The Burden of Expectations

The Burden of Expectations

You have often heard people describe how they are too hard on people because they demand a lot of themselves and find that they should do likewise for others. That is a smallish dilemma when it comes to managerial oversight because one can set objective standards and allow people to perform against them such that you can always define the parameters of success based on how the universe you are trying to guide is able to collectively perform. In my University teaching this is normal practice and we all know it as grading on the curve. You basically establish a mean performance level and try to insure that the distribution of grades fall in a statistically appropriate manner around that mean. Many people do not like either grading or being graded on a curve where others rely on it. Is it fair for someone of advanced capabilities to set a standard that no one can ever meet and then risk demotivating people by telling them that they are barely making the grade in their efforts? Some would say that setting the bar high is better because people who strive for higher standards achieve better results on an absolute basis. That thinking is very much a “spare the rod and spoil the child” way of thinking where the curve is the Theory Y nurturing and motivating way to drive results. My sense is that there are good and bad ways to do both and that some people are naturally prone in one direction or another.

I am often reminded of my friend who married a Russian woman who he imported directly from Moscow when she had little English language skill. I asked her what she saw as the biggest difference between Americans and Russians. Her answer through broken, heavily accented English was crystal-clear. She said that in America, if you were not smiling, people would stop and ask you what’s wrong. In Russia, if you were smiling they would ask you what was going on. The expectation in America is for happiness. In Russia, she felt the expectation was for happiness to be the exception, not the rule. Of course this is not just an issue of nationality or cultural orientation, but also has a lot to do with religion. While I was born and baptized a Catholic, I was raise as a Presbyterian by virtue of convenience and yet still managed to get married in the Catholic Church by convincing a priest on Long Island that I understood the conventions of Catholicism. A dozen years later when my marriage came to an end, I was explaining to a Catholic friend that we were simply not happy with the path each other wanted. The comment that came back was to ask where I had come to understand that I had the right to be happy? That was a jarring realization that to at least some Catholics, we were all obliged to drag the cross up the Via Dolorosa of life and not expect to be happy.

All I have ever wanted for my children was for them to be happy. I honestly think that it is the only expectation I should place upon them. Whether they dig ditches or find the cure for cancer should not effect the way I think about my success as a father. Whether they are able to find happiness should be the standard I set for them. I suppose what sounded to me like an innocent and laid-back objective might seem to others to be asking too much. I am unclear what the right answer to that is. I just know that I value happiness and optimism and hope for the same for my kids.

Recently and specifically because of the activities in Afghanistan, I find myself pondering the issue of expectations when it comes to the treatment of fellow human beings around the world. I am going to start by stating that I do not yet have the answer to how I am supposed to feel about the balancing act of respect for cultural differences and respect for inalienable human rights (even recognizing that there is some subjectivity to the later). Using Afghanistan as the case study, how are we supposed to feel about the Taliban taking charge of a country which we attacked in our war on terrorism and then stayed for twenty years like countless “invaders” over the millennia? Afghanistan is a pretty marginal spot in the world. It is fully landlocked and bounded by Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and a very thin unnatural sliver that extends to a small border with far western China. It is not particularly rich in natural resources and from Google Earth it looks about as barren as any place on earth. I’m sure there are lovely spots somewhere in Afghanistan so this is not a judgement or an attempt to call Afghanistan a “shit-hole” country as DJT used to say about places. I just want to start by saying that even if we feel there is some strategic value to its location between us and the Russians or alongside our arch-enemy Iran, there is little that we value there. That status may be why the Pashtun have, over the years, mostly operated only as a loosely affiliated group of villages and regional tribes. That is a tendency throughout that region of the world where the Moghuls roamed. This sparse land did not have the richness of lands to the south of the sub-continent, nor did it have the fertility of the Crescent formed by the Tigris and Euphrates. It didn’t even have the Caspian Sea like Iran had. It was always no more than a gathering of barren lands where goat-herders stayed largely to themselves. Nonetheless, they became fearless Mujahideen freedom-fighters defending what little they had, against pretty much everyone.

But still, in 2021, all eyes are on Afghanistan and especially its capital of Kabul, and even more specifically the Hamid Karzai Airport. The United States is withdrawing and letting the Taliban take over the business of governing the Afghans. Let’s ignore for a moment whether we are exiting badly or in the only way we can…that is a whole story unto itself. The question of letting the “ruling” party, the Taliban, do as it pleases is the issue. Is that wrong? Is that bad? From an American lifestyle and sensibility point of view it is bad, but it may not be wrong. President Biden says we are ending an era of thinking we can or should interfere in the governing of other people’s countries. There seems to be a majority American view that this is the path we must take at this time. It is what we need to do. We don’t like governing that abuses human rights and especially women’s rights. It all seems barbaric to us. We are now really saying that we are going to continue to fight for those things we believe, but that we will do so in non-military ways. We will use diplomacy and economic sanctions as well as occasional tactical and surgical pre-emptive strikes to stop forces that we feel are directly anti-Western or anti-American and may seek to harm us now or in the future. But what of the Afghans? Not our problem?

I was raised by a lifelong developmentalist. We always felt it was our problem when oppressed people anywhere were being put upon and needed our help. It is a hard humanist path, but it was the path I was raised on. I was a Director of CARE for nine years and know we lost an average of 75 staff members per years, all people who believed it was their human obligation, their burden, to expect that other human beings be allowed to live decent lives of dignity and hope.

It is a great burden to have high expectations of the human race. You occasionally get a wonderful surprise when good things happen naturally. You are satisfied when you are allowed to help make things better for people. But all too often, that part of the human race that leans more towards natural selection than towards grace and humanity overwhelms. We all know what we want to do at a person-to-person level (sometimes we do it and sometimes not so much), but what we do on the larger geopolitical scale that makes the headlines is the challenge. The only solution is to just keep trying and do what can be done.