The American "Can't Do" Culture

In the aftermath of the terrible slaughter of 32 students and professors yesterday at Virginia Tech, there have been a number of calls to action on staunching the proliferation of guns, and counter-calls for more guns. My son came home from school, and the first thing he asked me was "Is it true that the first thing Bush said after the Virginia Tech killings was he supported gun rights?" The answer was - Yes, he did. The blood was still wet on the ground and ideologues were commending the killer for possessing (although not using) guns.

If it appears like madness prevails in America to us Americans, it is a certainty to those outside of America...

I've found UK media like the BBC and The Times to carry more balanced, thorough and thoughtful coverage of what happened than America with it's "survey of the moment" swing media can accomplish. The view from our brothers and sisters across the sea is that we are a society driven by our passions for individuality to such a degree that all sense of community, compassion and sense have vanished. "But why, we ask, do Americans continue to tolerate gun laws and a culture that seems to condemn thousands of innocents to death every year, when presumably, tougher restrictions, such as those in force in European countries, could at least reduce the number?" Gerald Baker of the Times asks us. His answer is that "the simple truth is that Americans themselves remain unwilling to take drastic measures to restrict gun availability. This is rooted deep in the American belief in individual freedom and a powerful suspicion of government."

But the answer is simpler than that. Speaking as an American, I've watched our cultural watchward devolve from "can do" to "can't do". We can't find a resolution to the problem of weapon proliferation not because there are not many different ways to handle the problem -- there are many things we could do short of banning all guns or arming babies -- but because we'd rather be "right" than good. Or as Larry Ellison famously put it, "It’s not sufficient I succeed. Everyone else must fail."

It's not easy to be an American when you have to live up to (or down to) the standards of Larry's beloved philosopher-king Genghis Khan: either win and live or lose and die. So most people don't even play the game -- they opt out, using "can't do" as an excuse to avoid the high-stakes risk of failure. We "can't do" anything about (take your choice): guns, immigration, poverty, hate, globalism, climate change, and so forth.The student-killer who destroyed so many lives yesterday took the opposite tact -- he gambled that if he was a loser, he'd make everybody a loser. Same game, just a different outcome.

Technology isn't immune to this disorder. When the Columbia was destroyed, the first reaction from NASA was one of "Oh well, what could be done?" before any real analysis had even been done. I was so shaken by this response -- this wasn't the NASA that I knew -- that I penned a letter to Aviation Week asking why people were so eager to say that nothing could have been done before the facts were in. It was published as the lead letter in the Columbia disaster issue, and I was told later that it had influenced a number of people to press for a complete investigation. During that investigation we found out why NASA had responded in such a manner -- the entire organization had become so disfunctional that mandatory meetings were ignored, studies were dismissed, concerns from engineers were squelched, and management was locked in political battles over fiefdoms and budget. Nobody was minding the store. And everyone was engaged in avoiding blame (becoming the loser). Can't do was in full swing.

In the computer biz, "can't do" is a mantra. We can't innovate because we "can't do" technology cheaply. It doesn't matter that historically technology starts out expensive and moves towards a triple-zero point (zero volume, cost, power) only after extensive deployment and use. Outsourcing is a good idea when you carefully plan and manage your contracts, and have a good product roadmap, but it can't save you from unsound or premature business decisions. The hope is that once it is outside the country and the scrutiny of coworkers and investors, nobody will notice if anything goes wrong. Can't do is great political cover.

Can't do empowers the current business practices of outsourcing innovation long before it becomes viable or profitable in a desperate attempt to cushion the shock of bottom-line development costs. The result is simply technology transfer to other countries, where they may or may not use it for their own purposes. But with it out of sight and mind, nobody will be blamed when it fails. And what do we as Americans get out of it? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Can't do saves the jobs of the incompetent and the devious.

The Internet is as old as the space shuttle program. It wasn't invented yesterday, nor did it become the powerhouse for companies like Google until it had been in use for over 20 years. Yet we still want that return on investment now, or else we'll be considered losers in the game of life.

And so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut would say. We let "can't do" ruin our lives and excuse efforts to bridge viewpoints, instead rushing for safe harbors to hide while ceding the public discourse to extremists.

Please, everybody. Can't we try for a little "can do" for a change? I know that's risky, but isn't it better than hiding away while bullies kill our kids and steal our future?

And to our concerned cousins across the sea, I ask you for your compassion. It's hard enough for an addict to kick a heroin habit, much less a national disorder.