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Are you a jerk?

In Arts & Letters, Economics, History, Humanities, liberal arts, Liberalism, Philosophy on April 24, 2024 at 8:34 am

This piece originally appeared here in the Troy Messenger.

Are you a jerk?

You probably answered no. Yet you know jerks.

When we imagine jerks, it’s usually others we envision, not ourselves. We almost never say, “I’m a jerk.”

A jerk, according to Merriam-Webster, is “an unlikable person,” especially “one who is cruel, rude, or small-minded.”

Picture the jerks you know. Do you dislike them? Is it because they think you’re a jerk?   

Adam Smith, known as the Father of Economics, was chiefly a scholar of moral philosophy. Celebrated as the author of The Wealth of Nations, he also wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments, an earlier book in which he described “sympathy” in terms of the “impartial spectator,” an ideal, conjectural third party whose imagined judgment of our actions influences our behavior.

Aversion to offense and desire to please are both selfish and unselfish qualities, Smith postulated. “Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recommended to his own,” he declared, “and as he is fitter to take care of himself, than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.”

Paradoxically, though, self-regard activates regard for others.

Smith explained that when we assess ourselves as we’re conscious that others assess us, we realize we’re insignificant, just one person among many, and we humble ourselves accordingly. Preferring ourselves to others, we understand that others do likewise. Therefore, we treat others as we wish them to treat us. 

If Smith is correct, then why is it difficult to recognize personal errors or unkindness?  Isn’t the tendency to double-down on our presumed rightness, to insist that those who criticize us are mistaken?

Often, yes. Why?

Perhaps because Smith’s moral calculus requires two conditions: willingness and effort. One must be open to self-critique, which, in turn, involves intellectual labor. We may intuit our fallibility, but we must work to overcome priors and biases to examine ourselves as would hypothetical, neutral observers.

It’s easier to avoid guilt, shame, or reproof—which accompany correction and instruction—than to challenge assumptions, question convictions, build character, and conform to high standards of conduct.

We prefer comfort to discomfort. But we mustn’t be idle. We must emulate excellence.

Smith himself furnishes this week’s Word to the Wise.

“We must endeavor,” he mused, to view impartial spectators “with the eyes of other people, or as other people are likely to view them. When seen in this light, if they appear to us as we wish, we are happy and contented. But it greatly confirms this happiness and contentment when we find that other people, viewing them with those very eyes with which we, in imagination only, were endeavoring to view them, see them precisely in the same light in which we ourselves had seen them.”

As relational creatures, we set and measure standards by others’ deeds. Our longing for praise derives from the aspiration to be praiseworthy. We don’t want to be jerks. With will and work, we don’t have to be.

 Note: This piece is adapted from Allen Mendenhall’s regular segment “Word to the Wise” on Troy Public Radio.

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Allen Mendenhall and Stanley Kurtz on “Success Stories”

In Success Stories on March 28, 2024 at 8:00 am

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Of Work and Generational Conflict

In Arts & Letters, History, Humanities, Western Civilization, Writing on March 27, 2024 at 8:00 am

This post originally appeared here in The Troy Messenger.

A recent report by ResumeBuilder.com found that 31% of employers won’t hire Gen Z candidates. Another 30% claimed they fired Gen Z employees who were on the job a month or less.

Why is this happening? The proffered reasons are that youth dress inappropriately, communicate poorly, request higher pay than is warranted, and avoid necessary tasks.

The company TrueBlue warns that 90% of human resources managers believe half their workforce needs retraining within five years. Why? Talent shortages and skills gaps.

“Kids these days” is a perennial complaint, but maybe there’s more to this story.

The new generation of workers—say, ages 18-25—grew up on social media and smartphones and suffered through the coronavirus pandemic, an alienating period of distancing and isolation, lockdowns and quarantines, downturn and depression, stagnation and strife. Early career professionals have trouble assimilating into the workforce because their social habits are unlike those of Millennials and Boomers. Reared on memes, tweets, and soundbites, they prefer online to face-to-face interaction.

Is this bad? Perhaps. It’s too early to tell.

Some eras undergo dramatic changes that shock older generations. Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press revolutionized Europe, enabling the mass production of books, the dissemination of groundbreaking ideas, mass literacy, scientific progress, and resurgent arts and culture. It also caused religious wars and class conflict.

The Industrial Revolution shifted the commercial focus from agriculture to manufacturing and urban technology. Although it tolerated poor working conditions and pollution, child labor and rising inequality, it also sparked ingenuity and modernization, vastly improving living standards across the world.

Even during periods of radical disruption, life goes on. Humans adapt to their circumstances and adjust practices to meet novel challenges. Exigencies require invention and entrepreneurship. “He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils,” declared Sir Frances Bacon, “for time is the great innovator.”

On the other hand, history isn’t a continuous sequence of inexorable progress. Sometimes it involves regress and degeneration. Civilizations once august and glorious collapsed: the Egyptian, Mayan, Khmer, Aksumite, Hittite.    

The Fall of Rome led to economic downturn, the loss of infrastructure, and political upheaval that undermined material and intellectual advancement.

Whether our age is one of improvement or decline remains to be seen.

Let’s return from the grand to the practical. If I were a “Gen Zer,” I would use the past as my guide for the future. Historical examples, good or bad, contribute to personal and professional growth. You needn’t reform society writ large; just reform yourself.

Start with small things. Dress appropriately for an interview. Suitable attire is contextual or situational. A job at a law firm is different from occupations on the farm or in factories. Anticipate your audience’s expectations for your appearance and meet them. Don’t expect employers to conform to your standards.

Remain open to continuous learning and different perspectives. Don’t presume you know better or more than others. You may have fresh ideas and unique proficiencies, but stay humble and use those to lift up your peers and organization.

Admit weaknesses and highlight strengths. Collaborate with colleagues who complement your talents. Seek answers. Don’t be ashamed to be wrong or confused.

Monitor your online presence. Do your social media accounts feature words or images you wouldn’t want your grandmother seeing? If so, edit or remove them.  

Show gratitude and deference while maintaining confidence and poise. Be diligent and tenacious and don’t presume some task is beneath you. Most importantly, work hard! Complete assignments with excellence.

The novelist Robert Lewis Stevenson furnishes our “Word to the Wise” this week. “The obscurest epoch,” he submits, “is today.” We’re as likely to be as mistaken about essentials as our ancestors were and our posterity will be. In work as in life, for young as for old, we do well to remember that abhorring other generations only invites abhorrence upon ourselves.

Gen Z will grow old and become gatekeepers. The question is, of what?

Note: This piece is adapted from Allen Mendenhall’s regular segment “Word to the Wise” on Troy Public Radio.

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Allen Mendenhall and Jay Nordlinger on “Success Stories”

In Success Stories on March 20, 2024 at 6:00 am

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Allen Mendenhall and Alexandra Hudson on “Success Stories”

In Success Stories on March 13, 2024 at 6:00 am

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Allen Mendenhall and Wes Allen on “Success Stories”

In Politics on March 6, 2024 at 6:00 am

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Never Fear to Make Mistakes

In History on February 28, 2024 at 6:00 am

This piece originally appeared here in the Troy Messenger.

The storied 1960 World Series came down to a winner-take-all game between the National League’s Pittsburgh Pirates and the American League’s New York Yankees. Bill Mazeroski made history with a ninth-inning homerun, propelling the Pirates to victory. Never before had a team won Game 7 of the World Series with a dinger.

Asked how the Yankees lost, the aphoristic Yogi Berra quipped, “We made too many wrong mistakes.”

Which raises a question: Can there be a right mistake?

I host a television program called “Success Stories” with the tagline “highlighting the lives and careers of people who have accomplished great things.” You’d think my guests were all exemplars of accomplishment and perfection. In fact, their histories are full of mistakes. What sets them apart is their resilience and resolve. They consider blunders necessary for improvement. They “bounce back” after failure.

Tenacious golfers who practice on the driving range understand that bad shots are as instructive as good ones. Proficient pianists know that errors, such as missed notes or keys, present opportunities to hone technique. Kids fall when you remove their training wheels, but eventually they learn to ride their bikes. 

Some victories involve defeat. George Washington’s forces lost several battles before the Americans prevailed over the British in the Revolutionary War.

Errors can yield serendipitous gains for all society. Charles Goodyear mixed rubber and sulfur and accidentally dropped them onto a hot stove. The result? Vulcanized rubber.

Sir Alexander Fleming, the Scottish microbiologist, noticed mold growing on Petri dishes in his laboratory when he returned from vacation. Rather than discarding them, he experimented. Studying how mold killed bacteria led him to discover penicillin. 

Withstanding numerous setbacks, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. “I have not failed,” he said. “I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Apple ousted Steve Jobs in 1985. We all know what happened after he returned to the company over a decade later.

Henry Ford, Colonel Sanders, Oprah Winfrey, J.K. Rowling, Nick Saban—these figures overcame failures and disappointments to achieve great success.

Mistakes catalyze innovation, adaptation, and correction. The scientific method and theories of entrepreneurship hold in common the conviction that missteps and unexpected outcomes contribute to aggregate human progress.

Back to Yogi for this week’s “Word to the Wise.” His tip: “90% of the game is half mental.” If you view mistakes as potential gains, you’ll be less afraid to flunk.

Don’t let failure keep you down. It could one day lift you up.  

 Note: This piece is adapted from Allen Mendenhall’s regular segment “Word to the Wise” on Troy Public Radio.


Friendship, civility, and respectful disagreement

In Ethics, Politics on February 21, 2024 at 6:00 am

This piece originally appeared here in The Alabama Political Reporter.

This month, in Washington, D.C., I ran into one of my college professors at the American Enterprise Institute. I hadn’t seen him in 20 years; nor had I returned to campus recently. Once my superior, he was now my colleague. He’s taught for over 50 years.

I asked him about my alma mater—what was new there and what had changed. He frowned, “I hate to tell you, Allen, but things aren’t good.” Young faculty, he said, were training undergraduates to be ideologues, and the dogmatic students hijacked class discussions, bullying and terrifying their peers. Polite, orderly students transferred while disruptive, unruly students enrolled. 

“When they visit me during office hours,” he complained, “the best students admit it’s because they’re too afraid to ask sensitive questions or debate controversial issues during class. They want social harmony, but that comes at the expense of genuine learning.” 

Too many students use classrooms for activism, belligerently silencing competing viewpoints, he added, so other students wouldn’t proffer opinions at all: Better to remain quiet than to offend peers.

A culture of intimidation undermines the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Colleges committed to open inquiry should facilitate the organic exchange of ideas. 

Some universities are legally and missionally constrained by fixed doctrine—private religious colleges, for instance, which may restrict what faculty teach or assign. A Christian seminary can, legitimately, fire professors who promote atheism or heresy.

Vocational schools train for skilled trades and do not have as their organized purpose scientific discovery or humanistic instruction. This generalization doesn’t always hold, of course, because technology and innovation implicate moral and ethical complexities that students and faculty ponder even in chiefly technical courses. 

The point remains, however, that the standards, rules, and conventions are (or should be) different for public universities that prioritize objective research, and for secular liberal arts colleges, because these institutions require investigation and argumentation as conditions for intellectual improvement.

Disagreement is inevitable. Students must learn to maintain it at the level of rhetoric and discourse so that it doesn’t degenerate into violence or coercion. And they should experience how friendship, or at least civility, is possible despite conflict and disputation.

Unwillingness to challenge personal assumptions and suspend judgment for the sake of clarity and understanding leads to intolerance and illiberalism. A pervasive inability to entertain opposing beliefs might just explain political disfunction in our country writ large. 

Why can’t we befriend people who disagree with us? The late Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg provided a model for this kind of friendship. At odds on nearly every issue, champions of rival modes of jurisprudence, they nevertheless cultivated a deep and lasting bond. Their differences engendered mutual respect, not animosity or hatred. They didn’t impute improper motives to the other but recognized their shared desire for sound reasoning and correct answers. 

Our “Word to the Wise” this week comes from Eugene Scalia, son of the late justice who, reflecting on Justice Ginsburg’s death, stated that she and his father “believed that what they were doing—arriving at their own opinions thoughtfully and advancing them vigorously—was essential to the national good.” 

He continued, “With less debate, their friendship would have been diminished, and so, they believed, would our democracy.”

Few of us are so discerning as to realize the potential scope of a single friendship.