Posted by Dr. Bob on July 20, 2013, at 0:55:04
In reply to I feel sad, posted by alexandra_k on July 18, 2013, at 18:25:14
> I feel sad for Bob. Because I think he is trying.
Thanks. Support helps me persevere.
--
> I struggle a great deal with the temptation to lock myself safely away in a silo with people just like me... Or with how much it is better somehow to have greater exposure to the world... Even though it hurts.
>
> I'm still not sure.
>
> I know I do better in the former. I think... That people tend to. That is why the temptation is so great...
>
> I'm not sure that it is what is best...I guess it depends on the person. A hothouse flower needs a hothouse/silo/refuge. Which is why I was open to the idea of a Refuge board. But there was limited interest (1 vote for a new board and 1 for making Psychology a refuge board).
And sometimes what may be best is exposure to the world with the support of people like themselves. Then they might become, or realize they are already, stronger than they thought.
I just read an interesting book review:
> Hirschman had studied the enormous Karnaphuli Paper Mills, in what was then East Pakistan. The mill was built to exploit the vast bamboo forests of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. But not long after the mill came online the bamboo unexpectedly flowered and then died, a phenomenon now known to recur every fifty years or so. Dead bamboo was useless for pulping; it fell apart as it was floated down the river. Because of ignorance and bad planning, a new, multimillion-dollar industrial plant was suddenly without the raw material it needed to function.
>
> But what impressed Hirschman was the response to the crisis. The mills operators quickly found ways to bring in bamboo from villages throughout East Pakistan, building a new supply chain using the country's many waterways. They started a research program to find faster-growing species of bamboo to replace the dead forests, and planted an experimental tract. They found other kinds of lumber that worked just as well. The result was that the plant was blessed with a far more diversified base of raw materials than had ever been imagined. If bad planning hadn't led to the crisis at the Karnaphuli plant, the mills operators would never have been forced to be creative. And the plant would not have been nearly as valuable as it became.
>
> We may be dealing here with a general principle of action, Hirschman wrote:
>
> Creativity always comes as a surprise to us; therefore we can never count on it and we dare not believe in it until it has happened. In other words, we would not consciously engage upon tasks whose success clearly requires that creativity be forthcoming. Hence, the only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine, simple, undemanding of genuine creativity than it will turn out to be.> Developing countries required more than capital. They needed practice in making difficult economic decisions. Economic progress was the product of successful habits and there is no better teacher, Hirschman felt, than a little adversity. He would rather encourage settlers and entrepreneurs at the grass-roots level and make them learn how to cope with those impediments themselves than run the risk that aid might infantilize its recipient.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/130624crbo_books_gladwell
Bob
a brilliant and reticent Web mastermind -- The New York Times
backpedals well -- PartlyCloudy
poster:Dr. Bob
thread:1047429
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20130702/msgs/1047502.html