Wheezing into Wisdom*

I recently went for a run through Minnehaha Falls Regional Park.  The day was gorgeous.  While I slowed to enter the “wheezing” portion of my workout, I came up behind a father and son, the latter of college age.  While my cardiovascular system caught up with my greater ambitions, I had occasion to eavesdrop on their conversation.   It left me wistful.

Dad reflected aloud on the human achievement to be celebrated on July 4.  The Declaration of Independence was a triumph, in his view, of reason and rights over superstition and tyranny.   He noted that the signing of the Magna Carta was a prior moment (in 1215, for those of you keeping score at home) which had limited monarchy.  The events of 1776, he opined, truly created a new government based on a conception of justice.

“Bullshit, dad,” responded the son.  “The American Revolution was a tax revolt, driven by economics and pure self interest.  The rest was all window dressing.”  He went on, in mid-collegiate, upper-percentile fashion, to make his case.  Dad responded by invoking Locke and Rousseau, and by drawing limited analogies to the ancient Greek polis.

It reminded me of conversations with my own late father, when I believed that I knew everything.  He was patient, if often and theatrically bemused.  I miss him. 

It also made me think about the ways in which we tend to disagree.  There was truth in both of their statements, along with (to borrow a phrase from the son) bullshit.   Isn’t that usually the case?   We miss a lot of truth because we insist on binary solutions – the Revolution was either noble or it was self-serving.  Maybe something as momentous as the founding of a nation and the declared separation of prosperous colonies from a great empire can be complex and nuanced.  How could it not be?   We crave black and white, at our peril.

This acceptance of complexity is fast becoming a theme in an MBA Ethics class I’m teaching at the Carlson School.   In a first round of student essays, many students are expressing the view that ethics is “merely subjective,” and the frustration that I, as the teacher, cannot give them an algorithm for ethical conduct.  Still others reject the pursuit of ethics because the domain of business, as they see it, is the domain of self-interest.  It is and it ought to be so.  The dominant rationale?  Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” argument:  lots of people pursue their own self-interests, but in so doing cooperate to create jobs, wealth, and the iPhone.  Voila, the invisible hand of capitalism transforms greed into social goods.

Except, that’s not what Adam Smith said, at all.  Smith, at bottom a moral philosopher, understood complexity and ambiguity.  His view of human nature included not only self-interest, but also “sympathy,” which we would probably call empathy or a deep regard for the well-being of others.  Only in light of that admixture does “the invisible hand” work. Without it, we’re looking at an invisible fist.  Or, an invisible finger.   For a great account of this (without my imagery), read Patricia Werhane’s Adam Smith and His Legacy for Modern Capitalism. 

We are driven by both appetites and concern for others.   Among the Founding Parents were both natural rights theorists and aspiring oligarchs.  Good ethical decisions take into account outcomes, and rights, and motives, and the impact of character.   It is possible for a beer to taste great, and be less filling.  It is impossible to capture complex, human truths without accepting complexity.

Happy Birthday, America.  May fathers and sons – mothers and daughters, too – argue about your founding for many generations to come.  I am especially grateful that they pulled the trigger in midsummer, because such conversations are best had outdoors, even in our northern climes.

Thanks for reading.

CAW

*P.S. This blog title is an homage to my friend Tom Laughlin and his blog, “Wandering into Wisdom.”  Check it out at http://caravela.us.  Tom is a key player in Ethical Leaders in Action, too.