What Were They Thinking?

A scene from a movie ten years ago just sticks in my head, so I've got to pry it out and leave it here for you.

In "The Social Network," the film about the beginning of Facebook, this scene take place in the office of Harvard President Larry Summers.  The Winklevoss twins have an appointment to protest Mark Zuckerberg's takeover/theft of their idea, presenting it as an honor code violation.  The president has a visceral dislike of the twins, calling them "A-holes" later, and is instantly put off by their appearing dressed up in blazers and ties.  He accordingly dismisses their complaint, thus setting in motion legal battles and a lot of bad publicity. What has bothered me about this is that the president's decision not to look into the situation and deal with it seems to have been based on emotion and irritation, which is less than what we expect of someone in his position.  There are so many other examples of experienced, educated professionals in positions of power and authority who similarly disappoint, and I'm sure you have seen them personally. 

Rational thinking is derailed by ignorance, prejudices, borderline personality traits, beliefs and fear.  Damage is done which could have been avoided.  Recently I saw another story about an unthought-out decision:  a woman had graduated at the top of her law school class in Chicago in the mid 1920s, and had high hopes when applying for a position at law firms.  She was told coldly that they "did not hire women," and sent packing.  A conservative knee-jerk reaction instead of a little thought -- society was changing after World War I and the adoption of the 19th and 20th amendments, and there are opportunities in such times which are lost when ignored.  A top female lawyer in the firm could have brought in significant new business from female clients in need of estate planning, in business matters or those having marital problems.

Boxed-in thinking can have a much wider impact.  It seems CIA Director J.J. Angleton was obsessed with the idea of false Soviet defectors misleading his agency, acting as double agents.  Valuable information from these defectors was ignored, and one individual was even mistreated badly due to such suspicion (he was, it turns out, genuine). The ongoing hunt for a mole inside the intelligence community also caused much pointless damage.  Ordinary police work would have revealed that the mole was their own Aldrich Ames, who, along with his wife, clearly lived too lavish a lifestyle (home, cars, etc.) for his income and visited parks at night far too often (to make coded information dead drops, of course, not to feed the squirrels).  Pervasive fear and unfounded beliefs usually drive out common sense.

Clinging to an orthodoxy of belief usually precludes clear thinking.  Herbert Hoover, intelligent, capable and educated as he was, kept to his conservative principles and declined to intervene to the extent the emergency required when the stock market crash of 1929 could have been mitigated by bolder action.  The Irish starved and died during the Potato Famine of the 1840s while effective aid was denied by those in ruling England who believed it would upset the market.  A century and a half later, economists like Laffer and others blindly perpetrate the same misunderstandings of Adam Smith. to the applause of conservatives and the misfortune of millions.  In stark contrast to Hoover, Thomas Jefferson completely and brilliantly violated his small government principles to make the Louisiana Purchase.  He might have agreed with Emerson that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.