Easy writing's damned hard reading.
Free associating yesterday, I wrote about Trump's SHC remark as part of a rumination on politically correct thinking, or thinking which hews to the rules laid down by the prevailing authorities. My most enduring experience with highly qualified authorities laying down rules was medical school and subsequent medical training, and my conclusion was that the powers-that-were misled us, the grunts in the field, and we were fools to have bought into the notion the system they set up was worth slogging through.
Reading the Patrick O'Brian series about the British Navy sea captain, Lucky Jack Aubrey and his intrepid friend, Dr. Stephen Maturin, is another portal into a world where competence matters, or should matter, but the people at the top are the least competent, although they reap the richest rewards. Jack Aubrey is supremely competent but the admirals above him are self serving fools.
Watching again, for the umpteenth time, "The Wire" is another window into organizations where the people at the top are venal, self serving, fundamentally incompetent.
Reading "Grant" you see how much generalship is dependent on fundamental competence to organize all the details, to get supplies, men and mules moving on sodden roads and to bring soldiers to the firing line in time.
In all these lines of work there have to be high levels of craft and competence--medicine, commanding warships or armies, dissecting out crime scenes and figuring out whodunit--and typically, if there is any competence at all, it flourishes far down the chain of command, not at the top.
Recently, I've had conversations with people who get paid in the $500K range to be health systems executives, and I've been astonished by the profundity of their incompetence, in the very areas where you'd expect them to be most knowledgeable.
So when Trump appoints Ben Carson to be head of the Dept of Housing and Urban Development or Rick Perry to head the Dept Energy, or Betsy DeVos to head Dept Education or Scott Pruitt to head EPA, you see a statement that the people at the top do not have to have command of the details which constitute competence.
They are simply like the captain of the ship who says, "This ship is going to India" and then hands off the execution of that goal to others, people who actually know how to sail a ship.
Problems arise, however, when the captain, sailing from Spain, does not know (or care to know) that between him and India is a nexus of continents (the Americas) which will block his way.
Lincoln was an amateur when it came to military matters, but he could see clearly enough that his armies were not fighting, and his generals were incompetent. As the war progressed, he felt compelled to fill that leadership gap and showed up at McClellan's camp to urge him to pursue the enemy.
When Mead repulsed Lee at Gettysburg, he failed to pursue Lee and destroy Lee's army. Lincoln, who was not qualified to lead an army, was outraged.
When he finally found a general in Grant who would do what Lincoln saw the army needed to do, Lincoln was delighted to back off.
Reports of Grant's drunkenness reached Lincoln and the apocryphal story was Lincoln said, "I'd like to know what whiskey he drinks. I'd send a bottle to all my other generals." Lincoln later said he wished he had actually said that.
Accusations that Grant won despite his own incompetent generalship elicited from Lincoln the simple judgment: "He fights."
And that is what Trump's acolytes are saying now. Trump may not be "competent" in a variety of ways, but as the man at the top, he doesn't need to have command of the details.
He fights.
Free associating yesterday, I wrote about Trump's SHC remark as part of a rumination on politically correct thinking, or thinking which hews to the rules laid down by the prevailing authorities. My most enduring experience with highly qualified authorities laying down rules was medical school and subsequent medical training, and my conclusion was that the powers-that-were misled us, the grunts in the field, and we were fools to have bought into the notion the system they set up was worth slogging through.
Reading the Patrick O'Brian series about the British Navy sea captain, Lucky Jack Aubrey and his intrepid friend, Dr. Stephen Maturin, is another portal into a world where competence matters, or should matter, but the people at the top are the least competent, although they reap the richest rewards. Jack Aubrey is supremely competent but the admirals above him are self serving fools.
Watching again, for the umpteenth time, "The Wire" is another window into organizations where the people at the top are venal, self serving, fundamentally incompetent.
Reading "Grant" you see how much generalship is dependent on fundamental competence to organize all the details, to get supplies, men and mules moving on sodden roads and to bring soldiers to the firing line in time.
In all these lines of work there have to be high levels of craft and competence--medicine, commanding warships or armies, dissecting out crime scenes and figuring out whodunit--and typically, if there is any competence at all, it flourishes far down the chain of command, not at the top.
Recently, I've had conversations with people who get paid in the $500K range to be health systems executives, and I've been astonished by the profundity of their incompetence, in the very areas where you'd expect them to be most knowledgeable.
So when Trump appoints Ben Carson to be head of the Dept of Housing and Urban Development or Rick Perry to head the Dept Energy, or Betsy DeVos to head Dept Education or Scott Pruitt to head EPA, you see a statement that the people at the top do not have to have command of the details which constitute competence.
They are simply like the captain of the ship who says, "This ship is going to India" and then hands off the execution of that goal to others, people who actually know how to sail a ship.
Problems arise, however, when the captain, sailing from Spain, does not know (or care to know) that between him and India is a nexus of continents (the Americas) which will block his way.
Lincoln was an amateur when it came to military matters, but he could see clearly enough that his armies were not fighting, and his generals were incompetent. As the war progressed, he felt compelled to fill that leadership gap and showed up at McClellan's camp to urge him to pursue the enemy.
When Mead repulsed Lee at Gettysburg, he failed to pursue Lee and destroy Lee's army. Lincoln, who was not qualified to lead an army, was outraged.
When he finally found a general in Grant who would do what Lincoln saw the army needed to do, Lincoln was delighted to back off.
Reports of Grant's drunkenness reached Lincoln and the apocryphal story was Lincoln said, "I'd like to know what whiskey he drinks. I'd send a bottle to all my other generals." Lincoln later said he wished he had actually said that.
Accusations that Grant won despite his own incompetent generalship elicited from Lincoln the simple judgment: "He fights."
And that is what Trump's acolytes are saying now. Trump may not be "competent" in a variety of ways, but as the man at the top, he doesn't need to have command of the details.
He fights.
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