Noah's Boat

If you are not familiar with the story of Noah first read Genesis 6-8 from the Torah/Bible.

Commentary

This story begins with a description that the earth was full of evil selfish non god fearing people, which as stated by the text, “made god sad”. God fearing people today think things are bad, things must have been really bad- there was apparently only one person on the earth at that time that “walked with God”; a farmer named Noah. God's plan was to eliminate everyone other than Noah and his family and start clean. God told Noah to build a giant boat; a boat the size of which had never been seen before. Imagine how absurd it would have been to see this farmer building a giant boat to begin with, let alone with no water in sight. Still Noah carried out the instructions as provided by God in accordance with his faith. Noah would have been seen as eccentric, odd, perhaps foolish. Fitting in could not have been of importance to Noah. He persisted in following his way with God, his inspiration, his vision, which he continued to believe correct even as all others dismissed his viewpoint. Eventually his viewpoint proved to be right beyond all modern imaginable consequence- everyone other than him, his family, and the animals he boarded on his ship died.

Observations

The story of Noah makes me think of all the situations I have encountered at work where I directly disagreed with the decisions that were being made and was either directly or indirectly told to be quiet, follow the chain of command, fit in, just do the work you have been given and don’t bother. I imagine this type of misguided self preservation was behind every great injustice or atrocity ever perpetuated on humanity. Here are some examples in recent memory- abuse of Children by Catholic priests, Abu Ghraib, Enron, Bernie Madoff, Toxic Peanut Butter, nearly ubiquitous large pharmaceutical company malfeasance (Pfizer, Merck, AstraZeneca, BMS, etc. have all been found guilty and fined millions by the FDA), Toyota’s locking gas peddles, stock market bubbles, real-estate bubbles, BP’s actions in the Gulf of Mexico. Here is a list of recent corporate scandals from Wikipedia. In each situation there were large organizations of people who failed to see and stop inappropriate, unsafe, unlawful, harmful, or in some situations nearly murderous behavior.

In all these situations I have just mentioned I believe there are four types of people:

1. Perpetrators
2. People who knew the current course was unsustainable and potentially harmful but directly and selfishly contributed to the problem anyway.
3. People who indirectly and carelessly went along, obliviously believing the ‘too good to be true story’, enjoyed its benefits for a time, and who didn’t care enough to ask difficult questions.
4. People who saw it for what it was and either questions it, fought it, or avoided the inappropriate behavior and as a result may have suffered for a period of time.

Following a major disaster, we, as a society, tend to focus on discovery and punishment of perpetrators; we are not as focused as much we should be with aspects of power, group dynamics, and the complicit behavior of others that enabled the perpetration. Or building a way to protect ourselves from it. Though it probably won’t come in the form of dramatic earth-wide flood, all people are eventually held accountable for their behavior at some point. It may not happen in the short term, but over the long term it pays to be right. When the floodwater comes in you either have a boat or you don’t. Or conversely as Warren Buffett, billionaire investor put it, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.”