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Many of the most successful people succeed by refusing a default approach — they read each new problem on its own terms and drop whatever pattern or model used to work.
That flexibility is exactly why they win. But judged by a fixed ethical code, one built on consistency and virtue, that same trait makes them anathema to the social system.
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It is one thing to diagnose a problem and another to solve it. Why do we suppose the same person should do both?
The skills of deconstruction do not necessarily entail the temperament for reconstruction or creative leaps. Yet, we assume that the insight to spot a problem offers a unique insight, allowing for a solution.
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Hand-pump water and the goal is the water itself—simple, direct. Bolt on a motor, and suddenly it’s not just water but a resource, reshaped by progress into something more complex.
The progressive sees a new tool demanding new solutions and rushes to embrace, adapt, and dream of water flowing freely; the conservative sees the same old needs now tangled with a motor to fix.
According to Victor Davis Hanson, the difference is to assume that because we have progressed, certain ideas, such as free speech or due process, are no longer applicable in the modern world.
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Once we recognize a binary at play, we invoke a “meta-move” to consider more open possibilities, a third or fourth option as a creatively broader field.
The more philosophical option (truly meta) is to consider that there has always been only one thing: one object or entity that is divided in itself. The seeming problem (binary or ternary) is an inherent antagonism necessary for the entity to remain functional. There is no escape into a third or fourth solution, merely higher levels of realization.
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When something is stuck, you can apply force and exponentially multiply your strength by cleverly employing a fulcrum point.
(In physics, this may be a rock against which you brace a pole; in business, it may be friends or access to capital that allows you to outperform your singular strength.)
Yet, if things are rusted into place, your muscularity is misused and damaging. Instead, a solvent is applied to soften the bonds and weaken resistance. It takes more time but less effort.
It requires patience, which is its own type of leverage.
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There are real problems, but assigning blame has become taboo; historically, generalizing others (reductive) easily leads to demonization and subsequent bad outcomes.
Yet, to demonize speaking suppositions (half-formed or ill-formed) undermines the problem-solving process. To utter an observation invites alternate points of view by which arguments can be parsed, while to stay silent on taboo topics is to ensure that societal consensus never matches observable reality.
For example, in the 1970s, rising crime was real. Acknowledging systemic failures rendered individual action moot: You cannot "blame the victim." Although empathetic to injustice, this rhetoric shifted policy toward moral retaliation against enforcement, making speaking obvious truths (violence and theft) a form of self-exile from accepted discourse—rendering many critical solutions silent.
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When trying to make up for mistakes, we become vulnerable to new forms of manipulation. In looking for immediate solutions, we tend to choose flawed solutions that are easy to hand.
Applied to the social/communal sphere, our effort to avoid repeating atrocities (such as Nazism or slavery) creates new opportunities for totalitarianism: our insistent righteousness by saying “never again” becomes blind rigidity, overpowered extremism.
Rather than learning from the past, we become more concerned with becoming virtuous and increasing our positional distance from it. As such, we cease to react to some forms of empirical reality and embrace the symbolic, as it alone offers an eternal, ideological guiding star divorced from the world’s complex muddiness.
Since all symbols are stand-ins (reductive categorizations), the secondary traits of people (race/sex/religion) also become primary and more readily defensible. Yet, the symbolic defense becomes convoluted and complex, perhaps in inverse proportion to the discounted reality, as if we seek to recapture/recreate reality’s confusion, which we threw away for certainty.
The past is thus repeated from our desperation not to repeat the past.
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When trying to make up for mistakes, we become vulnerable to new forms of manipulation. In looking for immediate solutions, we tend to choose flawed solutions that are easy to hand.
To releive tension between the faulty self and the our cultivated self-image we attempt to correct our error quickly, or if impossible to correct we mus tflee the old self and remake our self-image in a way that accounts for our past errors.
For example, recognizing our past anger or controlling behavior can make us overcompensate by becoming too lenient and allowing others to take advantage of us, declaring we deserve it or it is karma. Alternately, we may become too rigid (and brittle) in an attempt to regain control, isolating ourselves from that frivolous self. These repressions can be a means to punish the self, even creating opportunities for abuse from others, to attone for previous mistakes.
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Consider violence as a harsh problem solver: it removes obstructions and stains. However, like any caustic agent, the short-term fix applied repeatedly is corrosive to the structure.
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Crossing a line makes it immediately clear where the line was, but up until then it can seem vaguely established. The action clarifies.
This prompts two critical responses. Firstly, do you rectify your breach and learn from it? This involves recognition and acceptance that a misstep was made but goes beyond apology into responsibility.
Secondly, can the lesson transcend specific domains? If viewed as a learning opportunity, a singular failure can catalyze broad improvements or realignments.
The difficulty with focusing on learning by analyzing mistakes is that it emphasizes not failing, which thwarts risk-taking and becomes less about nurturing resilience and fortitude than maintaining brittle pride. Instead, oscillate your focus: lessons learned should limit repetitive errors, provide predictive models, and bolster forward momentum.
