• Shuffling goals.

• Shuffling goals. Our aims are connected, shifting, and to some extent replaceable. A friend of mine wants a good job, a house, a partner, and a kid. What should she invest in first? Should she move where her lover goes, or where housing is cheapest, or where it's easiest to find a job, or where the adoption laws are loosest? How can she make long-term commitments to one of these goals while keeping open her options for the rest?

Way back in 1969 Herb Simon described a way to respond to complexity. Faced with so many unknowns, he writes, we tend to aim not for the very best solution but for something we can live with, something that's just good enough. He called it "satisficing," and with this idea challenged those rigid models of "rational man" so dear to the classical economists.

Perhaps satisficing can also explain why, if we don't reach our primary goal, we will often substitute a goal that was farther down on our list. "I realize now that my family is the most important thing to me," says the stockbroker who's not greedy enough for Wall Street. "At least I've got my health," says the Enron pensioner. "I know she's in a better place now," says the parent of a child murdered by a classmate, polluted water, or Halliburton’s war.

We see a similar shift in goals among soldiers. According to an early review of the second Iraq war by the Army War College,

Another infantryman noted:
"We were down for a while because we were in cities-- all we did was get shot at and we didn't see no civilians until like now . . . . I didn't see it at first, and then I saw the people coming back who are happy, it was like, Thank You! That really was the turning point. Now I know what I am doing."

It appears that today's soldiers are motivated in actual combat
by fighting for their buddies, but once the war outcomes become
apparent, the motivation shifts to more ideological themes . . . . Possibly, as soldiers experience a protracted deployment supporting the Coalition Provisional Authority, this motivation may shift again. (Why they fight 19).

It will be interesting to see how veterans interpret their experience ten years later.


With respect to shifting goals, as in so many fields, Halliburton has been a model world-wide. Back in the 90s the neocons were clamoring for the U.S. to establish a permanent presence in the vital Mideast region-- wonk talk for seizing the oil fields (google their "Project for the New American Century"). Once installed in the White House and Pentagon, they jumped at the opportunity 9/11 provided for invading Iraq, under the banner of the War on Terrorism. Oops! No connection between Saddam and Osama? No WMD? No worries! The real reason to invade was to free the Iraqis. O, many Iraqis have been throwing bombs instead of flowers? Well, the real real reason we attacked was to set a democratic example for the Mideast. Hmmmm . . . our Mideastern allies still abuse women and torture dissenters? A minor setback, when you take the long view (say, the next 500 years). Anyhow, it's irrelevant. The realest reason we invaded is that ol favorite, so the U.S. men and women killed since the invasion will not have died in vain.

Halliburton is not hard to figure out. With most folks it's harder to know how much the new story reflects a real shift in goals, or is meant simply to cover one's loss or failure. I've also heard people portray themselves as less noble than than they really are, probably to represent their mistakes as deliberate choices. Lucille Thornburgh used to tell of the very young woman who claimed she had a kid just to get on welfare. At that time the welfare payment for one kid was $147 a month, so her self-depiction as a greedy mercenary seems a little far-fetched. Sometimes people claim to stick with their jobs or their partners for purely materialist reasons, when fear is a much likelier motive. Their explanations may be pretty dumb; the real reasons for their choices are not.


• Sustaining stories.
Perhaps we can count preemptive rationalization as a form of satisficing. By this I mean the stories that allow us to hope while preparing us for the worst, and sustain us through the disappointments. When I first applied for a public school teaching job to replace my adult education jobs, I had to consider half a dozen significant benefits and risks. Since risks always loom large with me, I had to develop a formula that highlighted the least attractive aspects of my present position and downplayed the disadvantages of a public-school slot. It took me weeks to come to the point of being ready for a change. We think of such decisions as a logical weighing of pros and cons --add so many points for this feature, deduct so many for that-- but what I found my self doing was developing a story to help me make a decision I could live with, no matter what the outcome.

Two stories, really, one for change and one for the status quo. I reduced a whole range of variables to two competing versions of my future, and chose the one I could most easily justify in terms of how I think about myself, quite apart from the merits of the jobs themselves. In the end I chose the course by which failure would leave me the fewest regrets.

I think we find fallback stories for our political choices as well. A lot of times folks are very aware that we are taking big risks, and justify these with the importance of the cause. Sometimes we inflate the cause to excuse really reckless behavior: if we fail to kill enough people, the countries of Asia will fall to communism like dominos, Muslims will renew their conquest of Europe, we'll be forced to drive those teeny Euro cars for lack of oil . . . .

Another common sustaining story expresses that we'll keep plugging away no matter what the result. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do and all that.
Metzgar (131-2) describes how his Steelworker dad kept fighting the destructive demands of the company; even when he lost, he still felt that he’d discharged his responsibility. We see how important it is to stay the course, be patient, ride out the rough times. This is often good counsel, although with stunted or brittle personalities like Bush Junior's it risks justifying a dangerous rigidity. When the fallback story becomes more attractive than our primary aims, we might find ourselves stuck beating our heads against the wall, instead of finding a way up and over it.

Or, as the chance of success grows ever more remote, we settle for personal spiritual attainment, regardless of real world results. An anti-abortion activist friend wrote that she still demonstrates at the

‘abortion mill’ as much as possible. Nothing has changed there really, over all these years. I have come to feel that the reason this is, is that the Lord much more wants us there witnessing for Him and His truth, than that the place be closed down. That this is the ‘fruit’ of everyone’s sacrifices— making Him known to those who don’t even know He still (continues to!!) exist. At the least, this thought gives me encouragement and, I hope, perseverance (letter 7-22-02).

For others, a lot of what keeps them going is a grounded appraisal of their own power; that they can make a difference in the world, but don't need to blame themselves for every failure. I'll address some questions of responsibility and control in a later essay.

Ultimately, we all have to live with disappointments, even if they are not our fault, even if it's only for a few minutes till the men in hoods bust down the door; and we construct stories to help us do that. These can enable or block particular political paths.