For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisers. (Proverbs 11:14)
“If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn’t thinking.” General George Patton
There are lots of people who are complaining about how divided we are. We should all just love on one another, and just imagine if there were no politics, no religion, no possessions, how happy we’d all be. Unanimous everything, or at least unanimous everything that matters. You’re allowed to not like butter pecan ice cream, but when it comes to anything important, we all have to eat the same flavor.
I have to agree with General Patton. The last thing I want is for everyone to think alike. If everyone thinks alike, there is no need for advisors. At the most, there would be a need for one advisor, who would, of course, always agree with the leader. But Solomon saw the danger of that sort of thinking. I don’t like the level of hatred that I see in our country, but I prefer the differences to groupthink (AKA Borgism.) That’s why, when Mr. Obama was elected, I said that it is sometimes good for us to have a change in the party leading the country – someone to balance out the extremes of the Republicans. Then he went way overboard with the notion of fundamentally transforming the country. That’s one of the reasons so many people think we need a “strong” Republican leader now, to bring the tilt back toward the center. I’m still waiting to see if we got that strong leader. There are some favorable indications and some not so favorable indications.
This is one of the reasons I distrust “governing bodies” whether political, religious, social or whatever, that rubber stamp everything the leadership wants. This has been one of the problems facing the company I used to work for – everyone told the CEO, “Yeah, sure. Great idea,” while I started asking when the doors were going to close because so many bad ideas were being adopted. It’s not that I’m a genius, but when idea after idea is adopted and discarded in less than six months, you’d think someone should have recognized the problem.
My other problem with everyone thinking alike, and therefore not needing many advisors is that it seems to me that every time people start talking about unity, that unity always involves thinking the way those people already think. Of course, they think they’re right. They’d be fools if they advocated thinking a way they believed to be wrong, but everyone checking their brains at the door is not a sort of unity that I think any group should have.
I have to agree with General Patton. The last thing I want is for everyone to think alike. If everyone thinks alike, there is no need for advisors. At the most, there would be a need for one advisor, who would, of course, always agree with the leader. But Solomon saw the danger of that sort of thinking. I don’t like the level of hatred that I see in our country, but I prefer the differences to groupthink (AKA Borgism.) That’s why, when Mr. Obama was elected, I said that it is sometimes good for us to have a change in the party leading the country – someone to balance out the extremes of the Republicans. Then he went way overboard with the notion of fundamentally transforming the country. That’s one of the reasons so many people think we need a “strong” Republican leader now, to bring the tilt back toward the center. I’m still waiting to see if we got that strong leader. There are some favorable indications and some not so favorable indications.
This is one of the reasons I distrust “governing bodies” whether political, religious, social or whatever, that rubber stamp everything the leadership wants. This has been one of the problems facing the company I used to work for – everyone told the CEO, “Yeah, sure. Great idea,” while I started asking when the doors were going to close because so many bad ideas were being adopted. It’s not that I’m a genius, but when idea after idea is adopted and discarded in less than six months, you’d think someone should have recognized the problem.
My other problem with everyone thinking alike, and therefore not needing many advisors is that it seems to me that every time people start talking about unity, that unity always involves thinking the way those people already think. Of course, they think they’re right. They’d be fools if they advocated thinking a way they believed to be wrong, but everyone checking their brains at the door is not a sort of unity that I think any group should have.
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