Cognitive Diversity
We all need it. The President really needs it. Peggy Noonan had a great column on Thursday about why there is a lack of it in the Bush White House:
We all like a president who says “The buck stops here.” Mr. Bush never ducks the buck. But he puts severe limits on the number and kind of people who can hand it to him. He picks them, receives their passionate and by definition limited recommendations, makes his decision, and sticks. All very Trumanesque, except Truman could tolerate argument and dissent. They didn’t pass the buck to little Harry, they threw it at his head. Clark Clifford was in in the morning telling him he had to recognize Israel, and George Marshall was there in the afternoon telling him he’d step down as secretary of state if he did.
It was a mess. Messes aren’t all bad.
* * *
Bruce Bartlett has written of how, as a conservative economist, he was treated with courtesy by the Clinton White House, which occasionally sought out his views. But once he’d offered mild criticisms of the Bush White House he was shut out, and rudely, by Bush staffers. Why would they be like that? Because they believe that as a conservative, Mr. Bartlett owes his loyalty to the president. He thought his loyalty was to principles.
There are many stories like this, from many others. It leaves friends on the outside having to self-censor or accept designation as The Enemy. It leaves a distinguished former government official and prominent Republican saying, in conversation, “Those people aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid, they’re sucking it from a spigot!”
Read the whole thing.
BACKGROUND: Groupthink Runs Amok
related articles
- Soft on Crime? That’s Rich (July 2nd, 2007)
- Churchill on Islam (July 2nd, 2007)
- Five Years Later: Americans Trapped in Saudi Arabia (June 27th, 2007)
- Huckabee’s Conversion (June 19th, 2007)
- WorldNetDaily: Elrod v. Thompson (June 11th, 2007)
April 22nd, 2006 at 11:38 am
I found this recently on the geocities.com website under “Andy’s writings”. I don’t know who Andy is, but this sounds like what I’ve read/heard before. This is the danger of shutting out opposing opinion:
April 22nd, 2006 at 1:40 pm
In one of my undergrad classes, a professor told us a story about Lee Iacocca in the early 60’s. He was working for Ford at the time, and he was in charge of designing a new car.
He came up with his first design, and he took it to a meeting to see what everyone thought. They marvelled at how brilliant the car was, and they told him absolutely nothing was wrong with it.
He promptly crumpled up the design plans and tossed them in the trash.
He told them that it was impossible to have a design that everyone thought was brilliant, and that groupthink must be taking over the group. Therefore, he sat out to design a completely different car.
He took the new design to the group and it was met with mixed reaction. Some liked it. Some hated it. Everyone had an opinion about something that could be improved on the car.
The next year, Ford released the Mustang.
April 22nd, 2006 at 1:44 pm
OOTM - Great example!