APPENDIX IV
Biases, Prejudices, and Other Hidden Assumptions
Version 1.5
Many people like to base their criticism of another’s ideas upon identified “biases” and “prejudices.” He is biased, they say, and therefore not worth believing. She is prejudiced, it is said, and therefore not worth listening to.
To make those critics’ tasks easier, I provide herewith copies of two documents. First is my personal mission statement; second is a list I immodestly call “Wade’s Rules and Principles.” Together or separate, they should provide critics with plenty of evidence as to my own biases and prejudices. Such critics should feel free to use them as they deem necessary, be it to build glass houses, windmills, impregnable bunkers, or houses of stone that no wicked wolf can blow down. As for me, I welcome all criticism, however grounded. Whether the criticism is based on my “unjustified conclusions” or my “hidden assumptions,” my arrogance, my imperfect logic, my flawed storytelling, I shall strive to listen carefully to it all, even as I also strive to follow the example of the apostle Paul,
I care very little if I am judged by you or by human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. (1 Corinthians 4: 3-4.)
(Yes, I have that bias, too.)
Document A
STATEMENT OF MISSION
My mission comes from God. I pursue it in obedience to Him. I pursue it not to serve my or others’ desires, but to serve His. In faith to His will and for His glory. As obedience to His Great Commandment.
My mission is to help people listen better.
To reduce the costs of listening. To seek, stand upon, and reshape the commons whereon quality listening can be cheap. To transform the ecology of listening so that true and righteous bridges might be built between those with different ways of understanding.
My mission requires that I strive to become a master listener. Not so I can call myself expert or accumulate wealth, but so I might provide greater value to others and aid them in our mutual listening. If others are to listen better, I must myself model best listening practices. I must listen well. I must iterate my listening. I must listen. And think. And repeat.
So shall I strive.
My mission requires that I strive to become a master teacher. If my students are to listen better to economic argument, evidence, and experience, if they are to better judge and interpret and understand economic life, if I am to help them see the virtues and limitations of economic and historical ways of thinking, I must strive for a master’s understanding of the learning process.
So shall I strive.
My mission requires that I strive to publish and be read. Listening is my apostolacy. If I am to listen better, if I am to convince others to listen better, I must speak openly and publicly. I must submit and defend my principles before the critical eyes of others.
So shall I strive.
My mission requires that I strive in both academic and business worlds. If I am to help people better listen to the details of economic and historical change, I must myself connect, deeply and broadly, both to the world of scholarship and to the everyday world of 21st-century business.
So shall I strive.
Submitted and avowed unto God, this twenty-second day of June, 2009.
/s/ Wade E. Shilts
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Document B
WADE’S RULES AND PRINCIPLES
1. Rule 1: It's for His glory. Period.
2. Rule 2 (the listening principle): Listen. Think. Repeat.
3. Sturgeon's law ("90 percent of everything is crap") applies to writing about economics.
4. Sturgeon was an optimist.
5. "Look at more stuff. Think about it harder." (quoting Andy Stefanovich)
6. If you aren't spending 80% or more of your time pursuing your mission, either you lack a mission or your priorities are screwed up.
7. The only thing Congress can be trusted to do is eff things up more. Ditto for the President.
8. Work is a four-letter word and should be censored accordingly.
9. Anyone can talk. *I* can talk. Listen to Nike instead. Just do it.
10. Short answers are at best incomplete, and, usually, wrong.
11. If the question is important, the answer is rarely obvious.
12. Experience is not a self-evident truth.
13. Never vote for an incumbent. No politician is worth the cost of another term.
14. "None of the above" can be the best choice.
15. "It's not about winning an argument; it's about convincing you to agree with me.
16. Nouns and verbs work. Adjectives and adverbs bore.
17. Subject. Verb. Object. That's all a sentence needs. And sometimes subject and verb are optional.
18. (The sympathy principle.) If you're not interested in something I'm interested in, what makes you think I'm going to be interested in you?
19. It ought to be the words that matter, not the person. That you are a Senator of the United States doesn't mean a damn thing to me just because you make me buy the shoes you keep shoving in your mouth.
20. Everyone's an asshole from time to time. Even me. Even you. Get over it.
21. Feel free to be thin-skinned and take offense. Just don’t expect me to worry about it when you do.
22. If you don't pay attention to the words you use, neither will anyone else.
23. Bad habits are harder to break than good ones. Just look at me.
24. The goal isn't having your opinion heard. It's having your opinion persuade.
25. Anyone can publish. Getting listened to is another matter. So is being worth listening to.
26. (Orwell principle.) Diction is more than semantics. Word choice has consequences. Choose your words. Or lose your choices.
27. "Big picture" research (inter-disciplinarity, synthesis) can't follow the same rules as discipline-centered research.
28. Any clown can figure out something that is necessary. The trick is figuring out what is sufficient.
29. Live like an entrepreneur, not like a lawyer.
30. Discernment is about judging information, not people.
31. Of course there are bad questions. Dumb questions, too. Wisdom doesn't come from constantly asking questions. Wisdom comes from knowing when to ask and when not to ask.
32. Saying "in my opinion" is redundant. You wrote the sentence. Of course it's your opinion.
33. If it's someone else's opinion, tell me that. Otherwise, see previous rule.
34. If I cannot accomplish what I believe needs doing in my classes, I should not be teaching at Luther College. Or anywhere.
35. 21st century educators must provide their students with opportunities for developing "next order" skills. If they fail to do so, they are overpaid.
36. A passion should be a six-day-a-week habit. And if your passion is your mission, it should tempt you to make it a seven-day-a-week one.
37. I'm not a content provider. I'm an apostle Ifof ways of thinking.
38. I'm not an encyclopedia. That's what libraries and the Internet are for.
39. My field is not economics or even economic history. My field is the teaching of economics and economic history.
40. Every good idea is expensive to listen to. What makes an idea good is not how cheap it is, but how much more than its cost it is worth.
41. The problem with ignorance is not a lack of knowledge. It is the corruption of thinking that ignorance encourages.
42. Don't call me a generalist. I'm a synthesist. A generalist seeks to do many things. A synthesist seeks to do only one: to put together.
43. It's not about how much you know. It's about how well you think.
44. There's a reason they call the PhD a "terminal degree." Most people holding it have killed their brains.
45. It's not how much you know about the past that matters, it's how well you use the past.
46. The important things I learned in grad school are too important to leave the monopoly of those with advanced degrees.
47. Definitions are for working with, manipulating, playing with, and putting to use. Not for memorizing.
48. There is no mainstream. And no middle class. And both of these absences are good things.
49. Judgment develops only by its exercise. Everyone is born with the ability to think. No one is born with the ability to think well.
50. "Always," "never," "everything," and "nothing" are dangerous words. People who believe in them are made-to-order dupes of politicians, hack journalists, spammers, and other charlatans.
51. (Emerson principle) Any small mind can insist on consistency. Large minds admit paradox and contradiction.
52. Give options, not rules.