Mar 31, 2009
FINANCIAL LEADERSHIP: BULLSHIT
A minister speaks:
“The real test of the G20 leaders this week is whether they can exhibit, in everything from their body language to their proposals, sufficient co-ordination and confidence that people give a collective sigh of relief and say – at last somebody’s in charge.”
Something similiar has been suggested by Democratic pol Jamal Simmons – but this time for bankers:
The banks need a few financial heroes and some positive stories to ease public discomfort over shoring up these financial institutions.
Seeing a few blunt-spoken business leaders willing to take on the excesses of their industry in popular media would go a long way toward restoring some public confidence.
Confidence works on the level of perceptions. So if you want to encourage it it is tempting to deal directly with perceptions. Harry G. Frankfurt’s excellent little book On Bullshit
[The bullshitter] does not limit himself to inserting a certain falsehood at a specific point … He is prepared, so far as required, to fake the context as well.
Someone who lies and someone who plays the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game … The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.
Although the idea of bankers going into the community to redeem themselves is a very tempting one. As Simmons asks:
What bank employees coach local Little League teams?
If anyone in Morgan, Goldman et al are reading this: I’ve got some washing up for you.
I don’t fully understand the implications of what you’re saying. Are you implying that if G-20 leaders successfully present an image of leadership that restores some faith in consumers/markets, the ‘ultimate effect’ is to undermine truth (as in reality what they can do/understand about the crisis is heavily circumscribed)? And if so, is this a bad thing? Is it better to have some confidence built on bullshit or no confidence built on truth?
Seems to me like you understand them perfectly.
Yes – the effect of concentrating on the presentation of an image of leadership does in some way undermine the concept of truth (whether or not it is done successfull is another matter).
Yes – we are presented here with an irresolveable dilemma. We need confidence, but we must use bullshit to get it. We have to choose one or the other.
If I were to suggest a more definitive answer, then it would be that nothing long-term can be built on the shifting sands of image and perceptions. But right now, we’re stuck between Catch and 22.
The problem with hubris of this kind – and the reason why the bankers are never going to do your dishes, Rowland – is also implicit in the idea of Bullshit.
The true bullshitter convinces himself so utterly that when the bullshit doesn’t work any more it’s not his fault. I’ll lay you any odds that just as “Sir” Fred Goodwin doesn’t think it’s up to him to repay his pension, no self-respecting banker thinks this mess is his fault (using “him” in the President Lula da Silva sense of course).
Anyway, nice to find out where you’re hanging out now these days.
So at times we need to bullshit others to give them confidence in us – but what about in relation to ourselves? Does the irresolvable dilemma also apply? Must we bullshit ourselves, like William’s bankers, to give us confidence – or is there a line to be drawn been confidence and self-delusion?
To be honest, I think we have to bullshit ourselves. That’s the nature of confidence.
David Brooks had a good piece today on the idea of restructuring (something William will know about). He’s talking about the US car industry:
There are many experts who think that the whole restructuring strategy is misbegotten. These experts think that costs are not the real problem. The real problem is the product. The cars are not good enough. The management is insular. The reputation is fatally damaged.
But if you are in the restructuring business, you can’t let these stray thoughts get in the way of your restructuring. After all, restructuring is your life. Restructuring is forever. Restructuring is like what dieting is for many of us: You think about it every day. You believe it’s about to work. Nothing really changes.
That’s the Catch 22 of this stuff. To be successful you have to delude yourself. But then you end up deluded. It’s not so much that these goons think that they’re morally right (I’m sure not even Goodwin thinks that). They think that they had no other option, that they did what anyone else would have done. And in some sense they’re perfectly right.
It’s only when you step back that you can see how bonkers the whole thing is. But stepping back is as sure a way as any to ensure you never reach the top.
I wonder whether bullshitting oneself is just a question of being successful, or a deeper one of meaning. Working over here in “Europe” I’ve met a lot of people who have no real chance of career advancement (they’re not Bulgarian), but have still managed to deeply convince themselves of the value of what they’re doing, not necessarily because they really think it’s right, but because to NOT do so would make the mediocrity of what we do most of the day almost unbearable.