Five Taboo Headwinds
The first step in solving a problem is to face it directly and identify its sources. If for whatever reason this can’t be done, the problem festers and eventually consumes us.
Enter cultural biases and taboos.
The American culture has two biases that border on taboos. One is the bias/taboo against dwelling on negatives. We’re trained to respond with a positive statement: a reassurance, discounting the problem or voicing a solution.
The second is that every problem has a solution that’s within reach of everyone. This manifests the “can do” spirit: if there’s a will, there’s a way.
These are both laudable biases, as focusing on solutions is the only way to find solutions.
There’s a difference between a real solution and an air-brushed “stop talking about negatives” response, and this is where the taboo kicks in: if there is no easy solution, then we stop talking about it, and anyone pushing knotty problems further gets the cold shoulder.
These biases/taboos have upsides–focusing on solutions within reach of everyone, and reassuring those in a slump that things will get better–and downsides: by rushing past the sources of the problem in our hurry to be positive, we render the problem unsolvable.
A second downside is the necessity to find a solution right away leads to quick/easy solutions that aren’t actually solutions: they’re either assurances disguised as solutions or faux solutions that paper over the problem.
By distracting us from facing the problem directly and identifying its sources, no matter how painful and difficult this process may be, we set a course of self-destruction, as the undiagnosed problem can’t be solved by assurances and half-measures.
In January I posted this essay: Catch-20: The 20 Dynamics That Will Shape the Next Decade.
One of the main points was to describe the paradox of transformation:
“Catch-20 is the system has to first transform itself as the means to accomplish all the wonderful things, but it’s incapable of transforming itself due to the vested interests who will move heaven and earth to keep it locked in its current configuration. The euphoric expectations are based on the belief that the system as it is today is perfectly capable of transforming the economy, society and daily life.”
In other words, if the problem is the system is incapable of transforming itself due to arrested equilibrium (being locked in place by those benefiting from its current configuration), then all the other problems will go unsolved because they all require a flexible, adaptive system.
This is Taboo Headwind #1: facing knotty problems directly and identifying their sources is automatically interpreted as “dwelling on the negatives,” which is taboo.
Taboo Headwind #2 is: any attempt to truly solve knotty, complex problems runs into the buzzsaw of vested interests who will move heaven and earth to protect their perquisites in the current configuration.
Self-interest fuels a delusional belief that that system is so wealthy and permanent that it can fund my gravy train without any difficulty, so why should I relinquish anything?
The inevitable result is the vested interests squabbling over their gravy trains brings the system down from within, as any solution that demands sacrifice is politically impossible. So the system collapses, much to the surprise of the elites and vested interests who reckoned it permanent.
Taboo Headwind #3 is the bias favoring simple, quick and easy solutions over real solutions that tend to be systemic and demand transformation, not a pill or phone app.
This leads to fantastical “solutions” that aren’t solutions, they’re just versions of “stop talking about negatives.” The Mythology of Progress I describe in my book feeds these delusions.
The GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are a current example.
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