OnPrincipleBlog

One of the defining decisions of the first Bush term was the President’s Executive Order ending the Federal funding of Stem Cell research. This executive decision provides a perfect highlight of Principle #1: People Are the Prime Movers.

Stem Cell research has been and will probably continue to be the new lightening rod of Pro-Life / Pro-Choice debate. The President’s decisive action established a clear line of leadership on this issue. Despite the false hopes, exaggerated claims and shoddy science, this one man - in the right position at the right time - stemmed a tide that may have led to countless thousands of destroyed embryos and a larger desensitizing ripple through human society.

Low and behold, during the intervening years since that decision, the smart money has invested in extracting stem cells from adults - negating the need to destroy embryos. In one recent study, scientists discovered that male testes are a veritable farmyard of stem cells. Apparently, the female ovaries look to provide a similarly fertile field (pun intended).

Adult stem cells taken from testicles could be a source for everything from blood vessels and heart tissue to new brain cells, report Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers.

Unsurprisingly, the combination (stem cells + testes!) caught the attention of journalists. Australia’s ABC News did a nice job of pointing out that the findings, made in mice, have a long way to go before helping people, and that women’s ovaries might provide equally adaptable adult stem cells. Scientific American noted that similar findings were made earlier in the year, so at least this isn’t a one-off.

The BBC hinted that men would be reluctant because extracting the cells would be “very painful,” but didn’t say how it’s done; apparently it’s like getting a biopsy, which I’d imagine is rather less painful than, say, heart disease or dementia. The New York Post covered it briefly — mostly, I suspect, to let their headline writers have some fun. (The result: “New Ballgame for Stem Cells”.)

On Principle,
CBass

Principle #1: People Are the Prime Movers

In the coming weeks, I will be laying out some of the foundational principles by which I analyze news, politics and current events. The first of these principles is stunningly obvious, yet amazingly elusive in identification:

All politics, current events, scientific discovery, religious expression, foreign relations and news coverage is determined by the decisions and actions of people. These people make decisions and take actions based upon their perspectives which are shaped by their past experience, personalities and preferences.

In short: World events are driven my people who are guided by perspective shaped from past experience, core personality and personal preferences.

This principle is why elections matter. The prejudices and perspectives of elected leaders, individuals shaped by personality, past experience and preferences, make decisions which impact events, shape policies and affect people.

Unintended consequences, natural disasters, cyclical markets, and a host of other complicated factors certainly have note-worthy places in history - which will relate to my exploration of future principles. Yet, time and again, the prime mover in history - the hinge upon which human events swing - is a key person or cadre of people.

Only people make the decisions and engage in the decisive actions which any logical mind ties to tides of history.

Consider the Cold War:
Liberal leaning historians often present the Cold War an inevitable battle between impersonal forces, world ideologies, which ran its natural course. I tend to think this period was marked by incredibly rich personalities making true decisions of leadership. Consider:

A. Favorite “liberal” JFK and the naval blockade of Cuba which ignited the missile crisis and which firmly established America’s ability and willingness to draw a line in the sand against communist expansion.

B. The timely trifecta of Reagan, Thatcher and the Pope which focused the combined force of their moral character and determined leadership toward the final overthrow of communism.

C. The stern determination of Lincoln who faced down civil war, bumbling generals, city-wide revolts and foreign pressure to pursue a course toward victory.

Consider News Coverage:
In a post which serves as a prequel for this one, I provided key paragraphs which explain the personal choices news casters have made in determining how they will broadcast news from Iraq. These choices, filtered through each news casters personal experiences, personality and preferences, scope the bounds of information and frame the way tens of millions of Americans think about our nation’s longest military engagement this century.

A. Charlie Gibson is a product of the Vietnam War era. When he was a television reporter in Lynchburg, Va., he had driven to Washington on weekends to march in antiwar demonstrations. And he had lost friends in that jungle war. . .

B. Katie Couric had always felt uncomfortable with the war, and that sometimes showed in the way she framed the story. . . And when the day’s Iraq events were too big to ignore, Couric made clear — in starker terms than the other anchors — her disgust with the whole enterprise.

Consider Financial Markets:

A. Who can forget the enticingly complex yet mystifyingly empty rhetoric of Alan Greenspan which came to be called, “Fed Speak”. With a carefully scripted turn of phrase, Mr. Greenspan could dispatch the global forces of capitalism toward short-terms end of either positive or negative affect.

B. Why do CEO’s receive such enormous compensation packages? It’s because business knows that despite fluctuations in massive complex markets, the seeming whims of international politics and a host of other “impersonal factors”, some CEO’s steer the ship of business to safe ports than do others. The perspective of the final decision maker can often make the difference between profit and loss. Business acknowledges and rewards this central role of the personal mover and shaker in business.

I challenge you:
As you consider current events, consider the people shaping these events. What perspectives, informed by past experience and personality, fuel and filter their minds to result in the words, relationships, decisions and actions that give shape and life to today’s events?

More importantly, embracing this principle, what will the be tomorrow’s results from today’s prime movers?

On Principle,
CBass

In the coming weeks, I will be laying out some of the foundational principles by which I analyze news, politics and current events. The first of these principles is stunningly obvious, yet amazingly elusive in identification:

All politics, current events, scientific discovery, religious expression, foreign relations and news coverage is determined by the decisions and actions of people. These people make decisions and take actions based upon their perspectives which are shaped by their past experience and personalities.

In short: World events are driven my people who are guided by perspective shaped from past experience and personality.

A recent article in the Washington Post perfectly illustrates this principle in action - - When many American’s think of the “Iraq War” or the “Global War on Terrorism” they instinctively think in terms persistently presented to them by influential people who interpret the world according to their own perspectives informed by a mixture of their own past experiences and personalities.

A few fascinating excerpts follow. Note the subtle manner by which most American’s are lead to think of the defining struggle of modern civilization - through the combined perspectives of a few people which have been shaped by their own prejudices of personality and past experience:

Charlie Gibson is a product of the Vietnam War era. When he was a television reporter in Lynchburg, Va., he had driven to Washington on weekends to march in antiwar demonstrations. And he had lost friends in that jungle war. . . Through the routine decisions of daily journalism — how prominently to play a story, what pictures to use, what voices to include — the newscasts were sending an unmistakable message. And the message was that George W. Bush’s war was a debacle. Administration officials regularly complained about the coverage as unduly negative, but to little avail. Other news organizations chronicled the deteriorating situation as well, but with a combined 25 million viewers, the evening newscasts had the biggest megaphone.

I encourage a read of the entire article for a stark, startling and educational exploration the first principle.

On Principle,

CBass