Spero Consulting

In Sep­tem­ber, when Pres­i­dent Obama spoke to many of the nation’s school chil­dren, we wrote The Impor­tance of an Edu­ca­tion.¹

In that post, we wrote that regard­less of the field, a good edu­ca­tion per­mits the stu­dent to deter­mine when oth­ers are com­pletely full of sh… The more spe­cial­ized the train­ing, the more nar­row the abil­ity to dis­cern, to be sure, but pos­si­bly the more acute the ability.

We fur­ther noted that an excep­tional edu­ca­tion is one that per­mits the stu­dent to deter­mine when he or she – the stu­dent him­self or her­self – is com­pletely full of sh… We then men­tion a few impli­ca­tions and ben­e­fits of that knowledge.

Clearly, we were not writ­ing about the mem­o­riza­tion of facts nec­es­sary to learn and even­tu­ally become edu­cated, nor were we writ­ing about what we’ll call pseudo-​facts– all those things that teach­ers repeat with nary a thought of their valid­ity. (Iron­i­cally, many sci­ence teach­ers seem to be the worst vio­la­tors of the “it’s in the text­book, so it must be true” fal­lacy.) We have in mind higher-​level learn­ing and with it the ben­e­fits of objec­tive and crit­i­cal think­ing that per­mits the analy­sis and eval­u­a­tion of dif­fer­ent designs, choices, con­clu­sions, behav­iors, and rec­om­men­da­tions, regard­less of the field.

We don’t mind repeat­ing our def­i­n­i­tions, because we really like them. In fact, we like to think that Socrates (and there­fore Plato) might approve. As we under­stand it, isn’t that what Socrates taught when he tried to show oth­ers that they were com­pletely full of sh…? (We’re not say­ing that his approach wins friends, but it is ana­lyt­i­cal and requires dis­cern­ment and at least a good education.)

More­over, we don’t mind repeat­ing our old post here, because it is closely related to this one. After writ­ing that post in Sep­tem­ber, we thought more about the cer­tain types of une­d­u­cated folks. That allowed us to con­clude that:

The only thing worse than lying to oth­ers is lying to oneself.

By ‘worse’ we mean harm­ful, in gen­eral, and self-​destructive, in par­tic­u­lar. Actu­ally, we should write that “lying to one­self is worse than lying to oth­ers” but we like the hyper­bole of “The only thing worse.”

Self-​deception is the rea­son why many stu­dents score poorly on exams and why actors for­get lines and and singers flub solos and why ath­letes run the wrong routes or plays and why addicts and alco­holics over-​consume drugs and alco­hol…, ad infini­tum and ad nau­seum.

It hap­pens when some­one asks, “are you ready” or “did you study enough,” and the self-​deceiver answers, “yes” or “of course” or “yeah, I worked hard,” and they are then sur­prised by their poor results and showings.

As we note, it is worse when the per­son answer­ing the ques­tion is also the per­son ask­ing it. Com­pletely, yet erro­neously, self-​delusionally con­fi­dent in their abil­i­ties and pre­pared­ness. Sur­prised or maybe con­fused when they fail or per­form poorly.

As we see it, that self-​deception is due to the com­plete lack of self-​criticism.

So, what hope is there for self-​control (and self-​improvement from directed and sus­tained effort) if one’s feed­back loop is bro­ken and left dan­gling uncon­nected – like a downed power-​line in the after­math of a storm?

Observ­ing such behav­ior reminds us of a Greek tragedy, but with­out all the effort of, say, actu­ally push­ing a huge stone to the top of a hill. It is weak­ness exhib­ited as the lack of effort and/​or will com­bined with the inabil­ity to rec­og­nize the insuf­fi­ciency of req­ui­site effort that defines the prob­lem and inflicts the harm and dam­age. (We’re not say­ing that we’re immune to it, but it is eas­ier to see in others.)

Accu­rate self-​evaluation and self-​criticism seem to be nec­es­sary abilities/​functions for self-​control, self-​improvement, and self-​respect. Why does it seem that the self-​esteem move­ment – you are spe­cial, you’re the only one – can destroy such those good atti­tudes and behav­iors? Because the eas­i­est way to improve self-​esteem is to snip the feed­back loop that makes it very easy to lie to your­self. (So we say, so what if you don’t like this essay, AT LEAST WE TRIED (well, not too much).)