{"id":10217,"date":"2024-11-13T15:46:55","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T15:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=10217"},"modified":"2024-11-13T15:47:22","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T15:47:22","slug":"the-good-enough-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/13\/the-good-enough-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Good-Enough Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Best is Not Enough<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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When we chase after greatness, who and what are we leaving by the wayside?<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Heidi Klumpe<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Good-Enough Life<\/em> by Avram Alpert was both what I expected and not. I expected this book to talk me out of my desire to be great, but I did not expect it to do so with a trek across ethics, history, economics, and science. I expected \u201cgood-enough\u201d would mean a life that is small and sufficient, but not that Alpert would extend this to a world with enough good (i.e., food, housing, purpose, and justice) for everyone.<\/p>

Alpert\u2019s vision for improving society is vast and, at times, vague and utopian, but what he opposes is more clear: \u201cA unifying theme cuts across much that troubles us in life. We can call this unifying theme greatness.\u201d To be clear, he is not denying that some individuals have intrinsic greatness or outlier abilities. Instead, he is concerned with how greatness is confused with poor correlates (e.g., money, fame, power), how becoming great seems like the best thing to do with our lives, and the belief that optimization produces the best outcomes. The book maps the \u201cpoisonous\u201d effects of such thinking \u201cfor ourselves, our relationships, our societies, and our planet.\u201d Alpert identifies four aspects of this thinking.<\/p>

First, \u201cgreatness\u201d is often a fiction. Society can confer greatness on the unqualified and overlook people of high value. Our desire for greatness can be at odds with our limitations and weaknesses. We often hope brilliance or wealth can fix our problems, but they do not. This is true in our personal lives, as well as in public policy. Alpert points out that waiting for a \u201cgreat\u201d technical breakthrough to address climate change can overlook non-technical stumbling blocks in politics; hoping that more \u201coptimal\u201d use of resources will sustain us overlooks the human tendency to increase consumption apace.<\/p>

The second problem is inequality. A key point in the book is that greatness justifies social stratification. Adam Smith, when describing the \u201cinvisible hand\u201d of a free market, predicted financial inequality would exist because successful individuals will selectively enrich themselves or because useful technology is held by a privileged few. This is acceptable to Smith because the greatness of a few will uplift society as a whole, but Alpert thinks such inequality can have dangerous consequences, as \u201c[e]conomic plutocracy inevitably subverts political democracy.\u201d<\/p>

A third problem of greatness is that it requires some competition to determine who is great, and \u201cwinner-take-all\u201d competitions are wasteful. A large collective effort benefits only a single winner, and the \u201closers,\u201d no less great, are left with nothing. While reading, I thought of the Tour de France, where everyone cycles impressively fast for hours but mere seconds define the difference between a stage win and obscurity. Similar phenomena can keep less well-known scientists from funding their research (the \u201cMatthew effect\u201d) or bankrupt small businesses (brick-and-mortar bookstores in the age of Amazon). Alpert is also leery of what anointing \u201cwinners\u201d enriches in society, such as aggression or superficial motivations.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Seeking greatness turns our focus inward, and we lose sight of who our efforts are meant to benefit.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Fourth, and to me the most compelling, is that greatness is often the wrong thing to prioritize. \u201cOptimization\u201d is a ruinous approach to a marriage or parenting. Building a movement around a single charismatic (\u201cgreat\u201d) leader can limit an organization\u2019s longevity or effectiveness. Seeking greatness turns our focus inward, and we lose sight of who our efforts are meant to benefit. Perhaps most worrisome is that calling something the \u201cbest\u201d is not the same as it being \u201cgood,\u201d in the sense of being moral, healthy, or uplifting. If greatness is about the size of a person\u2019s influence, goodness concerns the nature of that influence. Alpert shows how greatness can be a misleading stand-in for goodness. For example, it is easier to maximize wealth in the name of altruism than to find the best projects to fund. It is easier to make an algorithm faster than to guarantee the quality of its outcome. This feels like an old idea, that optimization requires metrics that inevitably oversimplify phenomena and produce warped outcomes, but what felt new and impossible to evict from my mind was that trying to be the best is a way to avoid saying what you would actually like to do.<\/p>

While these problems are clear, the solutions are less so. Making all good things equally available to all people has indissoluble practical challenges. Alpert mostly advocates for more regulated markets, smaller and therefore more widely distributed rewards, or even lotteries that randomly select winners.<\/p>

Nonetheless, Alpert also argues, convincingly I find, that we cannot proceed practically until we have covered some ground philosophically. First, we need a shared vision of how much people can change. Alpert takes a lot of comfort in humanity\u2019s fundamental plasticity that makes us \u201cunconstrained\u201d by our current flaws, but acknowledges this view can be na\u00efve. He quotes David Brooks: \u201cIn the unconstrained vision, you ask: What\u2019s the solution? In a constrained vision you ask: What\u2019s the best set of trade-offs and reforms we can actually achieve? The constrained vision is wiser.\u201d Second, we need a new set of moral values. If optimization and greatness-seeking are what remain when we attempt to strip out bias and specificity, the resulting failures suggest that we need to put something back, something that can orient us toward goodness and away from profits.<\/p>

For Alpert, equality and the non-economic aspects of human flourishing are essential values for the future. What he advocates for\u2014caring for the least of these, accepting our human limits, seeking meaning over an empty greatness\u2014will not sound unfamiliar to Christians. In the Bible, we read that only God is great, and we are repeatedly commanded to care for widows and orphans. In the Old Testament, Israel\u2019s desire for a great leader, a king, brought about all kinds of suffering in the nation. Inspired by Christ, who gave up the greatness of divinity, we are supposed to \u201c[d]o nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than [ourselves]\u201d (Phil 2:3-4). Even more shocking, Jesus says directly, \u201c[W]hoever wants to become great among you must be your servant\u201d (Matt 20:26).<\/p>

I\u2019m grateful for how this book made me more sensitive to and critical of \u201cgreatness\u201d thinking in my own life. When I become concerned with how much I am winning (Will my boss like my presentation the best? Am I in the fastest checkout line?), I find myself asking whether it is good for there to be losers. I often assess new projects by considering how they will make my career great, but I now wonder if the outcomes will be good, and who they will be good for. I want to identify where optimization is supplanting other important undertakings, such as enjoyment for its own sake or inefficient but ethical projects. Lastly, if I see inequality, what\u2019s justifying it? If the answer is that everyone else will eventually<\/em> benefit, does reality bear that out? Perhaps these kinds of questions can lead us to the practical solutions that we are still missing.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Heidi Klumpe<\/strong> is a postdoc in biomedical engineering working at Boston University.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Good-Enough Life<\/strong> was published by Princeton University Press on April 19, 2022. You can purchase a copy from the publisher here<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we chase after greatness, who and what are we leaving by the wayside? Review by Heidi Klumpe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","category-newsletter","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farefwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/The-Good-Enough-Life-3D.jpg?fit=1500%2C1383&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10217"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10225,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10217\/revisions\/10225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2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