ooooh Oxford!

I really hate it when they talk like this - it's like watching people gamble with other peoples' body parts or something:

The U.S. would profit globally from a failed Obama presidency more than it would from a successful McCain presidency.

That's the sort of provocative, but plausible, statement that lies at the heart of the famous Oxford Union debates.

Disagree?

Then take it up with Kunal Basu, an Indian-born, U.S.- educated, Oxford University professor who examines how corporate reputations are made and broken. He argues that America's badly damaged brand around the world, one that has changed the course of human history, has never been about its military superiority, its economic-growth rates or even its innovative spirit.

``Where the U.S. has really been on the leading edge has been not technology but morality,'' he says.

Well, I'm with him that morality is what's needed to fix America's reputation.

After that, we part ways. I don't believe you can build a model based on your own assumptions of how people are going to behave.

And I am especially dubious of anyone claiming America's "innovations" in morality have been a good thing, blanket statement.

And, of course, I am automatically suspicious of anyone who refers to America, you, me, any nation, any political candidate, or any cause, as a "brand"*.

"Good for the brand" is the language that has come to replace the language of ethics - it is just like speaking of trust or integrity, except that it enables you to open up the possibility that basic, core tenets of what we know to be ethical may be experimented with. It's a way to dodge criticism - enabling people to re-learn what the human race already knows but never wants to believe: the only way to win trust is to earn it**.

This sort of 'theoretical - experimental' approach has two flaws:

1. it makes speculation sound more factual than it really is - and ignores the fact that such speculation has a history of being unexpectedly traumatic (to say the least).
   
   Everyone is entitled to their belief that Obama would be better than McCain - but when it is presented as expert opinion, it either deserves to be backed by real fact, or it ought to be presented as nothing more than a hypothesis, and it deserves a warning label reminding us that social theories painted onto a live canvas have been known to go wildly, wildly wrong, as often as not.
   
   To paraphrase Tevya, when you're from Oxford, they think you really know. But history tells us that "experts" have a lousy track record when it comes to complex systems, such as predictions about human behavior or the best (Utopian) system of governance.
   
   
2. it fails to recognize a line between what is fair game for tampering, vs. what is - or ought to - remain sacred. If you recognize that a child, even - or especially - one of another race or religion, is not an appropriate subject for scientific experimentation (even if you believe a white mouse is ok to experiment on) then you recognize there is something sacred about human life, even if you do not use that word.
   

There are so many assumptions packed into the "failed Obama is better than successful McCain" argument.

Like the idea that Obama won't be just like Bush. Bush is good for business sort of like letting the tellers rob the bank is good for business - it's very good for the first tellers who get in, but it's not so good for the bank in the long term. Just look at Countrywide.

I suspect the fellow making the argument has done what so many Obama worshipers has done: he is projecting his own beliefs onto Obama, the Mirror of Erised candidate:

Obama is trying a totally different tactic here. He is telling everyone what they want to hear. Not what they need to hear. He is reflecting like the Mirror of Erised, a magical item from the world of Harry Potter.

...

...What really bothers me is all those ‘present’ votes. They were calculated to keep Obama as much a blank page as possible, so people could reflect their deepest desires onto his vague positions and see what they want to see.

I’ve seen pols try and blur their positions before, but nothing like this...

The marketing expert apparently looks at Obama and thinks, even if he fails, we'll be better off by all the measures that I value. But a model can't ever be better than its assumptions - assumptions like the crazy-talk idea that Obama will be successful even if he isn't because he is moral.

What I have seen from Obama so far is not the stuff they teach in ethics textbooks. Lying? Fraud? Bait-and-switch? "I've got mine so who cares about you" is not morality, no matter how pious and self-righteous your language is.

Then again, neither is writing about the fate of nations in terms of what's good for business. I wonder what this guy thinks morals are, anyway?

Free speech zones for protesters at a rally supposedly celebrating "Unity"?

PR and spin?

Not to mention the incompetence.

Let's say Obama starts a war - either deliberately or accidentally. Let's say he crashes the economy. Let's say he privatizes the entire world and entire nations (including our own) end up looking like Rezko housing. Would this still help the American "brand"?

Will it still be good for corporations when none of us can afford to buy their worthless crap anyway?

Because I fully expect Obama wants to fix us up like he fixed Chicago:

The candidate endorsed subsidies for private entrepeneurs to build low-income units. But, while he garnered support from developers, many projects in his former district have fallen into disrepair.

or, as a commenter put it at one site:

/channeling Andy Rooney on

Haven't you ever wondered why every place that has been ruled by the Democrats for decades turns into something that looks like it was a set for a post apocalyptic horror movie?

/channeling Andy Rooney off

______________________________________________________
* Given the information available today, I see no reason to trust the wisdom (or even the real intelligence) of anyone - however well educated - who thinks/assumes/wants you to believe that corporations replacing the nation-state is a good thing, to be welcomed eagerly, a thing that is not only inevitable but to be rushed into as quickly as possible.

** Here's a funny one - check this out, the latest replacement for things like ethics and principles:

Trust Enablement™ explicitly and strategically addresses stakeholders' trust requirements and reduces reliance on regulations and other tactical responses to a broader confidence problem by providing comprehensive and balanced communications systems that build and maintain trust between those who provide money and those who use it. Trust Enablement™ also reduces reliance on personal and subjective sources of trust with systems that allow reliance decisions to be based on more objective, systematized criteria.

Give 'em that barest minimum to "meet their trust requirements". The letter of the law (as opposed to the spirit of the law) guarantees the people you work with will always do exactly what is required - but not one bit more.