In our exploration of technicians and human nature, we have arrived at a unique destination.
Compared with other species, humans alone seem to possess the trait of arrogance. And it’s probably because we alone possess self-awareness and therefore arrogance as inflated self-opinion.
Give us a little knowledge, and we exhibit the Dunning Kruger Effect. Place us in a group and we compete for supremacy. Place our group among other groups and each develops a sense of either physical, intellectual or moral superiority.
If we are physically stronger, we become bullies. If we are more educated, we become intellectual bullies. If we are religious, we embrace a sense of moral superiority and become self-righteous and insufferable.
These are not absolute, but you could get quite rich wagering on these outcomes.
I doubt anything in this article is a surprise to any of my readers. Some may wonder why I use “we” instead of “they”. Obviously because I sense the same tendencies in myself.
“Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.”
― Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy
Russell was not referring to simple intellectual prowess. He was referring to the moral deficiency of arrogance that accompanies education and that it must be guarded against. When viewed this way, we see the consequences of this flaw in human nature everywhere and throughout history.
Whether it be disasters: the Titanic, the Challenger, the Titan submarine or the death of any music star by plane crash, the moral flaw of arrogance overwhelmed the common sense of having a binoculars, postponing the launch due to cold weather, building a sub according to accepted practices, or just not overloading the aircraft, especially when flying in bad weather.
None of the above disasters were perpetrated by the uninformed. The ramifications of this principle are both broad and deep. Not only does this reality contradict the use of education as a panacea, it manifests the risk of involving yourself with highly educated leaders. Clearly, as a trainer myself, I have no qualms about the value and necessity of education. But to avoid the dangerous consequences of training or self-study, we must balance education with character development. When I wrote, in an earlier article, about modern psychiatry eliminating the principle of evil from its vocabulary, I was referring to the cause and effect of what we see in our culture today.
Most of what is offered today as “training” involves the simple sharing of knowledge. Clearly this is an essential part of training, but the gaining of information does not guarantee the ability to properly use that information.
The effect of added information to a human is not the same as the effect of added information to a computer’s data bank. If you remember the System 1 and System 2 principle of human intelligence mentioned in more than one previous article, you probably understand that the human System 2 (conscious, intentional, calculating) ability is what AI (Artificial Intelligence) is an attempt to copy. Obviously, we cannot copy System 1 for the simple fact that we do not understand what it is; we can only describe what it does. In addition to the System 1 that humans have, they have a moral component to their nature that computers do not at this time possess. I highly recommend “The Alignment Problem” by Brian Christian and its discussion of the attempts to align AI with human values. Since humans have this moral component, any attempt at education must take that into account.
When Person A gains information, there is a human tendency to increase in arrogance. This is the reason for the quote, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” This quote from Alexander Pope predates Dunning and Kruger by close to three centuries. Dunning and Kruger found that slightly increased, but limited knowledge or competence leads people to overestimate their knowledge and competence.
When Person A who has gained a modicum of learning is then given a position of authority we have added a second danger to the mix. Lord Acton, more recently than Pope, suggested in 1887 that, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. These two principles combine to make Person A a dangerous leader indeed. I expect that most of my readers found faces appearing in their minds at the above description of Person A.
The question before us is, “How do we prevent Person A from wreaking havoc on our organizations?”
My answer to that is actually quite simple. You need to value and recognize the character trait of humility in any candidate for any position that involves authority. If you find and hire such a candidate, you are essentially safeguarding your organization.
First, you must value humility.
Human nature, being what it is, can find brash confidence to be very attractive. This word, “attractive”, is an important one. It simply describes human susceptibility to allow that which is subjectively attractive to overwhelm that which is objectively valuable. No one is immune, the best you can hope for is to see it in both yourself and others, and attempt to guard yourself from what can lead to disastrous consequences.
Second, you must recognize humility. The reason that this section of articles started with honesty is the universal tendency of self-deception. Now we turn to the deception of others. Humans are innately wired to put their best foot forward when interacting with others; one way they do that is to project humility whether it is real or not. So how do we see through the façade? The great challenge of describing what to look for is that by doing so, you are describing how to project humility whether or not it is real.
Next time, overcoming attractiveness and embracing core traits.
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