Wes Moore among new "Greatest Generation"

Rhodes Scholar, Army Captain, paratrooper and veteran of Afghanistan, Wes Moore is honored in Time as one of its New Greatest Generation (the story is behind a paywall). Moore has started a mentoring program for first time offenders in his native Baltimore.

Watch this video for more on the Time story, and then read what Moore's web site has to say about "The Other Wes Moore," his book about two people with the same name whose lives went in dramatically different directions:

In Decem­ber 2000, the Bal­ti­more Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local stu­dent who had just received a Rhodes Schol­ar­ship. The same paper also ran a series of arti­cles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police offi­cer in a spec­tac­u­larly botched armed rob­bery. The police were still hunt­ing for two of the sus­pects who had gone on the lam, a pair of broth­ers. One was named Wes Moore.

Wes just couldn’t shake off the unset­tling coin­ci­dence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same news­pa­per. After fol­low­ing the story of the rob­bery, the man­hunt, and the trial to its con­clu­sion, he wrote a let­ter to the other Wes, now a con­victed mur­derer serv­ing a life sen­tence with­out the pos­si­bil­ity of parole. His let­ter ten­ta­tively asked the ques­tions that had been haunt­ing him: Who are you? How did this happen?

Moore will be speaking at IdeaFestival 2011.

Wayne

Practice good followership

Narcissists may look like good leaders, but are they? Freakonomics:

Generally speaking, narcissists tend to do well in life. Which is strange, since we usually look down on traits such as arrogance and inflated self-image. And yet, for all the reasons we hate them, society usually rewards narcissists in one crucial category: leadership. For some reason, even though we claim to see through all the trappings of self-love and big egos, we tend to think that narcissists make good leaders, and in group settings, consistently lift them to positions of power.

Confident self-presentation is an important part of believability, yes. But I find it interesting how self-absorbed individuals are seen as good leaders while the creatively-absorbed agonize over their image and work. If you have an opportunity today, do yourself a favor and read Joshua Mehigan's eremitic and lovely meditation on self-expression, mental illness and poetry, "I Thought You Were a Poet" at Longform.org.

All leaders, whether narcissists or not, require our attention. Today, let's practice good followership.

Wayne

Doing one thing, thinking another

In his "neurosphilosophy" column in the Guardian, Mo Constandi writes about IdeaFestival 2011 participant Daniel Simons and the subject of inattentional blindness. Simons makes a number of points - most notably that our auditory sense can similarly be deceived, and that inattentional blindness increases with the demands of a task - but most interesting is the following thought: "the bigger issue is not our failure to notice. The problem is with our mistaken intuitions about what we will notice."

One of things I've learned in the time that I've been writing this blog is just how little of our walking around lives are present to conscious thought and reflection. It's the same phenomenon philosopher of psychology Eric Schwitzgebel writes about at length on his blog, Splintered Mind, the "intelligent mistakes" that precede the fatal calculations of pilots, as described by author Laurence Gonzales, or more happily, the contented lull that great magicians like Teller use to great effect on stage. Teller does one thing. We think another.

Constandi's column is based on this interview posted at his Google+ account, which goes into much more detail. Check it out.

Wayne

Does technology have a life of its own?

Natalya Goncharova Cyclist - 1913

It's not often that I highlight the journal Foreign Policy, but the current issue contains a cover story on futurism and technology from IdeaFestival 2011 presenter Parag Khanna, "Technology Will Take on a Life of Its Own." Khanna:

Predicting the future is not about locking yourself in a room, staring into a crystal ball. It is, in a sense, reporting -- getting to the people and ideas on the bleeding edge. Through persistent travel, site visits, interviews, and embedding themselves like journalists, the Tofflers used their imagination to piece together an elusive future. The Tofflers didn't make any scientific discoveries, invent a new technology, or launch a brand-name business, but they pioneered a new vocabulary to capture how such activities intersect.

A generation later, it is time to revive the Tofflers' methodology as we try to understand an incipient future in which technology has insinuated itself into every sphere and nook of human activity...

There is no adequate word in English to capture this complex entanglement of humans and technology. The German word Technik comes closest: It means not just technology, but the mastery of the methods and processes that shape and steer it. In today's emerging world, Technik can be something of a broad index of preparedness for the future Hybrid Age. It rejoins the scientific and mechanical dimensions of technology with a necessary concern for its effect on humans and society. So while today we talk about promoting democracy, tomorrow we will realize we should be promoting good Technik.

"Promoting good Technik?" I lingered over the sentence for a few moments. A concern about the relationship of technology to society has a particular resonance and history in America. Hosting European objectionists, for three hundred years it has offered refuge for distinct groups like the Shakers, Amish and Mennonites who, if they didn't (and don't) deliberately shun some technologies, thought (and think) at length about how they should be applied. Over time, Kentucky's sylvan and prairie roots lands have lent a certain resilience - some might say stubbornness - to its inhabitants, and our own Wendell Berry has written skeptically and at length on the subject of society and machine. Like him or not, we need his voice.

Similarly, part Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, part Main Street, Gary Shteyngart's dizzyingly profane (you've been warned) and touching novel Super Sad True Love Story amps up the trends and spins off a dystopian near future of "entangled humans and technology" that will make you cringe and nod knowingly at the same time.

I'm looking forward to hearing how Khanna would run the world at IdeaFestival 2011. I hope to see you there.

Wayne

Graduating to different

Saying that education is not about raising standards - "What? Are we going to lower them?" - and suggesting that an education system modeled on the industrial age fails children today, Sir Ken Robinson goes on to praise the virtues of "divergent thinking," or the ability to interpret and answer questions in many different ways.

He describes how Kindergarten children are geniuses at discovering how a paper clip should be used - why not make them 200 feet tall and out of foam? - but gradually lose this ability to think differently over time as they become "educated."

Yes, of course standards are needed, but in an age when information is so readily available, the premium is not on what we know - we know more than ever - but in our ability to put what we know together in unique and valuable ways, to imagine different outcomes, to ask better questions.

Divergent thinking is a necessary prelude to creative thinking, and that's what the IdeaFestival celebrates. I hope to see you there!

Wayne