• “The Three Resolutions”
  • Personal Value Statements
  • Set Some Goals – A 3R Form
  • Three Resolutions Podcast
  • Time and Self Management Books
  • Values Development Exercise
  • Who I am
  • Your Best Year Ever – Programmes

THE THREE RESOLUTIONS

~ Your Personal Mission Controller – Self-Leadership That Works

THE THREE RESOLUTIONS

Tag Archives: ben shapiro

On Fishing – and The Poisoning of the River They’re Living In.

Featured

Posted by threeresolutionsguy in Character and Competence, Purpose and Service

≈ Comments Off on On Fishing – and The Poisoning of the River They’re Living In.

Tags

"time management", ben shapiro, character, competence, covey, critical race theory, CRT, leadership, Michael Knowles, service, seven habits, Stephen R Covey", three resolutions, values, woke, wokery, wokism

There’s an old saying: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. It’s a maxim with validity, and essentially speaks for itself, but I sometimes feel as though the message has still to get through because it’s a metaphor. Sometimes metaphors need to be more specific, which kind of undermines their purpose but some people need to be spoon fed, and sometimes those people include me.

So here’s my amendment.

“Teach a man to pass an exam, and he passes the exam. Teach a man the ability to analyse, to reason, to interpret, to question and even challenge, and you create a leader.”

(Which is something I wish University administrators and educators would return to understanding in the way they used to when graduates knew more than ‘just’ the content of their thesis.)

Let me give an example of how that doesn’t happen. In my years as a copper, I concluded that a lot of the training we received was designed to tell us ‘what was what’ and to accept the wisdom of our trainers. In fairness to some trainers, they were just given material and told, “Teach this.” I remember being trained about the new surveillance laws in 2000 and walking away convinced I couldn’t do any active police work, so bad was the explanation of the law. Later, I was engaged in an argument with a trainer over another misunderstood process, and I have always been bemused by how data protection legislation continues to be taught by threat, rather than as a relatively straight-forward concept.

You see, people were seeing only the overall objective, but never researching deeply enough to understand the details – which, more often than not, made life easier than their poor understanding allowed. They worked on a ‘you can’t do that’ basis instead of finding out what you could do.

They’d been given a fish, but not taught how to fish.

Giving fish is how young people seem to be learning, these days. Ideologies proliferate without question, which is troubling. Blind obeisance to the prevailing wisdom is causing old, practically settled identity politics to rear its ugly head again, because ideologues shout louder than people who challenge those ides with analysis, research, considered reasoning, appropriate questions and robust challenge (see what I did there?). The worst example is Critical Race Theory, which appears to be a form of reverse-racism, in that three or four decades after the question was settled in principal (it will never be settled in universal practice, fact of life), now those who accepted the responsibility for overcoming all the isms – and arguably the belated credit for doing so – are now expected to account for their guilt for offence caused a hundred years or more ago. Apparently, me, born 1961, must accept guilt for 18th century slavery despite the fact that me, born 1961, never knowingly owned or trafficked a slave.

It’s divisive, and the shouty side is trying to stifle debate either because it has no reasoned argument, or because there is a terrifying motive behind it. In other words, I believe that the unintended consequences of their violent demand for tolerance will be even more intolerant division. They must actually want that, and we’ll all have to pick our side. (And by the way, their leaders never put their heads above the parapet, like most Marxist generalissimos.)

Well done, educators. You’ve fed our kids poisonous fish, stifled challenge, invented reason, and now the rest of us are reaping the rewards of your stupidity. Or, at best, you’ve sat by and let it happen.

It’s not too late. You can stop imposing your ideas on the young and, instead, debate with them. If your ideas are valid, then they will stand. If not, they should die. If you’re quiet, stand up and be counted.

Doing that will take character and competence. And it’s the best service you could ever provide.

In conclusion, let me put it this way – an intellectual argument for CRT is the same as an intellectual argument for that rectangular pile of concrete blocks in the Tate gallery.

Total b—-ks.*

*Bricks

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

What are you worth? And are you willing to pay it?

Featured

Posted by threeresolutionsguy in Character and Competence

≈ Comments Off on What are you worth? And are you willing to pay it?

Tags

ben shapiro, branding, congruence, go woke go broke, integrity, knowles, marketing, principles, sjw, social justice warrior, values, wokeism

I’d be interested in your response.

I suspect there are two directions in which readers’ minds travelled when they read that question. For some, and not necessarily for bad reasons, their minds went to their financial status. Their answer may have been ‘none of your business’, but since that wasn’t my motive it doesn’t matter. Others would have proudly stated their net worth, the value of their possessions and the consequences of their life’s work, their inheritance, their future anticipated wealth. A figure, preceded by their currency of choice’s symbol, be it £, $or €.

But that’s not what I asked, even if the words implied it. What I meant is…

“What are YOU worth?”

To put it another way – what is the price of your personal integrity? What boundaries are you willing to cross, and what borders represent the spot where you will fight and die – metaphorically, perhaps even literally?

And, perhaps more to the point, just how firm are they? Which, if any, are a bit rubbery depending on the circumstances? Which values might bend in the wind? And..

Have you bent any, already?

I’m not talking about other people’s values and standards – for example, those imposed upon you since you entered a profession, association, relationship or otherwise. (For example, where the ethical standards you subscribed to have now changed with the influence of excessive political correctness, as opposed to reasonable adjustments which probably didn’t contravene your values in any case?)

I’m writing specifically about whether – or not – you follow the advice of a US politician who reportedly stated, “I have a firm set of principles by which resolutely stand, but if necessary I can change them.”

That is your true ‘value’. Whether you are willing to stand by your principles in the face of challenge, or excuse a failure to do so. Not money. Integrity.

Perhaps – and now I get truly controversial – you have another form of incongruence which I perceive (I could be wrong so I am being careful with my words) exists in the world today.

I am thoroughly bored with the virtue-signalling I see around me. People who have never given a monkey’s about ‘social justice’ now routinely reposting and liking SJW memes. Celebrating things they never celebrated before. Companies banging on about social justice, when really all they want to do is sell stuff. And, more often than not, failing to recognise that if there’s one thing people really know about their motives, based on the evidence around them, is that it is Profit, not Principles that direct their spouting.

I firmly agree that people should absolutely stand by the values in which they truly believe. I might not like Greta’s approach, and I question its psycho-sociological origins, but at least she believes in what she is doing, and is doing what she believes in.

But don’t pretend to stand by Values imposed upon you by others, because you’re afraid to either oppose, or at least be neutral about them. Stand by them if you believe in them, but don’t pretend you give a toss when you really don’t. Or worse, if you do so only because you fear being seen to question them.

It’s a Circle of Influence ‘thing’. If you think that reposting and liking woke posts makes you a good person, stop and take a good hard look at yourself. You’ve stood for nothing. You haven’t put yourself at risk in any capacity. You haven’t demonstrated the vulnerability that true congruence can represent. Worse still (for the particularly vociferous), the manner in which you intolerantly oppose what you perceive to be ‘intolerance’ says more about you than you think. You’ve pandered. You’re wearing a badge someone else paid for.

And people can see it. They see behind your fearful façade.

And that, readers, is how they know your true value. Your character speaks louder than your reposted memes.

Think on that.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Archives

best blogs

Blogroll

  • Blogtopsites

Blog Stats

  • 16,453 hits

Categories

  • Character and Competence
  • Discipline
  • General
  • Purpose and Service
  • Rants
  • Time Management
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • THE THREE RESOLUTIONS
    • Join 212 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • THE THREE RESOLUTIONS
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: