By JOHN BARTLIT
New Mexico Citizens
for Clean Air & Water
No doubt that politics is not all the same as growing a business. Yet success in either demands leaders who draw on the mixed skills of people to build a wise mix of ideas. The two endeavors have plenty in common. So, why do we suffer a pandemic of denying costs and benefits when policymaking?
Today’s system of hostile politics works to hide the fact that everything has pros and cons. Every choice made as a family or a business has both advantages and disadvantages. We know it in our bones, and in any big purchase, whether buying a house, a car, expanding a business, or cruising the Mediterranean.
Politics has morphed from pros and cons into ads. Campaign pitches (which never cease) now follow the model of any ad that is drummed into us: To be catchy, they feature a “selling point” or two and blot out the specifics. Poring over ads is a poor way to gain perspective.
In politics, normally the rest of the story would be told by competing viewpoints. But strangely unreal dynamics have crept into U.S. politics and in some kinds of business. The dynamics derive from an oxymoron: a false premise that we make the best use of native diversity by molding parties and companies so all its members think exactly alike in everything. The very notion runs counter to all that history says about the growth of ideas.
One of the few places where we still hear competing stories routinely told in depth is in a courtroom. Working judges enforce laws, rules, and decorum that secure the fairest means known of finding, presenting, and weighing the relevance and truth of numerous, diverse specifics. Nondescript juries decide.
All these thoughts bubbled up after I read a report on the business of cross-laminated timber. I have written here before about cross-laminated timber; so I took a moment to check on its progress. I was shocked to find how far afield politics has run from the norms used in business analytics. That can’t be good. The worlds of politics and of product development both depend on more dimensions, not neat ads.
Politics dodges pros and cons. Tests of facts “for and against” are threats to ads, and will bring the bearer bad vibes out of either party. Hardly any vestige remains of policy options offered that have “advantages and disadvantages.” Rashly we forget that pros and cons are natural parts of the truth.
So, naturally, the timber report’s title caught my eye: “Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) / CLT Disadvantages and Advantages.” The piece was printed under the screen name “Timber Blogger.”
Timber Blogger is a strong advocate for CLT. Yet, he talks about both advantages and disadvantages of his pet “thing.” His chosen title even puts “disadvantages” first. How rare today is that? Yet it is good as gold—advocates for making better products want the disadvantages known that go with the advantages, so the weaker points can be worked on and remedied.
Timber Blogger’s conclusion reads in full:
“Cross-Laminated Timber is an excellent engineering construction material. CLT is a great material for the new construction era. It has some flaws as well as some merits. Which I have tried to cover. Even with a few commissions, it is a better material, and hope [sic] that it will improve even more in the coming days.”
When was the last time you heard a similar approach clearly offered by a strong advocate for any policy?
I would be pleased if some readers were to find a fresh idea here for how to gain better policies. My story may have missed a step in some respect. If you see one I missed, please let me know.
Author’s Note: I join the rest of our town in congratulating the growth of the Los Alamos High School Debate Team, with extra credit for those members who won their way into the national debate tournament in June in Phoenix. Congratulations go also to their coaches.
These days, debate teams in middle schools, high schools, and colleges are the nation’s exemplars of judged debates of critical policy options—the pros and cons of each, the strength of evidence for and against each, the advantages and disadvantages of each. Judgments contested in true debate of a predefined topic lay the seedbed for a working democracy.
Tales Of Our Times explores the troubling decline of debate in national politics.
