Because I Said So
Thu., October 16, 12:39 PM
Terrible words, right? Your parents said it and you swore you would never use that language with your kids. But maybe you do.
Actually, there are times when “because I said so” is appropriate. Your child is running toward danger, which he may or may not understand; you shout “stop!” He stops, because you said so. You can explain your reasons later, but he must stop then. If you have been in the habit of explaining your reasoning to your child, he knows that.
I have to digress here, but I assure you this will fit together. Several years ago, our department was in a strategy meeting discussing how to sell our product, which was related to the Jonah® concepts. Following those concepts, an implementation plan is presented in the form of a flow chart, with each section expressed as an if-then statement. It’s supposed to be logical. Listeners may attack the if-then logic or the existence of a statement by means of a “reservation”; they may not attack the presenter. In its purest form, it is a very civilized form of debate.
So the head of our department presented his plan. It went something like this:
- We will create a new class.
- If we create a new class, people will come to our class.
- If people will come to our class, we can sell them our product.
- If we sell the attendees our product, our sales will go up.
I had an immediate reservation about the inevitability of anyone’s paying to come to the class just because we had created it. Maybe he had left something out, something about the attractiveness of the class or a special price or something. He repeated his original statement in a louder voice. I asked, “If we build it, they will come?” But, not having seen “Field of Dreams,” he didn’t get the reference. (I did hear someone snicker.)
This is where you find the fallacy in the best of methods. My logic was better than his, but he outranked me, and they went ahead with his plan (and no one wanted to come to the fershluggene class).
Now current events are reminding me once more of “because I said so,” from someone who outranks me. We went to war in Iraq, and after a while, our honored president said it was over. Is it really over; people are still getting killed. But it must be over, because Mr. Dubya says so. The people in Iraq are happier now, with schools and hospitals open again. All of them, or just a few token locations? If the Iraqi people are happier, who’s shooting at our people? But they are happier; Mr. Dubya’s people even got servicemen to write letters to that effect. It’s all getting fixed; he said so.
At home, people are still losing jobs and getting into debt. Businesses are in trouble, especially small businesses where the owners don’t know about creative bookkeeping. The recession is over; Mr. Dubya said so.
How much will it help if any of us point out discrepancies? He outranks us.
