| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"stoney" |
| Date: |
19 Feb 2005 09:47:18 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Are Americans successful because they're nuts? |
http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2113568>1=6082
moneybox
Crazy Rich
Are Americans successful because they're nuts?
By Daniel Gross
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2005, at 1:50 PM PT
Are Americans rich because they're nuts?
That's the thesis of a new book, The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between
(a Little) Craziness and (a Lot of) Success in America, by John D.
Gartner, a psychotherapist and clinical assistant professor of
psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. America may
be the dominant force in the global economy because we're a nation
made of somewhat Crazy Eddies—gonzo businessmen and -women who may be
genetically predisposed to take big-time risks.
It sounds right. Creativity and genius have often been linked to
mental illness. Many virtuoso painters, composers, and architects are
a little kooky. Why not entrepreneurs? Gartner identifies "hypomania"
as a benign form of madness—manic without the depressive. Here's how
they present: "Hypomanics are brimming with infectious energy,
irrational confidence, and really big ideas. They think, talk, move,
and make decisions quickly. Anyone who slows them down with questions
'just doesn't get it.' " They find it hard to sit still, channel their
energy "into the achievement of wildly grand ambitions," feel a sense
of destiny, "can be euphoric," have a tendency to overspend, take
risks, and act impulsively, and with poor judgment. They are "witty
and gregarious" and possess a confidence that makes them charismatic
and persuasive. It sounds a lot like Jim Clark, the founder of
Netscape and animating character of Michael Lewis' The New New Thing.
Or like President Bush.
Gartner concludes that many of the components of the archetypal
American character—optimism, entrepreneurial energy, religious
zeal—fit the hypomanic profile. Perhaps, he posits, this nation of
immigrants has a gene pool of hypomanics. Immigration may select for
it. After all, who else would be eager to embark on a dangerous
journey, convinced he could make it in the New World? As a result,
Gartner writes, Americans may be "culturally and genetically
predisposed to economic risk."
Gartner sets out to prove his case not through contemporary case
studies or the aggregation of vast quantities of data, but through
brief, lively studies of key hypomanics from five different centuries.
Christopher Columbus, the "messianic entrepreneur," had divine
ambitions. Some of the first settlers of the United States were
"protestant prophets"—John Winthrop of Massachusetts and Roger
Williams in Rhode Island. Alexander Hamilton fearlessly charged
British positions at Yorktown and wrote The Federalist papers in a
series of all-nighters. His hypomania "was an essential ingredient in
his accomplishments. And his accomplishments were an essential
ingredient in the creation of America." Andrew Carnegie, the hypomanic
steel baron, feverishly built up an industrial empire and then spent
the rest of his life trying to change the world. More recent
hypomanics might include movie-studio moguls David Selznick and Louis
B. Mayer, and geneticist Craig Venter, who founded Celera and set off
a race to decode the human genome.
It's a fun read. But Gartner's diagnosis overlooks the more rational
factors that were crucial to the settling of America and the
construction of our unique economic and business culture. The British
Protestants who crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the 17th century came
for God, but they also came for the cod. And the timber and the
tobacco. By the time John Winthrop arrived in Massachusetts,
non-dissenting settlers—economic opportunists, not prophets—had been
farming and trading in Jamestown, Va., for more than 20 years.
Immigrants like Hamilton, Carnegie, and David Selznick's parents may
have been hypomanic. But whether you were a landless peasant in
Ireland in the 1840s, a Jewish cobbler in Russia in 1910, or an Indian
computer programmer in the 1980s, the decision to move to America made
profound economic sense. America had cheap land in abundance. The
opportunities—if occasionally overblown—were real. So was the
infrastructure that provided for the rule of law, capital markets, and
the protections of minority rights.
In fact, practicality and realism have coexisted with messianism and
utopianism in the American experiment from the very beginning.
Benjamin Franklin was almost certainly hypomanic by Gartner's
reckoning, but he was also one of the most relentlessly practical
Americans of the 18th century. The U.S. economy has been distinguished
by hypomanic booms and busts and by the creative destruction that lies
at the heart of entrepreneurial capitalism. But it's also
distinguished by durable systems and institutions that are emblematic
of our distinct style of managerial capitalism—the Federal Reserve and
the New York Stock Exchange, our telecommunications networks, and
Procter & Gamble. Such institutions are not the work of flamboyant
geniuses but of tons of thoughtful, far-sighted, and average
Americans.
To put it another way, hypomanics instigate, but they rarely build
institutions that outlive them. The necessary counterpart to the
hypomanic Henry Ford was Alfred P. Sloan, who built General Motors.
Andrew Carnegie could never have monetized his fortune were it not for
the constantly rationalizing financier J.P. Morgan. In every
generation, cooler-headed executives and entrepreneurs enter a field
after a burst of creativity and build businesses and fortunes by
imposing the discipline and order the creators may have lacked. Steve
Jobs of Apple (who certainly has hypomanic tendencies) is an innovator
who has become a billionaire, made long-term investors wealthy, and
helped spread the personal computer revolution. But the same can also
be said of the preternaturally well-adjusted Michael Dell.
Executives who chew the scenery may suck up attention, revolutionize
industries, and symbolize American capitalism. But they're not
particularly good for companies' long-term health, as Harvard Business
School professor Rakesh Kurana's argues in his book Searching for a
Corporate Savior: The Irrational Quest for Charismatic CEOs. No
country produces as many turnaround artists, bankruptcy specialists,
and temporary CEOs as America does.
The late 1990s Internet boom was the golden age of hypomanic CEOs. But
how many of their companies still survive? Perhaps the most prominent
and successful Internet executive is eBay's distinctly unhypomanic Meg
Whitman. So, yes, Gartner is right that hypomanic first movers matter
a lot, and that we need a few more. But we shouldn't forget the huge
contributions of the more sober-minded folks who follow behind and
pick up the pieces.
Daniel Gross (www.danielgross.net) writes Slate's "Moneybox" column.
You can e-mail him at moneybox@slate.com.
(c) 2005 Slate
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Are Americans successful because they're nuts? |
19 Feb 2005 05:13:59 PM |
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Are Americans successful because they're nuts?
When I've dealt with small-business people, I've
found that the pressure to succeed can be so great
that they oft come unglued and can be called "nuts".
I remember one guy for instance, he was the co-head
of a small company and one day during a particularly
difficult time when his scruples were disappearing
and he was beset with guilt for something fairly
evil he had done, he actually came to work dressed
in head to toe RED PAJAMAS.
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