state. Most importantly, the importance of social change that should accompany technological change.

Ghost Stories

I have had a copy of ‘Ghost: 100 stories to read with the lights on’ by Louise Welsh on my bedside table for, maybe, three years. I don’t remember buying it. I only dip into Ghost infrequently and have made no progress in getting through the 100 short stories. In 2019, I intend to work my way through this book and document my progress here.

I read The hunter Gracchus by Franz Kafka. Again, not really a traditional Ghost story.

The hunter Gracchus can be accessed here.

In his "blue notebooks" Kafka wrote: "To what indifference people may come, to what profound conviction of having lost the right track forever." This story seems to be about coming of the path and falling into the space in-between.

For more background. I read: Guy Davenport, The hunter Gracchus, New Criterion. February 1996, Vol. 14, Issue 6, p. 27. Some questions he raises are:

Are we, the living, already dead? How are we to know if we are on course, or lost? We talk about a loss of life in accidents and war, as if we possessed life rather than life us. Is it that we are never wholly alive, if life is an engagement with the world as far as our talents go? Or does Kafka mean that we can exist but not be?

Progress on Projects

I stared 2019 with three projects I wanted interested to advance. I am reporting my thinking and progress here. It’s an accountability thing. The rationale for each project was briefly outlined in the 1 January 2019 edition of the Bowl of Curiosities.

Project 1: Finding Meaning at Work (with Sally Dorsett)

We have been thinking about how we value ‘labour’ and ‘leisure’, not as a dollar value but socially and culturally. How we understand this sets the initial conditions for how we make sense of and approach work. This line of thought all started with a quote from John Ruskin, from the Crown of the Wild Olive, 1866:

Of all the wastes, the greatest waste that you can commit is the waste of labour. If you went down to the dairy in the morning, and you found the youngest child and the cat were at play together, and that the boy had poured out all the cream on the floor for the cat to lap up, you would scold the child, and be sorry the milk was wasted. But if, instead of wooden bowls with milk in them, there are golden bowls with human life in them, and instead of leaving that golden bowl to be broken by God at the fountain, you break it in the dust yourself, and pour the human blood out on the ground for the fiend to lick up – that is no waste! What! you perhaps think, 'to waste the labour of men is not to kill them.' Is it not? I should like to know how you could kill them more utterly.

Ruskin places high value on physical labour, which in his time, as in ours, concerns about human cost of the automation and mechanisation was front of mind.

Compare that with Roland Paulsen’s, The Art of Not Working at Work published in 2014. Paulsen highlights that while there has been a strong intensification of work it is isolated to a small few. A larger number of office workers show all the signs of under-employment at work. Paulsen observes that in 1911 Frederick Taylor called work avoidance “the greatest evil with which the working-people of both England and America are now afflicted.” However, recent research would show Taylor that today slacking at work “is not always a product of discontent, but also of having too few tasks to fill the hours”.

However, industry is not everything. Indeed, we are seeing more people looking to slow down and unplug from the constant demands of work. With all our attention consumed by work, where is there time for creativity? There is a long history of famous (and industrious) people praising benefits of idleness; for example, Robert Louis Stevenson's essay “An Apology for Idlers” (1877); “In Praise of Idleness” (1932), by Bertrand Russell; “Why Are Beggars Despised?” (1933) by George Orwell; and “On Laziness,” (1920) by Christopher Morley.

So, how should we make sense of the value of labour? What is ‘labour’?

Project 2: Trust and Technology

I wanted to be thinking a bit more about trust and technology, so I was disappointed that the London School of Economics was all over this topic through the Truth, Trust and Technology Commission. I’m off the pace on this one. There is some great stuff on the website. I will need to work out where my contribution lies.

Project 3. Meditations on Faith, Hope, Leadership and Management

This one is a slow burn, but I did listen to a good BBC podcast on the role of belief in elite sport. The podcast is hosted by Simon Mundie and called ‘Don’t tell me the score’. The first episode was on the Power of Belief where Kellie Holmes (British Olympic middle-distance champion from the 90’s)

Listening to Kellie talk about her experiences I was thought that at some point there needs to be some evidence to support ‘hope’. It needs be grounded, otherwise it is ‘faith’. Is ‘hope still ‘hope’ when we crystallise it in practicalities?

A Thought to End

I would like to end with someone else’s thought. In this case, from Yann Martell author of the Life of Pi, 2001. I read this book when it first came out. It was a random pick for me, not my usual. I really enjoyed. The Life of Pi has been recognised with all sorts of literary awards. The quote is from the book.

People move because of the wear and tear of anxiety. Because of the gnawing feeling that no matter how hard they work their efforts will yield nothing, that what they build one year will be torn down in one day by others. Because of the impression that the future is blocked up, that they might do all right but not their children. Because of the feeling that nothing will change, that happiness and prosperity are possible only somewhere else.