Intelligent Life is a quarterly magazine from The Economist - thank you Rachel for directing me to it. I read the latest issue (Spring) over the weekend. I love The Economist to bits, but I haven't made up my mind about Intelligent Life yet. A lot of it is rather smug and snobby - who really wants to know about some poncy wine cellar in London or five monasteries round the world offering B&B for $500, apart from people wanting to show off their money and their superiority over the masses? I felt myself succumbing: one feature asks some worthy to name their favourite beach, building, vista etc; in the previous edition I knew none of the places and was thinking"pompous git"; this time I knew three or four of them and started feeling smug about my worldly wisdom. Hmm.
However, there were some absolute gems. Andrew Marr on the Magna Carta, a piece on Guyana, people's first recollections and what they signified, a memoir of Leonard Rossiter by his daughter, all great journalism. And best of all was a feature on one of the world's leading bloggers, a Brit called Andrew Sullivan, wonderfully composed by a guy called Johann Hari.
Andrew Sullivan can blog 30 times a day - wow, I promise that would not be easy! He is gay and has long had HIV, he is catholic and politically a right winger. Over the years he has been vilified from all directions, notably when he was one of the earliest advocates of gay marriage. The reaction from the Limbaugh tendency to this was entirely predictable, but less so was the hate he engendered among gays. They felt he was yielding to the establishment norm, both in terms of the suggestion that monogamy is good and the societal aspects. Ouch. As often before, he advanced the argument and eventually saw change happen.
The article introduced me to a philosophy which Sullivan subscribes to, developed by a guy called Michael Oakeshott. The basic premise is that at any point in time man can know only a tiny fraction of the relevant knowledge that there is to know about anything. In ten years time we will know a lot more, but it will still be essentially nothing. The consequence is to avoid all certainty and dogma - to be constantly on the lookout and ready to revise ones basic assumptions.
I love this, it holds great appeal to me as a philosophy. Of course you are not supposed to just hide your head away and be inactive. You can make assumptions, even brave ones, take risks, advocate a position strongly. But always challenge how the position could be turned on its head and be ready to do just that.
If you read this blog at all, you'll see links - for example with humility, feminine values, powerboats, capitalism. Most striking is the fit with the P component of Myers Briggs (and the N component to a lesser extent). I falsely typed in that I was J some months back, but in reality I'm P and proud of it. J's accuse P's of indecision, but that fails to understand the power of P. Many modern management practices start to harness the power of P - look at emergent strategy, options theory and empowerment - and I predict that us P's will have our day, and strong corporations will harness it. Oakeshott's philosophy is a wonderful underpinning for a P outlook.
Blogging is a perfect medium for Oakeshott followers. Bloggers think out loud, take chances, but are not ashamed to change their stance over time. They are looking to advance group thinking through discourse. Sullivan was a real pioneer for this.
There are many beautiful stories in the article, from when Sullivan told his father he was gay to when he discovered he had HIV or when he supported the war on terror. It is a great read. As someone liberal, straight and not religious (albeit churchgoing) it was wonderful to feel such empathy for someone in diametrically opposite camps. And that is the whole point, the positions are not dogmatic but experimental.
I wonder if there is any chance of Oakeshott sitting up there with management literature alongside Porter and Kaplan and Jack Welch? I doubt it - macho simplicity sells, it is easier to believe in dogma than to think or to argue or to change ones mind. Nationalists, politicians and clerics have all resorted to dogma, as do most corporate leaders. That doesn't make them right. Go Oakeshott!
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