The Great Disparity
Why the Claims of Leadership Greatness Represent a Culture of Appearances (Simulation) that Reality constantly Proves to be Incoherent.
Novelist Walker Percy wrote many decades ago,
Why does man feel so sad in the twentieth century? Why does man feel so bad in the very age when, more than in any other age, he has succeeded in satisfying his needs and making the world over for his own use?
What Percy and many others, including myself, ask is why there is such a gap between the greatness of modern science and its devastating lack of positive effects. If the COVID pandemic shows us anything it is that there is a great disparity between the claims of greatness and the proofs of greatness.
As an organizational consultant, I recognize that this disparity is not limited to science but applies to the whole of society. The disparity can be seen in economics, politics, religion, business, and the institutions of society. It could be said that the modern world is a world of appearances hiding the truth of disappointment and unfulfilled dreams.
These disparities distinguish between reality and a culture of appearances that is marketed to the public in either a kind of triumphalism or the promise of utopia yet realized. This is no different than the dystopian apocalypticist who also presents a presentation of appearances that require uncritical belief in their campaign of salvation.
As a minister, I see the marks of religion as faith in the promise of the appearance of a better future that captures the innate desire of people for a transcendent purpose for their lives.
The Lie of Heroic Leadership
I first saw this in the mid-1980s when I first began to study leadership theory. It was evident to me that there was a disparity between the CEO as the heroic leader and two phenomena.
The first phenomenon was the incoherence of the claims of greatness and success in biographies and textbooks on leaders and leadership.
The second phenomenon, years later, I came to observe the culture of leadership that exists in organizations at the level of workers and managers. Eventually, I came to describe this leadership as “a persistent, residual culture of values that persists because in it resides in the relationships of the people. “
It was later, as I began to engage the stories of those who had served their nation in military combat, that this disparity became clear to me. Ask a military veteran who has served in combat who the heroes are. They readily say, “the ones who didn’t come home.” Go into any bookstore over the past forty years, and many of the celebrity biographies, especially those of business leaders, are selling a perception that they single-handedly led their company to success. Anyone who has spent a minute with someone who works in a business, regardless of size, and you can readily tell that all organizations survive and thrive on shared leadership.
This disparity is an echo of the double movement that Karl Polanyi describes in his book published in 1944, called, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time.
“The circumstances under which the existence of this human aggregate - a complex society - became apparent were of the utmost importance for the history of nineteenth century thought. Since the emerging society was no other than the market system, human society was now in danger of being shifted to foundations utterly foreign to the moral world of which the body body politic hitherto had formed part. …
For a century the dynamics of modern society was governed by a double movement: the market expanded continuously but this movement was met by a countermovement checking the expansion in definite directions. Vital though such a countermovement was for the protection of society, in the last analysis it was incompatible with the self-regulation of the market, and thus with the market system itself.
That system developed in leaps and bounds; it engulfed space and time, and by creating bank money it produced a dynamic hitherto unknown. By the time it reached its maximum extent, around 1914, every part of the globe, all its inhabitants and yet unborn generations, physical persons as well as huge fictitious bodies called corporations, were comprised in it. A new way of life spread over the planet with a claim to universality unparalleled since the age when Christianity started out on its career, only this time the movement was on a purely material level.
Yet simultaneously a countermovement was on foot. This was more than the usual defensive behavior of a society faced with change; it was a reaction against a dislocation which attacked the fabric of society, and which would have destroyed the very organization of production that the market had called into being.”
Radhika Desai, co-editor and contributor to Karl Polanyi and Twenty-First Century Capitalism, offers this insight on Polanyi.
“Polanyi traced the crisis of nineteenth-century civilization to what he dubbed its utopian project of founding society on a self-regulating market. The words “utopian” and “project” are significant. Seeing it as a project rather than accomplished reality contributed to a momentous correction. What made it utopian, in the worse sense of the word, was that it extended the market far beyond real commodities, that is, goods produced for sale. Three elements of society’s productive organization, its substance and very conditions of possibility - land, labour and money - were also commodified. They were, Polanyi argued, fictitious commodities. Unlike real commodities, they were either not produced at all, or not produced for sale. The crisis of societies that embarked on this project was as inevitable as the project as utopian.”
If we look back over the past 150 years, we can see that this Great Disparity was always present. And present in many forms. To see it today is to recognize that there is a disparity between the pronouncements of leaders and the state of the world that we can see around us.
The Great Disparity
No one wants to talk about The Great Disparity. We recognize it and yet don’t talk about it much. It comes in many versions. There is a disparity between truth and appearance. A disparity between authority and accountability is a source of weakness and corruption in organizations. As I alluded to above, there is a disparity between the language of leadership and the actual effect of leadership.
This disparity in the context of leadership is between the glowing, aspirational language that we apply to leadership and the poor, even pathetic, state of the practice of leadership in the world.
This disparity is similar to that between idealism and reality. I see this in the world of leadership in particular.
Why, in an age of sophistication and depth of thought about leadership, where hundreds of thousands of books, articles, conferences, seminars, and coaching programs are readily available to young and old alike, that the level of respect of leaders in our society is at such a low point?
This is the Great Disparity
Of course, there are many reasons.
The first is that we are human.
The second is that we have created a society where our humanity is a liability.
As a result, leadership cannot function well where people are cogs in the machine of commerce and politics.
The Great Disparity isn’t really about leadership.
Rather, the leadership of organizations reveals to us the long slow disintegration of our society as a place for humanity to thrive. This perception has been with me for half a century.
What Accounts for This Great Disparity?
This disparity is a general discontinuity in our society. We say one thing in order to do another. The COVID pandemic was filled with this kind of dissembling of positions in relation to reality. Authority figures would make a statement then have to step back and make some other claim to either justify their previous statement or demonstrate what they said before was misunderstood.
They do not realize that what they are doing is not protecting themselves from scrutiny because criticism will always be focused on those in authority. Rather, they are disqualifying themselves as authorities.
It was clear to me throughout the COVID pandemic that the public had only two positions to take in regard to public pronouncements by those in authority. Either they are incompetent, meaning they did not know or anticipate and had no response that was adequate to a global viral pandemic.
Or, the other option was to conclude they were lying to us. The disparity between public statements and actions and the direct experience of citizens grew and grew by the month. The disparity between what was said and what was experienced has done extraordinary damage to the institutions of medicine and public health. By trying to save face and possibly avoid criminal prosecution, now any authoritative position taken by the leaders in these institutions is suspect.
A decade ago, I described a similar phenomenon as The Spectacle of the Real. I quoted then from Jean Baudrillard, who is describing what he calls a culture of simulation.
“To dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign to have what one doesn't have. One implies a presence, the other an absence. But it is more complicated than that because simulating is not pretending. "Whoever fakes an illness can simply stay in bed and make everyone believe he is ill. Whoever simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms" (Littre'). Therefore, pretending or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the "true" and the "false," the "real" and the "imaginary." Is the simulator sick or not, given that he produces "true" symptoms?” (emphasis mine)
This is the game of appearances. In one instance, it is like the child pretending not to have the pilfered cookie that is in his pocket. Dissimulation is the lie that we learn as children where we hide what we have. It is a denial of reality, based on what everyone knows is true.
Simulation, on the other hand, is an imitation of the real. Some simulators, like those that train pilots, are meant to mirror the real world as closely as possible. Other simulations are intended for the exact opposite, to create an alternative reality.
These simulations are an intentional discontinuity between an appearance and something that is real. This is what this Great Disparity is. Think of the millions of dollars spent each year to market the public persona of celebrities.
Even Baudrillard’s explanation doesn’t really provide a foundational understanding of what we are witnessing. He is simply describing what he sees. His judgment of that perception is that reality is dead, having been murdered by a culture of simulation.
The Great Disparity is nothing more than a giant, century-long marketing campaign. The culture of simulation is the heart of social media, politics, entertainment, sports, and other institutions of influence. They exist to market a perception that invites people to invest their hopes and resources in them. This is particularly true of politics.
As I wrote in The Spectacle of the Real,
“Politics has degenerated into an unreal media-driven spectacle of dissimulation and simulation. What we are given is not a story about what is real because to do so, the experts and our politicians would have to admit to their own limitations of insight and foresight.
Rather, we are given a simulacrum, a virtual story whose narrative appearance conceals a different purpose, enveloping the listener, the viewer, in an alternative world of meaning. Politics is a game of deflected attention, a sleight of hand, an allusion to the real that is an illusion. Get the public to focus on what inflames their passions, isolating them into their defensive enclaves, then we can go about the real purpose for which we were elected, to secure the next election and pass legislation that the public would not approve if they really knew. This is what the modern practice of politics has become.”
This trick of perception presents a culture of appearances as real. The message is clear that their direct relationships with family, friends, and neighbors are suspect because of disinformation. The result is that people believe whatever they are told, whatever they read, and whatever they see on the screen instead of what they know from direct experience. It has had the effect of convincing people to trust the appearance of authority instead of its impact.
The Great Disparity is a gap between the perception of what is true and what is true. When the two are the same or are aligned, then we find relationships and institutions where authenticity, integrity, and wholeness are defined and realized. The problem of The Great Disparity is not simply one of perception. Rather, it is one that is a product of how we think as beings living in the world. This is an intellectual and spiritual problem that we can each solve if we choose to change how we understand the reasons for the culture of The Great Disparity.
Knowing Ourselves and the World
The disparity that I am describing isn’t a one-to-one characterization. It isn’t a disparity between two equals. It is rather a difference between something that is whole and something that is a part of it.
You buy a dozen eggs. When you get home, you see that one of the eggs is cracked. The other eggs are fine. The disparity between the one egg and the whole dozen is a disparity that focuses our attention.
Michael Polanyi, Karl Polanyi’s brother, a world-renown chemist who later in life turned to the philosophy of science, addressed this perception of human understanding. Polanyi distinguished between the particulars of scientific understanding and the whole. As I read him, his perspective made me think of Hugh Laurie’s character Dr. Gregory House in the comedy House M.D.. In this episode, the medical team is looking at particular reasons why the young man is sick. House, on the other hand, is measuring each of those particulars against a much larger, more expansive, more holistic understanding of the human body.
Michael Polanyi’s book, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, forty years ago, opened up my awareness about the world, which ultimately led me to be able to see organizations as a whole. As a result, I could see patterns of behavior. These patterns are collections of particular behaviors that come to define how an organization functions. In every organization, The Great Disparity exists between a narrow, reductionistic individualistic perception of the organization and the organization operating as a comprehensive whole.
What I discovered is that people at all levels in an organization rationalize a problematic situation based on their own personal particular perceptions. Often this is to deny their own culpability for the problems. We saw this with the leadership of governments, pharmaceutical companies, and transnational groups who denied that they were responsible for the COVID pandemic. While at the same time claiming that they were responsible for its management. This is how The Great Disparity functions as a representation of the culture of simulation. The measurement of their effectiveness was not based on rates of infection or deaths because they turned that responsibility on to the public. We are responsible.
In an environment where a particular phenomenon is a rationalization for denying responsibility, as Michael Polanyi describes, reality is destroyed.
The answer to The Great Disparity is the recognition and development of what Michael Polanyi calls Tacit knowledge. This is the knowledge that we have that we do not know how we know it.
How do you know how to ride a bike?
How do you by hearing a single chord know what the song is?
How do you know the emotional state of someone only by catching a glimpse of their face?
How do you know when someone is lying to you if you don’t know anything about the story they are telling?
All our functioning in the world is because of this tacit knowledge. It is knowledge that indwells in us in a manner that there is no distinction between our self as a person and the tacit knowledge that is embodied in us. If you grasp this idea, you can see how rational thought, focused on specific situations, cannot be our primary point of contact with the world. It is a mechanism, a tool for utilizing our tacit knowledge to its greatest benefit. Michael Polanyi says,
“By focusing on the particulars of rational thought, we lose sight of the comprehensive whole that they are a part of.”
Maybe you can see the problem inherent in our relationships when we focus on one particular facet of a person’s personality to the exclusion of all others. As a result, we can end up destroying a relationship, like a marriage, because of our obsession with a particular behavior that becomes the measure of the whole person.
The Great Disparity begins to make sense when we see that focusing on the particular over all others is the path towards a belief in perfection or a utopian society. The Great Disparity, as it functioned during the pandemic, ended up being highly destructive of lives, communities, and society because it was viewed as an opportunity to move The Great Reset towards realization. This is what I meant in my short book, All Crises are Local: Understanding the COVID-19 Global Pandemic, when I wrote,
“The COVID-19 pandemic is a case study in a global systems breakdown. ... a system is an interdependent network of functions within a social or organizational structure.
COVID-19 is not simply a global health crisis. Public health is one function among many. As a systems crisis, the coronavirus pandemic impacts every person, organization, and community on a global scale. The crisis is impacting the economies of the world, the political cultures of nations, and the social progress that has advanced world-wide over the past century.
The question that I am asking is how to address one aspect of the system – public health – while maintaining a healthy alignment with all aspects of the system.”
This is an example of focusing on a particular without recognizing its effect on the comprehensive whole of society.
Resolving The Great Disparity
The Great Disparity operates on a global scale. It is a product of the complex dynamics of the double movement of capitalism and revolution that Karl Polanyi identified. To see that whole picture is to see that critiques of social and political ideologies do not necessarily lead to solutions. These critiques are based upon perspectives derived from a focus on particulars of society and economics. In many ways, there is no whole perspective that can be rationally understood.
What we can say, as Michael Polanyi asserts, is that “we know more than we can tell.” This knowledge is a product of living our lives rather than just thinking our lives. We live our lives at the level of intuition. In many respects, this is what Iain McGilchrist is showing us through his asymmetric two hemispheres of the brain thesis. The left brain is smaller and focused on rationality and the particulars of the world. We can have direct knowledge of these particulars. It does not mean that we can understand them in any comprehensive sense. The right brain, for McGilchrist, is larger, embodied, and more intuitive in its understanding of ourselves and the world.
In order to resolve The Great Disparity on a global scale, we need to begin at the personal level. We need to realize that we know more than we know how we know. What we know is all we need to begin to bridge the gap between the culture of simulation and the culture of reality. This tacit knowledge is richer and more comprehensive than what we consciously know.
We begin by seeking to integrate the facets of our lives into a single understanding of our lives. To integrate in this way is to become a more authentic person where people do not question where whether our words and actions are aligned.
Studying and Creating
I have begun to develop a program and a couple of books to help people develop their capacity to tap into their tacit knowledge through the Circle of Impact model of leadership.
I am making this program available only to paid subscribers. With your paid subscription, you will receive content that I am developing that will eventually end up in one of the two books that I am working on. Not only that, you get a monthly session with other paid subscribers. If you sign up as a Founder, you get two sessions a month to talk about this project or any topic that you wish.
If a team of three or more sign up, you will receive a 30% reduction in payment. This program will begin in May and extend through September. There will be a monthly team session to discuss the materials that I'll be publishing for paid subscribers.
If you have questions, email me at ed@edbrenegar.com.
I look forward to working with you.
I believe Michael Polanyi provides a perspective that brings clarity to our time.
In 1962, he delivered The McEnerney Lectures at the University of California at Berkley. Here are links to each of four lectures. They are worth your time.
History and Hope: An Analysis of Our Age
Michael Polanyi
1. The Destruction of Reality - https://youtu.be/5qepopZFqgs
2. The Realm of the Unspoken - https://youtu.be/rVx8KhsZYPw
3. The Vindication of Realities - https://youtu.be/aumrr0iYr5o
4. A Societies of Explorers - https://youtu.be/5FT-NxvE7NQ
It's helpful to see several major facets of my own sensemaking effort discussed in the way you do here. A sense that everything real is behind a veil of appearance and that what I think of as naive rationality is not the answer. Plus the role of looking inward before staking everything on interpretations of the external. This is a really helpful piece, Ed.