Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – All Families Are Dysfunctional

Tennessee Williams stated in an interview that this play, rather than a drama of individuals, is about the familiar and forever repeated theatre of the family. Rather than focus on Maggie the Cat, he says, who is hungry for a love for her husband; or Brick, mired in self-loathing, guilt, and dissolution; or Big Daddy, a man with Falstaffian appetites but dying of cancer and unable to satisfy them; we should focus on the family as a whole with all its dysfunction, pain, love, and hope:

“I’m trying to catch the true quality of experience in a group of people, that cloudy, flickering, evanescent – fiercely-charged! – interplay of live human beings in the thundercloud of common crisis”

Maggie, however, is a voluptuous, sexy, and full-throated woman who in her demand for place and propriety within the Pollitt family, and her obsessive pursuit of her emotionally derelict husband attracts and demands our attention. Although the play is about the orchestration of many players and the progression of events which involve all of them, it is Maggie to whom our attention is drawn just as it is to Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Both women are strong, theatrical, and passionate and both demand more of their husbands than they can give.

We are drawn as well to Brick and to George because without them the women would be nothing. Both men are complex characters whose own motivation, character, and conflict are unclear or ambiguous; and this diffidence or ambiguity drives the women even more. In both plays, relationships are renewed; individual demons have been exorcised, and the couples can look ahead with the same hopeful note.

Both couples are desperately in need of each other, and their ‘love’, far more than any notion of romantic attachment, is a matter of necessity, of survival. These are couples which are not satisfied with a common or received wisdom of love – they attack each other, break down each other’s defenses, and ultimately reach the point, emotionally naked, when they can begin to build a less troubled and dysfunctional love.

Maggie and Martha are attractive because of their excesses, their brutal honesty, and their take-no-prisoners approach to getting what they want. Shakespeare’s women, especially those mothers in the Histories who can be as protective as a she-bear of their children and as devious and manipulative as any man to secure access to the throne and to the power and wealth it symbolizes.

Most of us by comparison lead lives within predictable margins. Our loves satisfy adolescent sexual urges; our need for family and future; and ultimately our need for comfort, solace, and help. Our fantasies, desires, frustrations, and disappointments are kept within the protective framework of marriage, dreamt about perhaps, but lived alone. Our ambitions stop at convenient and practical levels, allowing us to balance work and life.

We can only look at Martha and Maggie with awe. They are ‘beyond good an evil’ and inhabit an amoral universe which is governed by only one law – attainment. They cut and wound, slash to the bone and down to the marrow. They play elaborate games, devised to test and push the boundaries between them and their husbands. They do not shy away ultimately from seeing each other as flayed and bloodied.

Maggie is like Martha in her relentless desire to provoke her husband to action. It is never entirely clear what was the goal of this provocation – Williams has specifically indicated in his stage notes in Act II:

“Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself….”

Maggie may want Brick’s love because that will ensure her access the vast fortune of Big Daddy when he dies; and there are a number of passages in which she describes her poor upbringing and how she does not want to grow old poor. She may want the satisfaction of finally exerting dominance over Brick, being stronger than he – an expression of female power in an age when women still had to rely on indirect means to get their way.

Or perhaps she simply loved Brick for what he was, a beautiful, graceful, young god who made her happy and might again. In any case, she wants to him to break out of the apathy of guilt, self-pity, and dissolution in which he wallows – to be her husband again, and to give her a child, not at all unlike Martha whose goading of George has some of the same motivation.

It is exciting to read about characters like Maggie and Martha who refuse to settle, and who will resort to anything to achieve the elusive object of their ambition. Maggie destroys Skipper, Brick’s close friend, to remove him from competition. Martha resorts to intimidation, humiliation, and psychological warfare to raise George from his own apathy and routine.

As Williams has said, Maggie and Brick are but members of the Pollitt family which in its greed, deception, ‘mendacity’ and illusion is no different from any other. What seems to be dysfunction is nothing of the kind. These families are simply playing out familiar rituals, some perverse and some ineffective, but all necessary to test the boundaries of the most basic of social structures.

Dramatically, the Pollitts are no different from the families of Shakespeare who plot, connive, and maneuver to get what they want. Families have to play out familiar dramas, repeat themselves, mythically pushing emotional rocks up mountains only to end up at the bottom each time.

Although Maggie is the star attraction, and her relationship with Brick the fulcrum of the play, Big Daddy is the central figure. Whether he is on stage or off, he fills the play with his bulk, vital energy, and resolve. He has made tens of millions of dollars, presides over a large family and wants to live forever. As he gets older he wants to jettison his predictable and safe life and make love to women other than his wife, have adventure and excitement to make him feel the same sense of living that he had when he was younger. 

He is brutally honest with Brick, challenging him to explain his dissolution and apathy. When he does – exposing Brick’s moral failure by rejecting his close friend and condemning him to death – he invites Brick’s equal measure of honesty. Brick tells him he is dying of cancer, puncturing the family lie that he only had spastic colon. His rage at his dying is even less than at the lies which have pervaded and rotted his family.

Brick’s brother, Gooper, and his wife Mae (and their five ‘no-neck’, bratty children) play out a The Little Foxes drama - a Lillian Hellman play centered around a wealthy Southern family’s fight for the family business. Where Hellman is melodramatic (everything that could happen, does happen)Williams never is. He understands that families always fight for money; that family members always maneuver for position with Mommy or Daddy or against siblings; and he understands that out of such family drama and pain comes resolution and perhaps even hope. 

In the last lines of Cat, Maggie tells Brick that she loves him; and he replies “Wouldn’t it be funny if it were true”.

Williams gives no indication that it will be true, and like Albee in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, it just might be. We are all born into families, and with luck we may emerge out of that crucible better off than when we were in it.

Encouraging Talent and Innovation in Public Education - Time To Readjust The Balance And Give More Attention To The Most Able

After the death of Steve Jobs, the founder and moving force behind Apple, there were many articles and tributes to him, and most have noted his remarkable ingenuity, creativity, and insight into consumer behavior. Jobs had a vision of how to reform the rapidly accelerating computer technology and make it accessible, attractive, and interactive. In a recent article in the New York Times Perry Metzger said: “Amidst the oceans of enforced mediocrity....Jobs showed that the real path to excellence was excellence...You could do great things by being smart and having excellent taste...".

The issue is how do we reform our basic education system to provide a learning environment which stimulates and encourages such innovation and creativity?

Currently primary education is still under the yoke of “collaborative learning” where slower students are assisted in the classroom by those more talented. While this approach may be attractive on the surface, appealing to our very American sense of equality, it has the unintended consequence of impeding the learning of those who possess strong learning skills, educational ambition, and considerable native abilities.

To make matters worse, many school districts are dismantling programs for the gifted and talented and investing this money in programs for students with special needs, programs which are already well-funded and –supported. While there is something to be said for these programs, increased attention and financing should be focused on those who exhibit talent, ability, and promise.

Programs for the Gifted and Talented, while offering some enrichment to an otherwise mediocre learning environment, are not the answer, for they are only add-ons, overly selective, and often little of the real discipline and attention required for accelerated learning. Real structural and systemic change is required. For example programs where students are able to skip grades if they have the ability and maturity to do so.  A return to progressive classrooms where students are divided by ability to learn basic subjects like math and English, thus enabling them to learn at a rate and rhythm appropriate to them. Enabling talented primary school 6^th graders to take courses in junior high or even high school.

Readjusting and realigning public school programs to foster this equality will not be easy, since there are enough older teachers and administrators in place who remain committed to collaborative education. Teachers unions have been obstacles to real educational reform.  A more important reason, however, is the continuing conviction on the part of many Americans that promoting ‘equality’ takes precedence over favoring excellence.   We cannot favor the highly talented, the argument goes, because it will make less able students seem inferior.  It will damage their self-esteem.  It will cause irreparable social and psychological harm. 

Yet, there is no reason not to favor the exceptional while addressing the needs of less advantaged.
An article in the Washington Post by Michael Gerson talks about income equality vs. equality of economic opportunity, and he suggests that too much focus has been placed on the former and not the latter. Promoting economic mobility, he concludes, will enable most people to become better-off economically and socially. This same argument can be made for education – promote educational mobility to enable all who are able to move up.

Another important element of educational reform – and one closely related to the first – is to promote a sense of entrepreneurship even in lower grades. This is not a capitalist argument promoting the training of young investment bankers, but a serious argument for moving beyond the stagnant, tread water, conservative, and very old-fashioned educational model in place, and replace it with one which encourages innovative thinking per se – creative and analytical thinking which will serve not only the economic entrepreneur but the thinker, the artist, the educator.

The following article in a recent NY Times Opinion Section by Michael Ellsberg adds to this discussion by suggesting that:

American academia is good at producing writers, literary critics, and historians.  But we don’t have a shortage of lawyers and professors.  America has a shortage of job creators.  And the people who create jobs aren’t traditional professionals, but start-up entrepreneurs…

If start-up activity is the true engine of job creation in America, one thing is clear: our current educational system is acting as the brakes,.  Simply put, from kindergarten through undergraduate and graduate school, you learn very few skills or attitudes that would ever help you start a business.  Skills like sales, networking, creativity, and comfort with failure…

Start-ups are creative endeavor by definition.  Yet our current classrooms, geared toward tests on narrowly-defined academic subjects, stifle creativity…

This view is not restricted to the United States. South Koreans have the same complaints raised by certain American educators – too little emphasis is placed on creativity, innovation, and management skills, the essential elements for higher-order economic productivity. In an article in the Washington Post  Fred Hiatt explains:

South Koreans are deeply unhappy with their system. They complain about an emphasis on memorization, a stifling of creativity, a failure to teach usable English and a weakness in developing leadership skills.

 

In conclusion, real structural change in basic education – change that will encourage, promote, and reward the talented; and will foster the innovative, creative, and entrepreneurial thinking, and which will benefit students, communities, and the country - is long overdue.

Brainstorming Doesn’t Work

There was an interesting short article in today’s (11/6) Washington Post by Jena McGregor on the failure of brainstorming:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/efforts-to-push-creative-collaboration-might-actually-clog-the-wheels/2011/10/31/gIQAlMCzqM_story.html

The author concludes, based on recent behavioral research that office brainstorming sessions where a group of workers are gathered to share ideas about a particular issue or problem, do not work; whereas when individuals are given the task of thinking about the issue or problem and asked to come to a meeting prepared to present their ideas, more innovative solutions result.

I hated brainstorming.  I felt it was a colossal waste of time, subject to group dynamics which favored the more outspoken, were often dominated by the boss who had her/his own predetermined conclusions, and were time-wasteful with the lengthy presentation of ill-conceived or at least ill-prepared ideas.

I have always favored individual enterprise – the individual, reflective, thoughtful, and ordered development of an idea; the justification for it; and the logical presentation of it.  Brainstorming sessions are just the opposite, for they are the venues for poorly-formed or –thought-out ideas.  I think that workers like brainstorming sessions because they are easier than the more disciplined and rigorous thought process that is required to develop an idea.

It is a short article, so I will quote it in its entirety and provide some of my own comments in italics within the text.

We’ve all been there. The boardrooms with flip charts at the front of the room and candy on the table. The all-hands emergency meetings to come up with ideas to fix the latest mess. And of course, the off-sites in drab hotel ballrooms that are supposed to somehow spark creativity.

The term ‘emergency meetings” is particularly telling.  Such brainstorming sessions have been called because the boss has not done her/his job by either thinking about the issue or by carefully selecting staff to address it.  The result is a last minute affair, pulling people (and their minds) away from other important tasks, often at poorly-chosen times (e.g. late in the day).  In other words, these sessions are really thought necessary because proper reflection and consideration about an issue has not been done.

Such efforts at brainstorming are well intended, of course. The problem? They rarely work. While leaders hang onto the idea that bringing together a big group of people will produce truly innovative ideas, it’s rare that actually happens.

Evidence has long shown that getting a group of people to think individually about solutions, and then combining their ideas, can be more productive than getting them to think as a group. Some people are afraid of introducing radical ideas in front of a group and don’t speak up; in other cases, the group is either too small or too big to be effective.

Not only that, in a desire to assure ‘inclusivity’ – i.e. including everyone possible so as not to offend anyone – the wrong people are at the brainstorming session; or, just as bad, the right people are forced to listen to irrelevant ideas from those who do not belong, but who feel that because they were invited they have to contribute.

But according to a recently published study, the real problem might be that participants’ get stuck on each others’ ideas. On Monday, the British Psychological Society highlighted a recent study by Nicholas Kohn and Steven Smith, two researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington and Texas A&M University. They asked undergraduate students to contribute ideas for improving Texas A&M, both individually and in collective groups. They shared the ideas on a computer, either in small chat groups or alone, but combined together after the fact. As expected, the “nominal” groups, or those made up of individual ideas that were later pulled together, outperformed the real chat groups, both with the number of ideas and the diversity of them.

As above, this has been my experience and I intuitively knew that hastily-organized brainstorming sessions, without any structure, discipline, or order; and made up of the wrong people would always produce fewer results and many fewer innovative ideas than the right people working on the problem individually.

The ‘right people’ is key to any innovation.  While there is not doubt that random ideas (i.e. ideas generated by workers in jobs peripheral to the issue) may turn out to be worthwhile, they are too rare to be of value. It is worth risking losing the odd random good idea to ensure that the best people are working on the issue.  

There is, at least in American offices (and in the educational system from which workers come – see my blog posts on Reforming Education), a misguided belief in the ‘participatory process’, one which puts a very high premium on inclusiveness, equality of expression, and democratic selection.  The means are as important as the ends in these offices; but by insisting on this balance, the goals of the organization, department, or division, are compromised.  There is nothing wrong with – in fact everything right with – the boss coming up with a tentative conclusion, sharing it with colleagues for comment (written preferably because of the more rigorous discipline required to develop an idea), taking the best ideas, if any, and changing the hypothesis.

Kohn and Smith believed the cause might be because of “cognitive fixation,” or the concept that, when exposed to group members’ ideas, people focused on those and blocked other types of ideas from taking hold. They experimented with this by manipulating the number of ideas participants saw in their chat windows, with some getting a few cues and others getting more. Their hypothesis was right: When exposed to many cues, the undergrads offered up less creative, diverse ideas. The numbers improved when the students were given a five-minute break during the exercise.

As above, this tendency is exacerbated by common group dynamics – only some people speak up in group discussions, and when they do it is often too little and too late. Not only do others’ ideas dominate, but equally good ideas never get aired because of timidity.

As with all such studies, there’s plenty of pretty obvious common sense to this research. But it’s a helpful reminder of how unhelpful it can be when managers dump people in a room together, thinking it will result in creative big ideas. Somehow, a belief in the power of group brainstorming sessions persists, despite evidence that it doesn’t work. Great minds can come up with their own ideas, but sometimes the problem is they think too much alike

As above, it will be just as hard to jettison these ‘participatory’ office techniques as it will be to get rid of participatory or ‘collaborative’ primary education where the ideas of the talented are lost in the larger sea of lesser talents.

In conclusion, get rid of brainstorming.  Even without the behavioral evidence, it is obvious to anyone who has sat through these painful sessions, they rarely if ever produce valuable and useable results.