The fly swatting mentality

"The answers are so simple and we all know where to look
But it's easier just to avoid the question"
- Kansas, "On The Other Side"

When people are faced with a recurring problem that has persisted for years, they usually respond to it in one or more of three ways. The very stupid ignore it and hope it will go away. The moderately stupid try to manage it. That is, every time it manifests itself, they deal with that manifestation. The wise look deal with the problem as such, and try to solve it. Solve the problem, and its manifestations go away.

To put it another way, it's a choice between denial, treatment and cure.

What's behind these three choices? Breadth of attention. The denier has a narrowly restricted range of attention, as narrow as he can make it. His response to unpleasant stimuli is to withdraw ever further from engagement with the world outside his head. Carry this far enough, and he starts to push away from his consciousness things - feelings, desires - that are already inside his head. At this point we have full blown neurosis.

The treatment guy doesn't deny what is right in front of him, but he refuses to see the big picture. This sort of person is a manager. He doesn't solve problems, he manages them, with one quick fix, workaround or band-aid after another. He lives from annoyance to annoyance, until something comes along that he just can't cope with this way. Then he might decide to change. More likely he'll simply fail, and fail spectacularly.

The problem solver has the widest scope of attention of all. He thinks ahead. He sees the big picture. And he acts.

Why wouldn't everyone want to be a problem solver? Because it's hard, that's why. You have to put up with a lot of short term inconvenience, and defer a lot of gratification, and all the while the managers and deniers are heckling you from the peanut gallery.

(There are also cases where you simply don't know how to solve a problem, and you settle for managing it, until you can come up with something better. In a charitable mood, I might classify the cold war doctrines of containment and Mutually Assured destruction as such. But the true manager type isn't buying time in hopes of a solution coming along. He can't conceive of anything beyond management. He thinks that *is* a solution.)

Problem solving only works in the long run. In the short run it's a lot of aggravation. Treatment works in the short run, but only in the short run. Denial doesn't really work, but it seems to, and that's all the denier cares about.

So why would anyone want to be a problem solver? Because things that only work in the short term, sooner or later stop working. And then where are you? If you're lucky, you're still alive, and maybe you can try a different strategy.

The alcoholic or a drug addict is a denier. He does what makes him feel good, but it's ruining his health and his life. Sooner or later, he "hits bottom." Denial stops working, and he has to try something else. Maybe he'll try not to drink so much. That's the management mentality. If that doesn't work, he might eventually address the real issue and just quit cold turkey. Or he might just keep going until he dies in the gutter of liver failure.

See next:
The appeasement mentality and The mosquito-swatting mentality

Case study: The Global War On Terror

Case study: The antivirus non-solution

Case study: New Orleans


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