Leslie Pratch on Business, Culture, and the Economy

By Leslie Pratch

The belief in that hard work and success were virtues as measured by socioeconomic status is certainly not unique to America as we have entered a global economy. What is unique to America is the believe that growth is sustainable. That belief must be challenged. New means to generate growth must be created in order to devise the most prudent, compassionate, and enduring civil liberties, communal well being, and social goods from which we all benefit.

The two dominant strains of thought in the United States have historically been Calvinist and Jeffersonian.  Niebuhr writes on the problem of the “resolution of potential conflicts of interest and power in the community, the strain of thought most perfectly expressed by James Madison combined Christian realism in the interpretation of human motives and desires with Jefferson’s passion for liberty.”  The difference between Madison and Jefferson “is symbolized in the distinction between the presuppositions of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution of the United States” (which Jefferson and Madison inspired).

Jefferson’s vision was of a harmonious society in which government would interfere as little as possible with the economic ambitions of the individual.  He presumed these ambitions would be moderate and that satisfying them without friction with the neighbor would be guaranteed by the wide opportunities of the new continent.

Madison feared the potential tyranny of government as much as Jefferson; but he understood the need for government much more.  The Constitution protects the citizen against abuses of government, not so much by keeping government weak as by introducing the principle of balance of power into government.

Madison’s most persuasive arguments for a federal union was that a wide community would so diffuse interests and passions as to prevent the welter of political strife that plagues small communities.

Some of our social peace must be accredited to the fluid class structure of American society.  I believe that the American class structure will become more fixed and the stratification of wealth will only increase as we move toward the final limits of an expanding economy.  The fluidity of the American class structure is primarily the consequence of a constantly expanding economy. How can Americans have the opportunity to jump levels of wealth if our government does not remain a democratic republic?

Common sense tells us that democracy itself prevents either the Jeffersonian or the Calvinist strategy from being carried through to its logical conclusion. The essence of each position contains a core truth; yet each position becomes false, precisely when it is carried through too consistently.

The element of truth in each creed is required to do full justice to human being’s real situation. Every basically healthy human being has the potential in theory to transcend the social and historical process sufficiently to make it possible to contrive, deliberately, common ends of life, particularly the end of justice. Inadvertence and the coincidence of private desires one their own will not achieve common ends.

On the other hand, we are simply and inevitably too immersed in the turbulence of interest and passion in history. If we survey the total process, it is is too short-term and limited to justify the endowment of any group or institution of “planners” with complete power.  The disinterest of their idealism and the pretensions of their science is suspect.  The controversy between those who plan justice and order and those who trust in freedom to establish is irresolvable (a theme to which I return again and again). This belief underscores the difficulties of achieving an integrated self, as each individual is pulled by self interest and concern and concern for an interest in others. Every healthy society will live with that tension and will prove its health by preventing either side from gaining complete victory.

The Puritan attitude toward the expanding opportunities of American life were historically three elements of the situation, of which two were derived from the creed of our Founding Fathers, and the third from the environment, gradually changed The third element was that once the first hardships had been endured it became obvious that the riches of the New Continent promised remarkably high standards of well-being.  These were accepted as “uncovenanted mercies.” As Niebuhr states in The Irony of American History:

“We live in a more comfortable and plentiful manner than ever we did expect.”  This confession exposes the lack of material motives among the first Puritans and their gratitude for the unexpected material favor of the new ecology.  From that day forward, it has remained one of the most difficult achievements for our nation to recognize the the good fortune upon which our situation rests.

If either moral pride or the spirit of rationalism tries to draw every element in an historic situation into rational coherence, and persuades us to establish a direct congruity between our good fortune and our virtue or skill we will inevitably claim more for our contribution to our prosperity that the facts warrant.  This has remained a source of moral confusion in American life.  For, from the later Puritans to the present day we have variously attributed American prosperity to our superior diligence, our greater skill or (more recently) to our more fervent devotion to the ideals of freedom.  We thereby have complicated our spiritual problem for the days of adversity which we are bound to experience.

In Calvinist thought prosperity as a mark of divine favor is closely related to the idea that it must be sought as part of a godly discipline of life.  The thesis of Max Weber and Talcott Parsons thesis in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was that the “intra-mundane asceticism” of Calvinism was responsible for creating the standards of diligence, honesty and thrift which lie at the foundation of our capitalistic culture. The descent from Puritanism to Yankee in America was a rapid one.  Prosperity which had been sought in the service of God was now sought for its own sake.

Jeffersonians believed prosperity and well-being should be sought as the basis of virtue.  The Puritans regarded virtue as the basis of prosperity rather than prosperity as the basis of virtue.  The fusion of these two forces created a preoccupation with the material circumstances of life which expressed a more consistent bourgeois ethos than that of even the most advanced nations of Europe.

In 1835 De Tocqueville wrote “American preachers are constantly referring to the earth.  … To touch their congregations they always show them how favorable religious opinion is to freedom and public tranquility; and it is often difficult to ascertain from their discourses whether the principal object of religion is to obtain eternal felicity or prosperity in this world.”

De Tocqueville contrasted the extroverted activities of our “democracy” with the purer culture of the more traditional world. In ascribing preoccupation with the material basis of life to democracy de Tocqueville may not do justice to all aspects of the issue but he does put his finger on an unsolved problem of our democracy.

The character of our particular democracy was founded on a vast continent, expanding culturally with a seemingly-endless expanding frontier. Certainly this character created new frontiers of opportunity when former geographic frontiers ended. We used to believe, implicitly, ethical and social problem of a just distribution of the privileges of life would be solved by increasing the privileges that make an equitable distribution easier, or which render a lack of equity less noticeable. In this abundance the least privileged members of the community are still privileged, compared with less wealthy members.

Yet our culture has paid a considerable price for improving social tensions by constantly expanding production.  It has created illusions about the ease with which the optimization of interests of the individual and society can be made on a social basis.  These illusions make our religious, our secular, our social, and our political theories sentimental. They have also created a culture which makes “living standards” the final norm of the good life.

What do you think? Is growth sustainable?

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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist who trained at Northwestern Medical School with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors and private equity investors to select and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919 or email her at leslie@pratchco.com or visit www.pratchco.com.

By Leslie Pratch

In The Irony of American History, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that Lincoln’s “brooding sense of charity was derived from a religious awareness of another dimension of meaning than that of the immediate political conflict.”  “Both sides read the same Bible and pray to the same God.  The prayers of both could not be answered – that of neither has been answered fully.” His thinking reflect the psychological autonomy and integrative capacity so fundamental to the active coping style. Posts speaking to these twin characteristics will appear later this year. Niebuhr continues:

Lincoln’s awareness of the element of pretense in the idealism of both sides was rooted in his confidence in an over-arching providence whose purposes partly contradicted yet not irrelevant to the moral issues of the conflict.  “The Almighty has His own purposes.” Yet he also saw that such purposes could not annul the moral purposes of men who were “Firm in the right as God gives us to see the right.”  This combination of moral resoluteness about the immediate issues with a religious awareness of another dimension of meaning and judgment must be regarded as almost a perfect model of the difficult but not impossible task of remaining loyal and responsible toward the moral treasures of a free civilization on the one hand while yet having some religious vantage point over the struggle.  Surely it was this double attitude which made the spirit of Lincoln’s, “with malice toward none; with charity for all” possible.  There can be no other basis for true charity; for charity cannot be induced by lessons from copybook texts.  It can proceed only from a “broken spirit and a contrite heart.”

Good and evil are always intertwined in history.  Tragic choices and dilemmas abound.  The Christian (and perhaps the Jewish though I would want to check out this surmise with a Jewish scholar) faith does not regard the tragic as the final element in human existence.  Niebuhr believed that the tragic motif is subordinated to the ironic one because evil and destructiveness are not inevitable consequence of the exercise of human creativity.  He believed that always there exists the ideal possibility that man will break and transcend the harmonies and necessities of nature yet not destroy the human race.  For Niebuhr, the destructiveness in human life is primarily the consequence of exceeding, not the bounds of nature, but much more ultimate limits.  The God of the Bible is “jealous.”  Divine jealousy is aroused by man’s refusal to observe the limits of his freedom.  There are such limits, because man is a creature as well as creator.  The limits cannot be sharply defined.  Therefore, distinctions between good and evil cannot be made with absolute precision.  But it is clear that the great evils of history are caused by human pretensions which are not inherent in the gift of freedom.  They are a corruption of that gift.  These pretensions are the source of the ironic contrasts of strength leading to weakness, of wisdom issuing in foolishness.

Reinhold Niebuhr admonishes us that irony must be distinguished as sharply from pathos as from tragedy.  A pathetic situation is usually not as fully in the consciousness of those who are involved in it as a tragic one.  A tragic choice is purest when it is deliberate.  But pathos is constituted of essentially meaningless cross-purposes in life, of capricious confusions of fortune and painful frustrations.  Pathos, as such, does not bestow nobility, though it is possible to transmute pathos into beauty by the patience with which pain is borne or by a vicarious effort to share the burdens of another.  “The situation in a displaced persons camp may be essentially pathetic but it may be shot through with both tragedy and grace, through the nobility of victims of a common inhumanity in bearing each others’ sorrows.  One who is involved in a pathetic situation may be conscious of the pathos without thereby dissolving it since the participant does not bear responsibility for it.  He is the victim of untoward circumstances; or he has been caught in the web of mysterious and fateful forces in which no meaning can be discerned and from which no escape is possible.”

According to Reinhold Niebuhr, an ironic situation differs from a pathetic one by the fact that a person involved in it bears some responsibility for it.  The fact that the responsibility is not due to a conscious choice but to an unconscious weakness. “Don Quixote’s ironic espousal and refutation of the ideals of knight errantry may be detected by the reader whose imagination is guided by the artist-observer, Cervantes.”  But Don Quixote is as unconscious of the absurdity of his imitation of the ideals of chivalry as the knights are unconscious of the fraudulence of their ideals.

In this post I am indebted not only to Niebuhr and Murdoch but also to the collaboration of Anatol Lieven and John Huslman (2006), authors of Ethical Realism. Any paraphrasing is my own and if it distorts the meaning the authors noted intended, the error is mine and inadvertent. Please let me know and I will amend immediately.

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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist who trained at Northwestern Medical School with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors and private equity investors to select and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919 or email her at leslie@pratchco.com or visit www.pratchco.com.

By Leslie Pratch

Privileged classes are maintained by the inheritance of privileges without regard to individual capacities for exploiting them for the common good. This view is most eloquently and subtly put forth by Reinhold Neibuhr in Moral Man and Immoral Society:

Classes become sharply distinguished when function is translated into privilege.  Inequalities of social privilege develop in every society and these inequalities become the basis of class divisions and class solidarity.

In modern capitalistic society the significant social power is the power which inheres in the ownership of the means of production; and it is that power which is able to arrogate special social privilege to itself.  Varying political convictions and social attitudes depend upon the degree of social power and economic privilege possessed by varying classes.  Naturally the chief difference will be between those who own property and those do not.

The social and ethical outlook of members of given classes is invariably colored, if not determined, by the unique economic circumstances which each class has as a common possession.  Economic interests are basic to class divisions.  The development of rational and moral resources may indeed qualify the social and ethical outlook, but it cannot destroy the selfishness of classes.  Moral idealism must express itself within the limits of the imagination by which men recognize the true character of their own motives and the validity of interests which compete with their own.  The imagination of very few men is acute enough to accomplish this so thoroughly that the selfish motive is adequately discounted and the interests of others are fully understood.

Dominant classes are always slowest to yield power because it is the source of privilege.  As long as they hold it, they may dispense and share privilege, enjoying the moral pleasure of giving what does not belong to them and the practical advantage of withholding enough to preserve their eminence and superiority in society.

Philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and the latter explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.

The religious conscience is sensitive not only because its imperfections are judged in the light of the absolute but because its obligations are felt to be obligations toward a person.  The holy will is a personal will.  The poetic imagination of religion uses the symbols derived from human personality to describe the absolute and it finds them morally potent.  Moral attitudes always develop most sensitively in person-to-person relationships.  That is one reason why more inclusive loyalties, naturally more abstract than immediate ones, lose some of their power over the human heart, and why a shrewd society attempts to restore that power by making a person the symbol of the community.  In religion all the higher moral obligations which are lost in abstractions on the historic level are felt as obligations toward the supreme person.  Thus both the personality and the holiness of God provide the religious man with a reinforcement of his moral will and a restraint upon his will-to-power.

The demand of religious moralists that nations subject themselves to “the law of Christ” is an unrealistic demand.  The spirit of love does not solve large and complex problems.  Even a nation composed of individuals who possessed the highest degree of religious goodwill would be less than loving in its relation to other nations.  It would fail, if for no other reason, because the individuals could not possibly think themselves into the position of the individuals of another nation in a degree sufficient to insure pure benevolence.  No nation in history has ever been known to be purely unselfish in its actions.  Selfish, brutal, and antisocial elements express themselves in all inter-group life.

Religion will always leaven the idea of justice with the ideal of love.  It will prevent the idea of justice, which is a politico-ethical ideal, from becoming a purely political one, with the ethical element washed out.  The ethical ideal, which threatens to become too purely religious, must save the ethical ideal which is in peril of becoming too political.  Without the ultra-rational hopes and passions of religion no society will ever have the courage to conquer despair and attempt the impossible; for the vision of a just society is an impossible one, which can be approximated only by those who do not regard it as impossible.  The truest visions of religion are illusions, which may be partially realized by being resolutely believed.  For what religion believes to be true is not wholly true but ought to be true; and may become true if its truth is not doubted.

The devotion of Christianity to the cross is an unconscious glorification of the individual moral ideal.  The cross is the symbol of love triumphant in its own integrity but not triumphant in the world and society.  Society, in fact, conspired to create the cross.  Both the state and the church were involved in it and probably will be so to the end.   The man on the cross turned defeat into victory and prophesied the day when love would be triumphant in the world.  But the triumph would have to come through the intervention of God.  The moral resources of men would not be sufficient to guarantee it.  A sentimental generation has destroyed this apocalyptic note in the vision of the Christ.  It thinks the kingdom of God is around the corner while he regarded it as impossible of realization except by God’s grace.

Practically every moral theory, whether utilitarian or institutional, insists on the goodness of benevolence, justice, kindness, and unselfishness.  For every moral thinker, the function of reason to support those impulses which carry life beyond itself and to extend the measure and degree of their sociability.  The measure of our rationality determines the degree of empathy, of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life (c.f., Murdoch), the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.  In each instance, Murdoch argues, a development of reason may increase the moral capacity.

The intelligent human being, who exploits available resources for knowledge of the needs and wants of his or her fellows human beings, will be more inclined to adjust his or her conduct to their needs than those who are less intelligent.  He or she will feel sympathy for misery, not only when it comes immediately into his field of vision, but when it is geographically remote. This speaks to the desirability of being fully open to one’s feelings and those of others. If you are interested, please see my post.

The ability to consider the interests of others to our own is not dependent upon the capacity for sympathy.  Harmonious social relations depend upon the sense of justice as much as or even more than upon the sentiment of benevolence.  This sense of justice is a product of the mind and not of the heart.  It is the result of reason’s insistence upon consistency.  One of Immanuel Kant’s two moral axioms:  “Act in conformity with that maxim and that maxim only which you can at the same time will to be universal” simply is the application to problems of conduct of reason’s desire for consistency.  The force of reason makes for justice not only by placing inner restraints upon the desires of the self in the interest of social harmony but by judging the claims and assertions of individuals from the perspective of the intelligence of the total community.

Normal human beings (i.e., not those suffering from psychosis or antisocial disorder) possess a sense of obligation toward the good.  Its general tendency is to support reason against impulse.  It may be strengthened and enlarged by discipline and may deteriorate by lack of use (Murdoch paraphrased again).

To cite the if not the word but the spirit of Reinhold Neibuhr:

Conscience is a moral resource in human life.  It is more potent when it supports one impulse against another than when it sets itself against the total force of the individual’s desires.  It is dubious whether the development of reason, though it increases the opportunities for the exercise of conscience, strengthens the force of conscience itself.  In that task religion is more potent than reason.  The force of egoistic impulse is much more powerful than any but the most astute psychological analysts and the most rigorous devotees of introspection realize.  If it is defeated on a lower or more obvious level, it will express itself in more subtle forms.  If it is defeated by social impulse it insinuates itself into the social impulse so that a man’s devotion to his community always means the expression of a transferred egoism as well as altruism.  Once the effort to gain significance beyond himself has succeeded, man fights for his social eminence and increased significance with the same fervor and with the same sense of justification with which he fights for his life.  This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by-product of all virtuous endeavors.  It is in a sense a tribute to the moral nature of man as well as proof of his moral limitations; for it is significant that men cannot pursue their own ends with the greatest devotion if they are unable to attribute universal values to their particular objectives.  But men are no more able to eliminate self-interest from their nobler pursuits than they are able to express it fully without hiding it behind and compounding it with honest efforts at or dishonest pretensions of universality.  Even a conscious attempt to eliminate dishonest and ambiguous motives is no perfect guarantee against hypocrisy; for there is no miracle by which men can achieve rationality high enough to give them as vivid an understanding of general interests as their own.

The family may still remains a means of self-aggrandizement.  The solicitous father wants his wife and children to have all possible advantages.  His greater solicitude for them than for others grows naturally out of the sympathy, which intimate relations prompt.  But it is also a projection of his own ego.  Families may be used to advertise a husband’s and father’s success and prosperity.  The truth is that every immediate loyalty is a potential danger to higher and more inclusive loyalties, and an opportunity for the expression of a sublimated egoism.

The larger social groups above the family, communities, classes, races, and nations all present men with the same twofold opportunity for self denial and self aggrandizement; and both possibilities are usually exploited.  Patriotism is a high form of altruism, when compared with lesser and more parochial loyalties; but from an absolute perspective it is simply another form of selfishness.  The larger the group the more certainly will it express itself selfishly in the total human community.  It will be more powerful and therefore more able to defy any social restraints which might be devised.  It will also be less subject to internal moral restraints. The larger the group the more difficult it is to achieve a common mind and purpose and the more inevitably will it be unified by momentary impulses and immediate and unreflective purposes.  The increasing size of the group increases the difficulties of achieving a group self consciousness except as it comes in conflict with other groups and is unified by perils and passions of war.  It is a rather pathetic aspect of human social life that conflict is a seemingly unavoidable prerequisite of group solidarity.

According to the prophets, moral evil lies at the juncture of nature and spirit.  The reality of moral guilt asserts itself because the forces and impulses of nature never move by absolute necessity, but under and in the freedom of the spirit (what I call the superego).

The omnipotence of God (with which Niebuhr quarrels) is the theologian’s symbol of the basic and ultimate unity and coherence of the world and runs parallel to the monistic tendencies in philosophy.  When it is unduly emphasized, moral realism and vigor are sacrificed to the ideas of unity and consistency.  Reason insists on a coherent world because it is its nature to relate all things to each other in one system of consistency and coherence.  Morality, on the other hand, maintains its vigor only if the conflict between good and evil is recognized as real and significant.  Luther, less philosophical than Calvin and more prophetic in temper, preserved the essential paradox successfully.  To him, the devil was “God’s devil.” God used him to his own ends.  “Devil thou art a murderer and a criminal but I will use thee for whatsoever I will.  Thou shalt be the dung with which I will fertilize my lovely vineyard.  I will and can use thee in my work on my vines. . . .  Therefore thou mayst hack, cut, and destroy, but no further than I permit.”  Luther significantly refused to develop the potential monism of such thought to a final and consistent conclusion.

The connotation of the myth of the fall is that sin lies at the juncture of spirit and nature in that the peculiar and unique characteristics of human spirituality in both its good and evil tendencies can be understood only by analyzing the relation of freedom and necessity, of finiteness and the yearning for the eternal.

Human finiteness stands under the perspective of the eternal and unconditioned. It explains why the contingencies of the natural order are subjected to comparison with the ideal world of freedom, and why human beings cannot accept their limitations without a sense of guilt.  The actions to which men are driven by necessities of the natural order are yet charged with guilt.  While there are moral theories which deny this element of guilt, it is nevertheless a constant experience of human life and even when it is explicitly denied it is usually covertly affirmed.  We never deal with our fellow human beings as if they were only the irresponsible victims and instruments of the forces of nature and history.

Prophetic religion attributes moral evil to an evil will rather than to the limitations of natural man.  The justification for this emphasis lies in the fact that human reason is actually able to envisage moral possibilities, more inclusive loyalties, and more adequate harmonies of impulse and life in every instance of moral choice than those which are actually chosen.  A perverse element lurks in practically every moral action. We make conscious choices regarding the lesser good. Sometimes, this perverse element dominates the action.

I will continue to develop these ideas in my next post. A caveat: In places, I may occasionally alter Niebuhr’s exact wording to make his prose more intelligible to today’s reader.

In this post I am indebted not only to Niebuhr and Murdoch but also to the authors of Ethical Realism, Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman (2006). Any paraphrasing is my own and if it distorts the meaning these authors intended, please let me know and I will amend immediately.

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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist who trained at Northwestern Medical School with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors and private equity investors to select and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919 or email her at leslie@pratchco.com or visit www.pratchco.com.

By Leslie Pratch

There is no question the fanatics of Islam have center stage and are unafraid to intimidate and kill anyone who tries speaks out against them. Unfortunately, the Muslim nations which have governments that want to control fanatics in their midst are often ill-equipped and not very effective. Then, of course, there are Muslim nations that support the fanatics. Saudi Arabia pays off certain groups, not so much because the Saudis want to support terrorism but because they are willing to do a deal so the terrorists don’t challenge the monarchy and don’t operate in Saudi Arabia. Remember: Osama Bin Laden’s rage is primarily with the Saudi Arabian monarchy. He directed the 9/11 attack at the U.S. after Saudi Arabia let the U.S. military use the country as a base for invading Iraq. Iran seems to be supporting Shiite terrorist groups everywhere and to some Iran acts like a terrorist state. It seems to me that the strife within Islam (Sunnis vs. Shiites, etc.) is just as big a problem and the strife between Islam and Israel and the West.  The fanatics are certainly willing to kill other Muslims just as readily as they are to kill Jews and Christians.

As Dr. Tanay points out, we have always had blood baths as part of human history. When certain people or groups initiate mass murder, there are forces that can stop them but are not always willing to stop them.  After all, in order to stop someone from killing, you probably have to be willing to be killed yourself. It is not an easy decision for most people or countries. The United States has certainly spent more blood and treasure than any other country trying to bring fanatics to defeat, or at least, under some control, but it is a large burden that we all want to be rid of. The silent majority in Islam is not likely to turn into the militant majority out to defeat the fanatics. I am not aware of an historic precedent where that happened. In the cases cited by Dr. Tanay it was the U.S. that defeated Germany, Japan, and Russia. We are trying again.

Religion is an historically universal phenomenon. The best explanation I have read as to why this is the case is a book called The Faith Instinct by Nicholas Wade. It is a Darwinian explanation that asserts that communities with religion out competed communities without religion for a number of reasons. Principally, religious communities were better able to manage selfish behavior, create rules that were good for the survival of the community, and, most importantly, had community members that were willing to die to protect or expand the community. The fanatics certainly are willing to die for their cause.

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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist from the Northwestern Medical School with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance from Chicago Booth and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors of public companies as well as private equity investors to assess and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919 or leslie@pratchco.com or www.pratchco.com.

By Leslie Pratch

A friend who is an expert on Central European History and a Holocaust survivor responded vehemently and negatively to Dr. Tannay’s letter. I paraphrase him as follows:

“Every sentence may be historically correct [read: every sentence is historically incorrect and I will show you exactly how]. The MOOD is incorrect. People go along with government programs because it suits their economic and political interests. For example, many Germans who acquiesced with Nazi policies did not hate Jews or want to kill them.”

Another friend, who teaches strategy at a business school, wrote:

Most interesting. I have written a few pieces for use in my classes about the brilliant strategy of the Radical Islam Terrorists, (i.e., asymmetric warfare and how the U.S. shaped a workable though exceptionally unpopular response.) The ideas noted have great import to our current administration in Washington, which has signaled a far different approach to Radical Islam than the previous group, while also stating that victory in Iraq will be their greatest foreign policy accomplishment.

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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist from the Northwestern Medical School with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance from Chicago Booth and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors of public companies as well as private equity investors to assess and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919 or leslie@pratchco.com or www.pratchco.com.

By Leslie Pratch

Another friend responded:

I believe that nothing in human cultures has done more harm than organized religion. That includes Christians, Protestants, Jews and Muslims. Exceptions: Quakers and Buddhists. Anyone who knows anything about ancient history understands that ‘peace-loving’ hardly applies to the activities of Christians, Muslims, etc. What is preached is one thing; what is done is quite another.

I do not think we will see the fires of militant Islam quenched in our time. Europe expelled them, finally, from Spain (after centuries of occupation) and they were stopped from expansion at the very walls of Vienna and at Lepanto.

If the most extreme exponents of the peace-loving and triumphalist Muslim religion get their hands on an atomic device they will use it without a second thought. That may happen even sooner than we think.

You can’t eradicate human stupidity, hate, and craving for illusions. Maybe the cockroaches will do a better job with what we leave behind of Earth.

Yours cheerfully,

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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors and private equity investors to select and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919 or email her at leslie@pratchco.com or visit www.pratchco.com.

By Leslie Pratch

One of the first responses I got in response to Dr. Tanay’s letter was by a West Point grad, who shared the following:

Thanks, Leslie. His point of view seems to lend support to aspects of the Bush Doctrine.

Many, if not all, of the stated examples were not true democracies prior to the rise of the fanatics. I believe that when each citizen has a vote, then the electorate does speak and exercises its will for [internal] peace. I believe the national security message coming from the piece out to be encourage and support democracy everywhere.

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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist from the Northwestern Medical School with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance from Chicago Booth and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors of public companies as well as private equity investors to assess and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919 or leslie@pratchco.com or www.pratchco.com.

By Leslie Pratch

A friend sent me this letter, describing it as “one of the best explanations of the Muslim terrorist situation” The author is Dr. Emanuel Tanay.

A Holocaust survivor, Dr Tanay co-authored a book about the survivors of the Holocaust. He wrote:

A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. ‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.

We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march… It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority; the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China ’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts–the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

I forwarded this letter to several friends and in subsequent posts I will share what their reactions were.

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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist from the Northwestern Medical School with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance from Chicago Booth and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors of public companies as well as private equity investors to assess and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919 or leslie@pratchco.com or www.pratchco.com.