The New Attitude

The oil spill in the gulf. The bailout of banks labeled too big to fail. The bailout of automobile manufacturers. The housing market bubble and its burst. Credit default swaps. The official failures of hurricane Katrina. Oil prices of $150 per barrel the summer of 2008. The Enron scandal. All of these massive issues in our present and recent past are connected, and they are connected by the very source of the issue: human greed and human failure. But they are the result of one single underlying problem, a problem nearly every American suffers from - a very incorrect attitude that is nothing more than the result of psychological trauma.

The basis of all of these problems lies in the attitude people have as a result of a significant and relatively sudden decrease in empathy. No longer are Americans as capable of considering the perspective of others. And no longer do we consider our future as carefully as we used to (our own future perspective if you will.) But perhaps the most devestating effect of this is the attitude that we can look away from wrongdoing or rulebreaking because we ourselves can benefit from it too. This is the direct cause of the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico in what will probably soon be called the greatest environmental disaster in world history. People in Minerals Management Service looked the other way while British Petroleum failed to file a response plan to exactly what happened in the gulf. And someone looked away while inspection after inspection was put off or avoided by investigators too cozy with those they were supposed to be watching. And British Petroleum took advantage of those who looked the other way and got lazy in their efforts to maintain safety on such a potentially hazardous platform. Profit became far, far more important, and concern for the future and the safety of others became less and less important.

The same thing can be said about each of the other recent economic disasters in America. The housing bubble and bailouts are nothing more than the result of lax regulation and greed by short sighted profiteers whose attitude was profit now and at all costs. The Enron fiasco happened for the same reasons.

Understanding why isn't as important as fixing the problem, but it does help to understand the source of our new attitude. But placing blame will be counterproductive. Long story short: a mistake was made, leadership faltered, and we have all been paying the price since. Americans were in shock, and desperately needed a correct response, one which taught us empathy while maintaining conviction. But the response was one which taught us to ignore consequences, and more importantly, to ignore the underlying cause, to fail to take the perspective of those responsible. We saw instead a violent (and misguided) response without concern for people. We saw the 'shoot first and ask questions later' attitude and we emulated what we saw. We stopped caring about consequences and began caring only about the short term gain.

What resulted was a nation of people who were less capable of caring about each other or the future. We became a nation of short-cut takers, of lazy people if you will. No longer were hard work and innovation the mechanism by which we got ahead. We saw others cheat, and turned a blind eye because we felt we could benefit if others turned the other way while we cheated as well. And for many, this worked. Bankers saw that they could profit by creating complex derivatives, and then betting against them, knowing they would fail. They sought unqualified homeowners to "flip" houses. And either way, banks would win - if the person sold the house, they paid off the mortgage, most of which were structured so that the first 5 years were interest-only payments, pure profit for the banks. If they paid them off, the bank won. If they failed to pay them off, the bank had bet against them and still won. Examples of this kind of thoughtless greed abound. Rather than a nation of hard workers who competed to work harder and smarter than the other, we became a nation of cheaters.

This attitude has grown and prevails in everyday life. You see it around you all the time. It's the little things, but they add up. Leaving grocery carts in the middle of the aisle which blocks other shoppers. Talking and texting on our cell phones while driving. Looking down at people who are having a tough time of things. Turning away from those who need help. Ignoring someone cheating and getting something they don't deserve. All of these illustrate a lack of consideration for each other, a sign of an epidemic of lack of empathy.

But this is an attitude that doesn't work. Hopefully our current economic crisis and the continuously growing crisis in the Gulf can help us see this. What truly works for America, what has always worked for America, is the attitude that working harder and working smarter is the best way to get ahead; that we should profit not from cheating, but from genuine hard work and innovation. It is a simple concept to understand if you consider that someone will always be at least a little better at cheating than yourself. In a world where cheating is okay, there's always someone willing to go a step further. And in that kind of world, cheating has no limits. People's lives no longer have as much meaning in such a world. Deaths can become an accepted risk in the name of profit.

What would change America back into a great nation would be a simple change in attitude back to the American attitude of innovation and hard work. Inventors and innovators and those willing to work long and hard should be rewarded with more wealth, not those who cheat better than the rest of us. The geeks who invent computers and software in their garages at home after work should be rewarded with mansions on the bay, not greedy bankers who invent sham investment schemes. The men and women who work late into the night while the rest of the workers go home should be rewarded with higher salaries, not those who make more in commissions because they lie to the customers better. And companies who create products which make our lives better in sustainable and healthy ways should be at the top in terms of profit, not companies who learn how to cheat us better or make products that hurt us in the long run.

All it takes is a simple change in each of us. We must each recognize that getting ahead in this world means working smarter and harder. We must recognize that cheating should not be tolerated. We need to understand that while it may be easier to cheat, it is wrong, and that someone will always be better at cheating and willing to go further in doing so than ourselves.

If we can recognize that hard work and innovation are the keys to success, we will once again have a hard working, innovative nation at the top of the game.