The Organisational Sociology of Deception

Here’s an easily falsifiable statement, but there’s something in it that interests me and I want you to pick it apart. I would start with the moment when George W. Bush met Vladimir Putin and said, “I looked into his eyes and saw this was a man I could really trust.” So, my thesis is this: If you’re Vladimir Putin, and you rise to the top of this chaotic and brutal society after going through the KGB, you must be some kind of strategic genius with amazing survival skills, because the penalty for failure may be torture or death. This kind of Darwinian set-up exists in many countries around the world. What does it mean to be head of the security services in Egypt? It means that you had to betray your friends but only at the right time, and you had to survive many vicious predators who would have loved to kill you or torture you, or otherwise derail your career. By the time you become Vladimir Putin or Omar Suleiman, your ability to think ahead and analyze threats has been adequately tested.

By contrast, what does it take to become a U.S. Senator? You have to eat rubber chicken dinners, you have to impress some rich people who are generally pretty stupid about politics, and smile in TV commercials. The penalties for failure are hardly so dire. And so, American leadership generally sucks, and America is perennially in the position of being the sucker in the global poker game. That’s the thesis. So, tell me why it’s wrong.

Even if your analysis is totally correct, your conclusion is wrong. Think about what it means to work for a Putin, whose natural approach to any problem is deception. For example, he had an affair with this athlete, a gymnast, and he went through two phases. Phase one: He concealed it from his wife. Phase two: He launched a public campaign showing himself to be a macho man. He had photographs of him shooting a rifle, and as a Judo champion, and therefore had the news leaked that he was having an affair. Not only an affair with a young woman, but a gymnast, an athlete. Obviously such a person is much more wily and cunning and able to handle conflict than his American counterpart. But when such a person is the head of a department, the whole department is actually paralyzed and they are all reduced to serfs and valets. Therefore, what gets applied to a problem is only the wisdom of the aforementioned wily head of the department. All the other talent is wasted, all the other knowledge is wasted.

Now you have a choice: You can have a non-wily head of a department and the collective knowledge and wisdom of the whole department, or else you can have a wily head and zero functioning. And that is how the Russian government is currently working. Putin and Medvedev have very little control of the Russian bureaucracy. When you want to deal with them, and I dealt with them this morning, they act in very uncooperative, cagey, and deceptive ways because they are first of all trying to protect their security and stability and benefits from their boss. They have to deceive you because they are deceiving their boss before he even shows up to work. And they are all running little games. So, that’s the alternative. You can have a wily Putin and a stupid government. Or an intelligent government and an innocent head. There’s always is a trade-off. A Putin cannot be an inspiring leader.

Edward Luttwak interviewed by David Samuels (via)

The World Series Fallacy

I would often have to fight the “World Series Fallacy,” which is that a strategy fails if it doesn’t help you win the top honor. A new coaching strategy is useless unless you win a Gold medal at the Olympics or the Super Bowl. We can think of other fallacies. You are a failure unless you are as big as Google, or you get elected President, or publish in the #1 journal, or so forth. The point is that good management is often about shifting the average performance, not getting all the variance. Not winning the World Series is besides the point.

Fabio Rojas: "Moneyball: An Orgtheory Review"

Tradeoff des Todes

Erst sah es wie eine Ohnmacht aus, wir fuhren sogar noch eine Weile. Aber dann war kein Zweifel, dass wir stehenbleiben mußten. Und hinter uns standen die Wagen und stauten sich, als ginge es in dieser Richtung nie mehr weiter. Das blasse, dicke Mädchen hätte so, angelehnt an ihre Nachbarin, ruhig sterben können. Aber ihre Mutter gab das nicht zu. Sie bereitete ihr alle möglichen Schwierigkeiten. Sie brachte ihre Kleider in Unordnung und goß ihr etwas in den Mund, der nichts mehr behielt. Sie verrieb auf ihrer Stirn eine Flüssigkeit, die jemand gebracht hatte, und wenn die Augen dann ein wenig verrollten, so begann sie an ihr zu rütteln, damit der Blick wieder nach vorne käme. Sie schrie in diese Augen hinein, die nicht hörten, sie zerrte und zog das Ganze wie eine Puppe hin und her, und schließlich holte sie aus und schlug mit aller Kraft in das dicke Gesicht, damit es nicht stürbe.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge, S. 117-18

Introversion: A Hypothesis

My theory--that "social unease" is the euphemism for scant curiosity about someone else not kin, spouse, peer, or authority figure (often w/ semi-conscious contempt)--is a nice mood-killer at parties.

All Nations Welcome But Carrie, comment on "Oktoberfest" by Steve Sailer

Wer A sagt

Solange wir das Prinzip anerkennen, dass religiöser Glaube respektiert werden muss, einfach weil es religiöser Glaube ist, kann man auch den Respekt gegenüber dem Glauben eines Osama bin Laden oder der Selbstmordattentäter kaum ablegen. Die Alternative springt so ins Auge, dass man sie nicht sonderlich betonen muss: Man kann das Prinzip des automatischen Respekts für religiösen Glauben aufgeben.

Richard Dawkins, Der Gotteswahn, S. 427 (Kap. 8)

Macht, Charakter und Verhalten, supraindividuelle Version

Viele Religionen kommen heute schmeichlerisch lächelnd mit ausgebreiteten Armen auf uns zu wie schmierige Händler auf einem Basar. Im Wettbewerb mit anderen Marktschreiern versprechen sie uns Trost, Solidarität und Läuterung. Aber wir dürfen daran erinnern, wie barbarisch sie sich aufgeführt haben, als sie noch stark waren und den Menschen ein Angebot achten, das sie nicht ablehnen konnten. Wer vergessen hat, wie das gewesen sein muss, kann sich einfach die Staaten und Gesellschaften ansehen, in denen die Geistlichkeit noch über die Macht verfügt, ihre Bedingungen zu diktieren.

Christopher Hitchens, Der Herr ist kein Hirte: Wie Religion die Welt vergiftet (Kap. 5, S. 88)

Don't Express Yourself

Pity is such an awful, useless emotion - you have to bottle it up and keep it to yourself. The moment you try to express it, it only makes things worse.

Paul Auster, Invisible, p. 123 (pt. II)