Innovation produces many economic benefits. It generates many new products and creature comforts. On those merits alone it ought to be greatly valued.
But the truth is that although I enjoy these benefits of innovation, they are not the primary cause of my passion for innovation.
The reason I care so much about innovation is that innovation reflects the natural state of the human soul. (I'm using "innovation" as a verb here.) The human soul seeks to understand. It seeks to improve the world based on that understanding. It craves beauty, excellence, dignity and nobility. It pursues truth.
When people are stifled in their attempts to express the natural desire of their souls, they become depressed in a way. You can see them in their robotic drone-like state in many organizations. They become listless. They go through the motions but there is no real passion behind what they do. As Thoreau said "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." These people are more predictable. They are more easily managed. But they are barely human.
Setting up organizations to allow, or even encourage, people to pursue the natural desires of their souls leads to many salutary benefits. Most immediately, it breathes life and passion back into the quietly desperate. These newly energized people are happy. Not in some superficial sense of having the material comforts they need and a lack of external pressure. They are truly happy in the profoundest sense of the term. They are fully engaged. They are maximally productive. They might not be producing exactly what you wanted them to produce but, in the aggregate, they best contribute to human progress and towards the creation, development and maintenance of the most beautiful, noble, excellent and dignified world we can possibly have.
Oh yeah, they also turn out some really cool products and generate all that economic activity that makes the bean-counters happy.
Showing posts with label Thoreau. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thoreau. Show all posts
Friday, November 13, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Is courage worth it?
WARNING: For this post, I am going to conflate non-conformity and courage. I recognize that they are not the same thing. But they do share certain features and I am in the mood to conflate. If you are allergic to conflation, please consult your philosophy professional before reading this post.
The question posed in the title of this post is something I have been grappling with personally and professionally for some months now. In my life I have seen ample evidence of Emerson's comment that "for nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure." I have felt the sting of that whip many times. And lately it has got me wondering whether it's worth it.
After my two recent posts about change (see the most recent one here), I wanted to write about courage. Specifically, I wanted to exhort and encourage my tiny readership to act with courage in their lives.
But now I'm not so sure. I wonder if it's worth it.
On the one hand, courage is so badly needed in order to produce the revolutionary change I discussed in my last post on change. Someone must have the ability and willingness to challenge the prevailing order and produce the ideas that will illuminate the future.
On the other hand, there is that whipping.
So I don't know.
But it seems to me that those who are non-conformists, who are courageous just don't have a choice. I would imagine that the soldier that jumps on a grenade does so not out of a careful consideration of the relative merits of maintaining his own life versus preserving the lives of others, but simply because he cannot help himself. The thought of not saving the lives of his comrades is just not part of the package for him.
In a much smaller way, I think about myself. I feel that my life would be so much easier if I just went along. If I thought as others did, felt what they felt and acted as they act. But then I think about that life. It feels very much akin to what Thoreau meant when he wrote that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." I cannot really imagine living that life. I cannot imagine being happy without the ability to imagine a different world and attempting to bring it into existence.
What scares me about that is that I see a lifetime of whipping. It was much easier to take as a 20 year old. It's starting to hurt as a soon to be 40 year old.
The question posed in the title of this post is something I have been grappling with personally and professionally for some months now. In my life I have seen ample evidence of Emerson's comment that "for nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure." I have felt the sting of that whip many times. And lately it has got me wondering whether it's worth it.
After my two recent posts about change (see the most recent one here), I wanted to write about courage. Specifically, I wanted to exhort and encourage my tiny readership to act with courage in their lives.
But now I'm not so sure. I wonder if it's worth it.
On the one hand, courage is so badly needed in order to produce the revolutionary change I discussed in my last post on change. Someone must have the ability and willingness to challenge the prevailing order and produce the ideas that will illuminate the future.
On the other hand, there is that whipping.
So I don't know.
But it seems to me that those who are non-conformists, who are courageous just don't have a choice. I would imagine that the soldier that jumps on a grenade does so not out of a careful consideration of the relative merits of maintaining his own life versus preserving the lives of others, but simply because he cannot help himself. The thought of not saving the lives of his comrades is just not part of the package for him.
In a much smaller way, I think about myself. I feel that my life would be so much easier if I just went along. If I thought as others did, felt what they felt and acted as they act. But then I think about that life. It feels very much akin to what Thoreau meant when he wrote that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." I cannot really imagine living that life. I cannot imagine being happy without the ability to imagine a different world and attempting to bring it into existence.
What scares me about that is that I see a lifetime of whipping. It was much easier to take as a 20 year old. It's starting to hurt as a soon to be 40 year old.
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