Everyone these days is talking about changing the culture in the Washington Beltway but, to paraphrase an old saying, can you teach an old dog new tricks? To answer the question we set aside the old dogs for now and look at what goes on in the realm of the young dogs to see if there is a lesson here that would apply to that old dog and all the dogs in the Beltway.
I had a technical school in a previous life where students did theory in class and practice in the lab. The classrooms were furnished with tables and the labs with benches on which sat electronic equipment and some hand tools. It struck me one day that little damage was done to the classroom tables but a great deal was done to the benches in the labs, and I wanted to know why.
After giving the matter some thought I reached the preliminary conclusion that the students do not use tools in the classroom except the pen which would not be effective at damaging the tables. They sit in class no more than one hour at a time which they do under the watchful eyes of the teachers. And they only listen to the lecture and write notes which make little demand on them but keep them busy all the time.
By contrast, the students stay long hours in the lab and they are expected to do mental work to solve the practical problems they encounter. They use metallic tools such as a screwdriver which can be effective at damaging the wooden top of the benches. And they can get frustrated which prompts them to take it on the benches with the tools at hand.
Some students had a favorite place where to sit in the lab but most did not. Those that picked the same place every day did not vandalize it while those that sat anywhere in a random fashion were more prone to vandalize.
One day I caught a student in the act of vandalizing the bench with a screwdriver. I asked him what he was doing and he said the carving on the bench was already there and he only added to what someone did before him. I was stunned by this response and so I called the student to my office. He first expressed indignation that I saw something wrong with what he did but then relented and followed me to the office.
Once there I asked him to explain the reason for his indignation. He said he was not the first to vandalize the bench. Since someone did it before him, he had the right to do it too because I did not reprimand the one who did it first. Never mind that I never knew who the first one was but the fact that someone got away with something gave everyone the right to do the same thing and not be reprimanded.
I asked if there was pleasure in adding to the scar of a bench that was already scarred. He said it was something that relaxed him whenever he expected the test equipment to show one result but showed another. I asked if he would carve a bench that is not already carved. He answered that the first guy who did it had a clean bench to begin with but he carved it anyway, so maybe he would carve a clean bench too.
He then went back to the first question and elaborated. He said when I called him to the office I did so in front of his peers who snickered because he was caught in the act. He explained that this made him feel discriminated against. He spoke like someone who felt victimized. But victimized by what? I asked myself. It could only be one thing, he looked stupid in the eyes of his peers for being caught doing something that someone else was smart enough to get away with.
So I responded to the student with a question: Why would I discriminate against you? I don’t know, he said, I am like everyone else. Correct, I said, you are like everyone else but you are the one I saw vandalize the bench and so I called you to explain. But he kept insisting that because he told me he was not the first to do it, I was supposed to stop here and accept as normal the repeat of an act that went unpunished. I should have expected this to happen and accepted it when it happened.
With all this new information under my belt, I revised my preliminary conclusion as to why the lab benches were vandalized more than the classroom tables, and I added to it the following. School age youngsters are wired to be in a learning mode. Not only do they learn from the teachers and the books but they do from each other as well. It is therefore normal that they succumb to peer pressure, a method by which they learn from each other. And this kind of learning happens even when no deliberate pressure is put on someone. It happens by imitating what is observed.
And so the question to ask became this one: Is it possible to teach young dogs new tricks? And the answer is yes, youngsters learn all the time. Each parent, each principal and each teacher have their own approaches to fulfilling this task and they do more or less a good job, each according to their ability.
As for the old dogs in the Washington Beltway, before we go there, we must first understand something about the learning process and what happens to the knowledge we acquire after we have acquired it.
Learning begins as a mental exercise because we need to concentrate on what we do. To wit, we think when we learn to drive. But after we have completed the learning process, we drive instinctively because the knowledge gets stored somewhere in the brain where it is not necessary to recall it anymore. We must therefore conclude that we are primarily creatures of habit that do not think most of the time but act instinctively.
Our responses to external conditions and stimuli are usually automatic and habitual. Taken together, these responses are called a culture and their purpose in most part is to insure our survival. Thus, the culture in the Washington beltway is a collection of responses that were created and allowed to evolve in the manner that they did for the sole purpose of insuring the survival and re-election of those who hold the power.
So how do we change all that? First, we must recognize that those in the Beltway do not do things in vacuum. They play it up to the voters in their respective constituencies. Thus, if we convince the voters to demand a better culture in the Beltway and reject the bad one, we will go a long way toward changing the status quo. That is, we must reach out to the masses through the use of the mass media and educate them. Those who have the pulpit have access to the media and they have the responsibility to do that.
It is not going to be an easy thing to do because in reality the culture in the Beltway is but a reflection of the culture in the rest of the country. Thus, he who has the pulpit must tell the American people you must change in order to change Washington and get the sort of government you clamor for and say you deserve. But since culture is constantly evolving, those who have the wherewithal to keep it on the right track must be eternally vigilant.
Thus, what should these people tell the American masses at this time? They can tell them to stop talking as if everything good in the World was American and everything bad in America was international. The one thing that hits you in the eye when you try to understand the American culture is that these people cannot see something good happening anywhere in the World without uttering the remark that someone must be following the American model. And they cannot see something bad happening in America without speaking about it as if it were an international problem spilling into America.
Consequently, it is said that the emerging countries are doing well at this time because they are following the American model, and America is suffering a mortgage meltdown at this time because this is an international problem which is spilling into America. You see, America is so good everyone wants to invest in it, and this is what caused the cash bubble and the eventual meltdown of the credit institutions. See how bad those foreigners are to us when we are so good to them!
Not only is the American culture so skewed in some areas as to be off the mark, it also turns reality on its head. For example, the view in America is that the people in the Middle East suffer a pathology called the conspiracy theory when, in reality, all they do is see corruption in their own backyard and little of it outside their borders. The joke in Egypt is that when a gas station sells gas at 91 piasters a liter and another sells it at 92, the second is corrupt because it gouges the public. If both stations sell at the same price, they are both corrupt because they fix the price. Thus if you own a gas station in Egypt you cannot win but at least the people there do not blame their problems on foreigners, they look at themselves and apply local solutions.
By contrast, the Americans who blame foreigners for their problems look for a solution that will "kick asses." In so doing, they spend more money, time and effort applying false solutions to problems that do not exist and thus create the problems and make them worse. Like the students who add to the carving of a bench because the carving is there, these people get themselves into a hole and keep digging in the belief that this will relax them.