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Great in Theory

Entry 2262, on 2023-03-07 at 20:06:06 (Rating 4, Philosophy)

OK everybody, pay attention! I think I have identified another reason why the state of our current world is not as good as it should be, and by that I mean pretty terrible. It involves the difference between theory and practice, and how the two are often not correlated.

Before I try to justify this view, let me give you one of my favourite quotes. It is this: "in theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice they are not".

In the more rational forms of human endeavour, we have mechanisms to keep these two branches of epistemic activity in sync with each other. In particular, in science the two are strongly connected, but each has limited value without the other. Sometimes theory might precede practice (or observation or experiment in scientific terminology) and in others a practical finding of some sort might come first.

For example, when it was observed that the universe was expanding, through measurements of redshift, a theory was required to say why, and the Big Bang naturally fit that observation. So a practical scientist, in this case an observer, Edwin Hubble, said this is what I see, and asked what theory might explain it.

In other situations, the theory comes first. The Higgs Boson was hypothesised many decades ago, but that theoretical prediction could not be taken too seriously until it was backed up by practical observation at the Large Hadron Collider, which has now happened.

So where rationality, and a genuine search for truth, is involved, in the most obvious case through science, a theory is of limited use until it is confirmed by practice. String Theory might be the best example of this currently, where the theory has looked great for decades now, but (as far as I am aware) it has never been supported by a single experiment or observation.

My point is, theory is often used as the basis for action without any real acknowledgement of whether it is valid in practice, and this is particularly obvious in some fields, especially politics and management. You didn't think I would write a blog post without taking the opportunity to criticise two of the most revolting forms of human activity, did you?

There are mechanisms in most organisations, and even in whole countries, to enable this feedback for allowing practice to guide theory, but they are usually either totally ineffective or are minimally effective.

The classic example in organisations is "consultation". But the fact is, whenever this word is mentioned most people just have a good laugh, because everyone knows it is completely disingenuous in most cases. Consultation is sought, for sure, because it is often an obligation, but it is very rarely acted on, or if it is, the need for compromise is often built in to the initial theoretical action which is diminished slightly as a result of consultation, but only to a level which was about what was being aimed at in the first place, before the initial plan was escalated.

And in the case of countries, the correction mechanism might involve the electability of a government which tries to implement overly theoretically (or ideologically in most cases in politics) policies. When that happens, a government too involved in ideology can be voted out. The practical effects of the theoretical policies are observed by the electorate, and acted on. But again, this is often limited, because a lot of damage can be done before an election is held, and certain ideologies have a habit of affecting multiple political parties at once, resulting in no real choice.

Of course, it usually becomes very apparent, very quickly, when a new policy, law, or reorganisation comes into effect and is counterproductive, but the people who support these actions very rarely acknowledge that there is a problem. After all, our "leaders" (I put that in quotes, because there is no way these people lead me in any way, and I suspect the same applies to many others) rely on a false narrative of competence to retain the illusion of leadership. When that deception fails they are exposed as being just as flawed as anyone else, in fact more so in most cases.

So to avoid the "emperor has no clothes" phenomenon it is important our leaders (I'll dispense with the quotes for now) don't admit to any major errors, even when these are readily apparent to everyone. It's a form of gaslighting really, where people think they see a flaw, but because it is never admitted to, they just assume they are missing something. Maybe that they aren't seeing "the big picture".

And that phrase "the big picture" is another sign that theory (or put less generously, ideology) has triumphed over practice (or put more generously, reality). When people make very reasonable objections to those big theoretical changes, they are often accused of not seeing the big picture. And there is some merit in that, because there often is a big picture, but if a positive big picture results in hundreds of bad small pictures, then maybe the big picture doesn't have the pre-eminence it might be initially given.

There's a very simple solution to all of these problems. Our leaders need a greater level of both humility and practicality. They need to admit that results at the small scale matter and that they might need to adjust their conceptual frameworks accordingly. They need to adjust their policies based on reasonable feedback, and to plan for gathering that evidence which might support or disprove their theoretical ideas.

For example, if we wanted to reorganise a country's health system to a more centralised one, we shouldn't just say it will result in efficiencies of scale and leave it at that. We should say that might happen, but against that is the result that systems will be managed at a level which is less aware of the requirements of individual communities, and that could easily lead to less efficiency.

At the very least any changes should be made at a scale which can be reversed if the actual outcomes aren't as positive as expected. So many small changes, each being monitored for improved outcomes, could be made, eventually leading to genuine improvements.

Notice that this process blends the preferences of conservatives to maintain things as they are, while allowing for the changes liberals often demand, so politically it might be a more sustainable strategy than having massive changes made by liberals followed by a period of fixing the inevitable negative consequences by conservatives.

I ask you, who could possibly deny that this is not a good idea? But will it ever happen? Well no, that is not likely, because the system we currently use to select leaders encourages people who are both ignorant and arrogant.

According to the Dunning-Kruger Effect, only people with lower levels of knowledge truly have the confidence to think they are right about anything. Anyone with greater knowledge usually understands how complex and nuanced the reality is, and would usually not make a good leader in the traditional sense (but I would say make a great leader in reality, assuming we even need leaders, which I deny)

So ignorance breeds arrogance, and that, in turn, creates more ignorance through failure to acknowledge alternative views or to even see that reality is far less simple and less certain than they choose to believe.

So I guess we had better get used to a constant stream of bad decisions being made by people completely unsuited to the task. Once you recognise this process, the problems with the world become very easy to understand. Easy to understand, but frustrating to live with!

Comment 2 (7395) by OJB on 2023-03-08 at 22:06:34: (view earlier comments)

I just call it like I see it. Managers aren't the only group of people I have problems with, of course, but arguably they create the most harm. And when I discuss management with others, my opinion seems to be also quite widely held by others.

Comment 3 (7396) by Anonymous on 2023-03-13 at 12:17:31:

So, across how many employers/organisations does your experience with bad managers span?

Comment 4 (7397) by OJB on 2023-03-13 at 19:20:13:

In my direct experience: not many. But I have discussed this with many people and the opinion is almost unanimous and negative. Just talking to an ex-Amazon programmer today, who said most of his work was great... except for the management.

Comment 5 (7398) by Anonymous on 2023-03-13 at 19:29:40:

Well guess what, in my workplace the management is great, so maybe your experience is not typical.

Comment 6 (7399) by OJB on 2023-03-13 at 19:52:25:

Wait... wait... let me guess! You work in a small company (or at most medium size) right? Not a large company or organisation. Am I right?

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