Ethics | Life, Project Management, and Everything

All Along the Watch Tower — Project Monitoring vs. Project Management

My two month summer blogging hiatus has come to a close. Along the way I have gathered a good bit of practical knowledge related to introducing and implementing process and technological improvements into complex project management environments. More specifically, my experience is in introducing new adaptive technologies that support the integration of essential data across the project environment–integrated project management in short–and do so by focusing on knowledge discovery in databases (KDD).

An issue that arose during these various opportunities reminded me of the commercial where a group of armed bank robbers enter a bank and have everyone lay on the floor. One of the victims whispers to a uniformed security officer, “Hey, do something!” The security officer replies, “Oh, I’m not a security guard, I’m a security monitor. I only notify people if there is a robbery.” He looks to the robbers who have a hostage and then turns back to the victim and says calmly, “There’s a robbery.”

We oftentimes face the same issues in providing project management solutions. New technologies have expanded the depth and breadth of information that is available to project management professionals. Oftentimes the implementation of these solutions get to the heart as to whether people considers themselves project managers or project monitors.

Technology, Information, and Cognitive Dissonance

This perceptual conflict oftentimes plays itself out in resistance to change in automated systems. In today’s world the question of acceptance is a bit different than when I first provided automated solutions into organizations more than 30 years ago. At that time, which represented the first modern wave of digitization, focused on simply automating previously manual functions that supported existing line-and-staff organizations. Software solutions were constructed to fit into the architecture of the social or business systems being served, regardless of whether those systems were inefficient or sub-optimal.

The challenge is a bit different today. Oftentimes new technology is paired with process changes that will transform an organization–and quite often is used as the leading edge in that initiative. The impact on work is transformative, shifting the way that the job and the system itself is perceived given the new information.

Leon Festinger in his work A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957) stated that people seek psychological consistency in order to function in the real world. When faced with information or a situation that is contradictory to consistency, individuals will experience psychological discomfort. The individual can then simply adapt to the new condition by either accepting the change, adding rationalizations to connect their present perceptions to the change, or to challenge the change–either by attacking it as valid, by rejecting its conclusions, or by avoidance.

The most problematic of the reactions that can be encountered in IT project management are the last two. When I have introduced a new technology paired with process change this manifestation has usually been justified by the refrains that:

a. The new solution is too hard to understand;

b. The new solution is too detailed;

c. The new solution is too different from the incumbent technology;

d. The solution is unrelated to “my job of printing out one PowerPoint chart”;

e. “Why can’t I just continue to use my own Excel workbooks/Access database/solution”;

f. “Earned value/schedule/risk management/(add PM methodology here) doesn’t tell me what I don’t already know/looks in the rear view mirror/doesn’t add enough value/is too expensive/etc.”

For someone new to this kind of process the objections often seem daunting. But some perspective always helps. To date, I have introduced and implemented three waves of technology over the course of my career and all initially encountered resistance, only to eventually be embraced. In a paradoxical twist (some would call it divine justice, karma, or universal irony), oftentimes the previous technology I championed, which sits as the incumbent, is used as a defense against the latest innovation.

A reasonable and diligent person involved in the implementation of any technology which, after all, is also project management, must learn to monitor conditions to determine if there is good reason for resistance, or if it is a typical reaction to relatively rapid change in a traditionally static environment. The point, of course, is not only to meet organizational needs, but to achieve a high level of acceptance in software deployment–thus maximizing ROI for the organization and improving organizational effectiveness.

If process improvement is involved, an effective pairing and coordination with stakeholders is important. But such objections, while oftentimes a reaction to people receiving information they prefer not to have, are ignored at one’s own peril. This is where such change processes require both an analytical and leadership-based approach.

Technology and Cultural Change – Spock vs. Kirk

In looking at resistance one must determine whether the issue is one of technology or some reason of culture or management. Testing the intuitiveness of the UI, for example, is best accomplished by beta testing among SMEs. Clock speeds latency, reliability, accuracy, and fidelity in data, and other technological characteristics are easily measured and documented. This is the Mr. Spock side of the equation, where, in an ideal world, rationality and logic should lead one to success. Once these processes are successfully completed, however, the job is still not done.

Every successful deployment still contains within it pockets of resistance. This is the emotional part of technological innovation that oftentimes is either ignored or that managers hope to paper or plow over, usually to their sorrow. It is here that we need to focus our attention. This is the Captain Kirk part of the equation.

The most vulnerable portion of an IT project deployment happens within the initial period of inception. Rolling wave implementations that achieve quick success will often find that there is more resistance over time as each new portion of the organization is brought into the fold. There are many reasons for this.

New personnel may be going by what they observed from the initial embrace of the technology and not like the results. Perhaps buy-in was not obtained by the next group prior to their inclusion, or senior management is not fully on-board. Perhaps there is a perceived or real fear of job loss, or job transformation that was not socialized in advance. It is possible that the implementation focused too heavily on the needs of the initial group of personnel brought under the new technology, which caused the technology to lag in addressing the needs of the next wave. It could also be that the technology is sufficiently different as to represent a “culture shock”, which causes an immediate defensive reaction. If there are outsourced positions, the subcontractor may feel that its interests are threatened by the introduction of the technology. Some SMEs, having created “irreplaceable asset” barriers, may feel that their position would be eroded if they were to have to share expertise and information with other areas of the organization. Lower level employees fear that management will have unfettered access to information prior to vetting. The technology may be oversold as a panacea, rather as a means of addressing organizational or information management deficiencies. All of these reasons, and others, are motivations to explore.

There is an extensive literature on the ways to address the concerns listed above, and others. Good examples can be found here and here.

Adaptive COTS or Business Intelligence technologies, as well as rapid response teams based on Agile, go a long way in addressing and handling barriers to acceptance on the technology side. But additional efforts at socialization and senior management buy-in are essential and will be the difference maker. No amount of argumentation or will persuade people otherwise inclined to defend the status quo, even when benefits are self-evident. Leadership by information consumers–both internal and external–as well as decision-makers will win the day.

Process and Technology – Integrated Project Management and Big(ger) Data

The first wave of automation digitized simple manual efforts (word processing, charts, graphs). This resulted in an incremental increase in productivity but, more importantly, it shifted work so that administrative overhead was eliminated. There are no secretarial pools or positions as there were when I first entered the workforce.

The second and succeeding waves tackled transactional systems based on line and staff organizational structures, and work definitions. Thus, in project management, EVM systems were designed for cost analysts, scheduling apps for planners and schedulers, risk analysis software for systems engineers, and so on.

All of these waves had a focus on functionality of hard-coded software solutions. The software determined what data was important and what information could be processed from it.

The new paradigm shift is a focus on data. We see this through the buzz phrase “Big Data”. But what does that mean? It means that all of the data that the organization or enterprise collects has information value. Deriving that information value, and then determining its relevance and whether it provides actionable intelligence, is of importance to the organization.

Thus, implementations of data-focused solutions represent not only a shift in the way that work is performed, but also how information is used, and how the health and performance of the organization is assessed. Horizontal information integration across domains provides insights that were not apparent in the past when data was served to satisfy the needs of specialized domains and SMEs. New vulnerabilities and risks are uncovered through integration. This is particularly clear when implementing integrated project management (IPM) solutions.

A pause in providing a definition is in order, especially since IPM is gaining traction, and so large lazy and entrenched incumbents adjust their marketing in the hope of muddying the waters to fit their square peg focused and hard-coded solutions into the round hole of flexible IPM solutions.

Integrated Project Management are the processes and integration of information necessary to derive actionable intelligence from all of the relevant cross-domain information involved in the project organization. This includes cost performance, schedule performance, financial performance and execution, contract implementation, milestone achievement, resource management, and technical performance. Actionable intelligence is that information that is relevant to the project decision-making authority which effectively identifies specific probable qualitative and quantitative risks, risk impact, and risk handling necessary to make project trade-offs, project re-baselining or re-scope, cost-as-an-independent variable (CAIV), or project cancellation decisions. Underlying all of this are feedback loop systems assessments to ensure that there is integrity and fidelity in our business systems–both human and digital.

No doubt, we have a ways to go to get to this condition, but organizations are getting there. What it will take is a change the way leadership views its role, in rewriting traditional project management job descriptions, cross-domain training and mentoring, and in enforcing both for ourselves and in others the dedication to the ethics that are necessary to do the job.

Practice and Ethics in Project Management within Public Administration

The final aspect of implementations of project management systems that is often overlooked, and which oftentimes frames the environment that we are attempting to transform, concerns ethical behavior in project management. It is an aspect of project success as necessary as any performance metric, and it is one for which leadership within an organization sets the tone.

My own expertise in project management has concerned itself in most cases with project management in the field of public administration, though as a businessman I also have experience in the commercial world. Let’s take public administration first since, I think, it is the most straightforward.

When I wore a uniform as a commissioned Naval officer I realized that in my position and duties that I was merely an instrument of the U.S. Navy, and its constitutional and legal underpinnings. My own interests were separate from, and needed to be firewalled from, the execution of my official duties. When I have observed deficiencies in the behavior of others in similar positions, this is the dichotomy that often fails to be inculcated in the individual.

When enlisted personnel salute a commissioned officer they are not saluting the person, they are saluting and showing respect to the rank and position. The officer must earn respect as an individual. Having risen from the enlisted ranks, these were the aspects of leadership that were driven home to me in observing this dynamic: in order to become a good leader, one must first have been a good follower; you must demonstrate trust and respect to earn trust and respect. One must act ethically.

Oftentimes officials in other governmental entities–elected officials (especially), judges, and law enforcement–often fail to understand this point and hence fail this very basic rule of public behavior. The law and their position deserves respect. The behavior and actions of the individuals in their office will determine whether they personally should be shown respect. If an individual abuses their position or the exercise of discretion, they are not worthy of respect, with the danger that they will delegitimize and bring discredit to the office or position.

But earning respect is only one aspect of this understanding in ethical behavior in public administration. It also means that one will make decisions based on the law, ethical principles, and public policy regardless of whether one personally agrees or disagrees with the resulting conclusion of those criteria. That an individual will also apply a similar criteria whether or not the decision will adversely impact their own personal interests or those of associates, friends, or family is also part of weight of ethical behavior.

Finally, in applying the ethical test rule, one must also accept responsibility and accountability in executing one’s duties. This means being diligent, constantly striving for excellence and improvement, leading by example, and to always represent the public interest. Note that ego, personal preference, opinion, or bias, self-interest, or other such concerns have no place in the ethical exercise of public administration.

So what does that mean for project management? The answer goes to the heart of whether one views himself or herself as a project manager or project monitor. In public administration the program manager has a unique set of responsibilities tied to the acquisition of technologies that is rarely replicated in private industry. Oftentimes this involves shepherding a complex effort via contractual agreements that involve large specialized businesses–and often a number of subcontractors–across several years of research and development before a final product is ready for production and deployment.

The primary role in this case is to ensure that the effort is making progress and executing the program toward the goal, ensuring accountability of the funds being expended, which were appropriated for the specific effort by Congress, to ensure that the effort intended by those expenditures through the contractual agreements are in compliance, to identify and handle risks that may manifest to bring the effort into line with the cost, schedule, and technical baselines, all the while staying within the program’s framing assumptions. In addition, the program manager must coordinate with operational managers who are anticipating the deployment of the end item being developed, manage expectations, and determine how best to plan for sustainability once the effort goes to production and deployment. This is, of course, a brief summary of the extensive duties involved.

Meeting these responsibilities requires diligence, information that provides actionable intelligence, and a great deal of subject matter expertise. Finding and handling risks, determining if the baseline is executable, maintaining the integrity of the effort–all require leadership and skill. This is known as project management.

Project monitoring, by contrast, is acceptance of information provided by self-interested parties without verification, of limiting the consumption and processing of essential project performance information, of demurring to any information of a negative nature regarding project performance or risk, of settling for less than an optimal management environment, and using these tactics to, euphemistically, kick the ball down the court to the next project manager in the hope that the impact of negligence falls on someone else’s watch. Project monitoring is unethical behavior in public administration.

Practice and Ethics in Project Management within Private Industry

The focus in private industry is a bit different since self-interest abounds and is rewarded. But there are ethical rules that apply, and which a business person in project management would be well-served to apply.

The responsibility of the executive or officers in a business is to the uphold the interests of the enterprise’s customers, its employees, and its shareholders. Oftentimes business owners will place unequal weighting to these interests, but the best businesses view these responsibilities as being in fine balance.

For example, aside from the legal issues, ethics demands that in making a commitment in providing supplies and services there are a host of obligations that go along with that transaction–honest representation, warranty, and a commitment to provide what was promised. For employees, the commitments made regarding the conditions of employment and to reward employees appropriately for their contribution to the enterprise. For stockholders it is to conduct the business in such as way as to avoid placing its fiduciary position and its ability to act as a going concern in avoidable danger.

For project managers the responsibility within these ethical constraints is to honestly assess and communicate to the enterprise’s officers project performance, whether the effort will achieve the desired qualitative results within budgetary and time constraints, and, from a private industry perspective, handle most of the issues articulated for the project manager in the section on public administration above. The customer is different in this scenario, oftentimes internal, especially when eliminating companies that serve the project management verticals in public administration. Oftentimes the issues and supporting systems are less complex because the scale is, on the whole, smaller.

There are exceptions, of course, to the issue of scaling. Some construction, shipbuilding, and energy projects approach the complexity of some public sector programs. Space X and other efforts are other examples. But the focus there is financial from the perspective of the profit motive–not from the perspective of meeting the goals of some public interest involving health, safety, or welfare, and so the measures of measurement will be different, though the need for accountability and diligence is no less urgent. In may ways such behavior is more urgent given that failure may result in the failure of the entire enterprise.

Yet, the basic issue is the same: are you a project manager or a project monitor? Diligence, leadership, and ethical behavior (which is essential to leadership) are the keys. Project monitoring most often results in failure, and with good reason. It is a failure of both practice and ethics.

Sunday Contemplation for Monday — Finding Wisdom — Aristotle and the Nicomachaen Ethics

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

— Aristotle, Politics, Book 1, Chapter II

As a youth my father told me that all of the important questions about the world were first posed by the Greeks. Aristotle had many good answers. In reading him it is hard to believe that over two thousand years separate us from this brilliant mind.

The world that Aristotle inhabited in the 4th century B.C. was quite different from our own. Civilization was quite new to our species. Life was short. Defenses against disease and injury were nonexistent except by the body’s own natural defense mechanisms and ability to recover. The very nature of disease and bodily processes were not understood. Food and shelter were contingent on the vagaries of the weather and easy availability of useable resources. Tools were crude and most efforts very labor intensive. Large areas of the globe were lawless. Science as we would define it today was not possible nor conceivable. The forces and laws of nature were described as the acts of gods, demons, and other fanciful creatures. Tribal genesis stories abounded from every corner of the globe. Where some form of law did exist, superstition and tribal loyalties largely trumped all other forms of social organization and individual concerns. The Greek city-states, in particular, constantly warred with each other to claim hegemony over the Aegean peninsula. Modes of transport were limited and crude. Our species was even still hunted as prey by a number of apex predators.

That a man of Aristotle’s characteristics could emerge from that world is truly amazing. He was, long before that word was invented, a Renaissance man for his time. He explored natural history, which seemed to be his first passion. He studied and classified the animals that he found around him. As a matter of fact, his classification was in many ways superior to the Linnaean taxonomy that we use today, particularly in the manner in which he separated out vertebrates from invertebrates. He also studied the stars, the weather, and a host of other subjects. Many of his classifications and observations have turned out to be valid, based as they were in empirical methods.

His thirst for knowledge seems to have been insatiable. But probably his most important contribution to our species were his ethical and political writings, in particular, the Nicomachean Ethics. They anticipate every modern notion of ethics and morality that we value today, and qualify as a literature that transmits wisdom. But it is worth noting that Aristotle’s writings did not come down to Western Civilization as a continuous tradition. The line was severed with the long decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Also, the nature of the medium used for transmitting written knowledge–papyrus–tended to deteriorate over time, particularly in wetter climates. As Rome fell the great libraries of the east also were destroyed, some from warfare but most others through religious fanaticism, which viewed any knowledge other than that received from their theology to be a grave threat needful of destruction. With the fabric of civilization torn apart, many centers of learning and the contents therein were abandoned and neglected, their contents left to deteriorate and crumble.

It was not until about the 12th century that Greek philosophy and Aristotelian literature was reintroduced to the West. This occurred through several routes: the literature that made its way back to Europe from the Crusades, the efforts of William of Moerbeke, the Jewish translations from Greek to Arabic and then to Latin of the Classical works that were introduced through the Arab conquests of Eastern Europe and Spain, through the Italian trading states and Sicily, and through the efforts of the Al-Andalus polymath Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and other Arab translators and commentators of Classical works. Thus, the travels of Aristotle’s ideas trace the history, conquests, and conflicts of the first 14 centuries of the modern era.

For Western Europe it was as if Aristotle’s ideas were introduced to Western Civilization anew. The threat from this reintroduction was first and foremost to religious belief (tied as it is to social and political power structures), which had relied first on the metaphysical writings of Plato to support the idea of revealed truth. Aristotle’s approach was to base conclusions about the world on observation, which allowed an alternative view of reality that conflicts with the doctrine of revealed truth. To the monotheistic religions this was an unacceptable proposition. The Western Christian church, in particular, sought to root out all influences of what we now know as empiricism, equating it with paganism and atheism. (Not to mention the feared influence and association to Arabic and Jewish sources). It was thus not until Thomas Aquinas used Aristotle’s logic and ethics–co-opting both and turning them on their heads in support of the Western Church fused with Plato–that the threat was deemed past. So much was Aristotle absorbed into the Catholic and Christian cannon that it is difficult to know where religious ethics and logic begins and Aristotelian ethics and logic ends.

This hybrid Aquinas Aristotle, particularly in the use of logical deduction to support circular reasoning, came in the eyes of Renaissance and modernist thinkers, particularly in the rapidly advancing sciences, to be the core edifice to be overthrown in order for civilization to advance–and rightly so. But the guilt by association and fusion also unfortunately relegated all of Aristotle’s unadulterated works to serve as mere historical examples in the evolution of Western philosophical thought and ethics in pre-modern times. Only recently has the taint of intellectual oppression and retrograde beliefs been wiped from his legacy so that he has enjoyed a second rediscovery and revival of sorts.

Thus, the Aristotle that comes down to us is once again the polymath that learned from and exceeded the achievements of his teacher, Plato. Ethics and philosophy prior to Aristotle was largely metaphysical and theoretical. The approach in discerning reality was to assume creation. For example, for Plato the “idea” of the elephant came first. This idea is the ideal and perfect elephant living in its perfect environment. All of reality is a corruption of the perfect idea of the elephant. One can see why this approach would appeal to a theological mindset. It also happens to be pre-scientific gibberish. But Aristotle was a practical man. For him the elephants that we see are what nature intended–an elephant is an elephant, all the rest is nonsensical word salad.

Thus his ethics were also practical and they provide the first practical guidance on how to live a good life. He actually wrote three different treatises on ethics but the most effective distillation of his views are found in the Nicomachean Ethics, which were based on lectures he gave at the Lyceum. There is much in Aristotle that synthesizes what he learned from Plato but he goes further than his teacher to more practical matters. This was a dangerous tact to take. As long as philosophers talked about theoretical topics they did not threaten the power structure and were allowed to freely give their advice, especially if some of it was useful to those in power and influence. Aristotle chose a different path and it is one that caused him much trouble later in life and led him to flee Athens from charges of impiety.

Aristotle bases his ethics on his observations of the natural sciences and so rather than taking a theoretical approach to what is right and wrong–or the age-old problem of the “is” versus the “ought,” his ethics is, instead, based on what he sees in the differences between animals and people. As we read Aristotle we can see that his system of thinking flows logically from observations of the natural world to the differences in humans that make us so, to his ethics, which then influences his prescriptions for government. According to Aristotle the key feature that distinguishes humans from other animals is our ability to reason. It is this facility that provides our advantages over other creatures. Our rational selves also allow us to choose to live well, to strive for excellence, and to seek what is good or virtuous. Thus he distinguishes between self-interest, or the intermediate definitions of happiness, and the higher order of happiness and living well–what is good–as something that can only be achieved through virtuous action.

Thus, In this way he was not talking about good things individually but the ultimate definition of good. The three characteristics in asking this question of what is good are to determine whether it is desirable for itself, it is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake. His conclusion is “Happiness (flourishing), then, is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed.” (Book 1, Chapter VII). For example, seeking wealth, which seems to be the overarching obsession in our own age, cannot be a good for its own sake under this definition. On the contrary, pursuing wealth, or some of the other pleasures of life as ends in themselves are a perversion of happiness, since they cannot in and of themselves lead to the ultimate happiness or good. Wealth, power, influence, etc.are not new concepts and they were certainly all too well known by Aristotle and others of his age. But, he tells, us that these are intermediate goals that can only be determined to be either good or bad in the manner in which they contribute to the ultimate good, which is human flourishing. He tells us, “…the good for people is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, or if there are more kinds of virtue than one, in accordance with the best and most perfect kind.”

In this way he anticipates Epicurus, though coming to many of the same conclusions through different methods. His conclusion that it is human flourishing that is the ultimate good based on natural history also (informs and) anticipates by over 2,000 years the work of Sam Harris in The Moral Landscape in our own time.

But what exactly is a virtue? He tells us that, rather than a hard and fast list of prescriptions that we must memorize, that virtue is one that is defined by its balance in avoiding extremes. In Book 2 he states: “So virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it. It is a mean between two kinds of vice, one of excess and the other of deficiency…” Once again, Aristotle is arguing for the use of our reason, which we would most closely associate today with the scientific method. The truth is out there, he tells us, it is up to us to find it through observation and the use of our intellect. Such determinations are imperfect things and are always open to additional study and revision.

This is not to take Aristotle’s relative methodology too far, which has been a criticism–albeit a naive one–that such “relative” methods can lead to injustice. On the contrary, he uses reason to demonstrate that there are universal actions and feelings that are always wrong. These include spite, shamelessness, envy, adultery, theft, and murder, among other deficiencies. It is not that these things are wrong in their own right, that is, “envy is wrong simply because it is wrong,” but act against virtue and justice in their own way and, as such, are therefore wrong. Aristotle is always the practical man. In his discussion he points out that wisdom is achieved by the virtual person by a combination of knowing what is just and then applying experience through logos (reason) to act on it. Later in Book 5 he tells us, “…(Justice) is complete virtue in the fullest sense, because it is the active exercise of complete virtue; and it is complete because its possessor can exercise it in relation to another person, and not only by himself.”

Much has been made of lately that somehow Aristotle supports the modern radical concept of self-interest, especially in the Ayn Randian and libertarian veins of thought, but this is another attempt of appropriation similar to that of Aquinas and nothing could be further from the truth. One need only go to his Politics, which was an extension of the Ethics, to see this. “He who is unable to live in society,” he wrote, “or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.”

Such self-interested pursuits are defective and cannot serve the overarching virtue. For Aristotle concludes in Book 10 that in order to achieve happiness (flourishing)–or something close to it–human beings must live in communities that foster good habits and govern to provide the conditions to live a well-lived, or virtuous, life. While contemplation would probably provide the greatest amount of happiness since it provides individuals with the greatest opportunities to pursue reason and the answer to their questions, those who achieve wisdom and have the resources to do so as defined by the virtues are bound to contribute to the community, which is found in his writings known as the Politics.

We can see the influence of Aristotle, despite the taint of his philosophy by its appropriation by Aquinas, in the Enlightenment philosophers and he thought influenced other thinkers and the founders of our own country. For example, Jefferson explains, in speaking of the Declaration of Independence, that “All its authority rests … on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c.” John Adams, in an essay penned on the eve of the American Revolution, defends the position of the colonists asserting that the revolutionary principles are consistent with what all reasonable people would support since they “are the principles of Aristotle and Plato, of Livy and Cicero, and Sidney, Harrington, and Locke; the principles of nature and eternal reason; the principles on which the whole government over us now stands.”

We must not take Aristotle’s Ethics too far or read too much in them. He lived, after all, in a pre-scientific age that was, to borrow the words of the historian William Manchester, in “a world lit only by fire.” His writings are not imbued with magic or divinely inspired. But he points the way in basing morality and ethical conduct on “natural law” as opposed to that flowing from received authority, power, or wealth. Later, in his politics, which is seen as a continuation of the Ethics, he comes to some interesting conclusions regarding governance, though they come down to us in fragments.

For example, he provides us with what we still use his taxonomy of types of governance, defining governance in terms of governments of one, governments of the few, and governments of the many. In Book 2, chapter ii, he grapples with the dangers of totalitarianism and oligarchy–and the ability of the powerful to sway public opinion–concluding that “a state which becomes progressively more and more of a unity will cease to be a state at all. Plurality of numbers is natural in a state; and the farther it moves away from plurality towards unity, the less of a state it becomes and the more a household, and the household in turn an individual.”

He also, in Book 3, chapter IX, separates out the role of the state from one based on wealth and power and one based on total equal distribution of resources (what we would today define as communism). In this way he posits that the role of the state isn’t only to provide defense or to define justice by economic measures in either extreme. “A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange…Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.”

He ties the role of a good state to his Ethics, “So it is clear that the search for what is just is a search for the mean; for the law is the mean.” A good citizen and a good government eschews extremism of any form and embraces inclusiveness. “Justice therefore demands that no one should do more ruling than being ruled, but that all should have their turn.” This does not, however, include those who do not live virtuous lives. Wealth and power on the one hand, and popularity on the other, are extremes that undermine the purpose of government. “A state is an association of similar persons whose aim is the best life possible. What is best is happiness (human flourishing), and to be happy is an active exercise of virtue and a complete employment of it.” Jefferson himself echoed this purpose in his Autobiography, “Instead of an aristocracy of wealth,” he wrote, “of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic.”

In conclusion, in Book 8, chapter ii, he holds that education must be established to support this goal. “But since there is but one aim for the entire state, it follows that education must be one and the same for all, and that the responsibility for it must be a public one, not the private affair which it now is, each man looking after his own children and teaching them privately whatever private curriculum he thinks they ought to study.” Once again, the wisdom of this prescription can be found from Jefferson throughout our formative years as a democratic republic, reaching well into the early 20th century.

One can see where these ideas would be viewed as dangerous to the Medieval Mind when they were reintroduced, which was governed under the concept of divine power being granted to temporal rulers, thus making it all the more urgent that his teachings be appropriated. But they would be dangerous in any age and it should not surprise us that various individuals, governments, and organizations attempted to expunge his writings from history. His prescriptions on ethics and governance were of great import in his own time, since he schooled the man who became known as Alexander the Great. That his teaching did not fully impact his time is borne out by history.

Upon Alexander’s death his ideas became conflated with Macedonian influence and domination which under new-found Athenian independence was considered treasonous. It was while fleeing Athens that he died. Thus, the man we view as a giant today was, in reality, simply a man, albeit one of great learning, who sought to influence his own times with a better way of living. He is considered a giant of philosophy not because of who he was in his own time but because of the strength of his ideas, which speak to us today.

We can see his influence, synthesized and informed by the experience of later generations of thinkers, in these concepts:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,…”

These ideas are still being challenged by old concepts in updated clothing. The challenge to civilization has always been the conflict between the interests of wealth and power on the one hand and justice dedicated to the public good on the other; and whether legitimacy and the definition of justice is derived from reason in which the truth can be found by people of education, or from some higher authority based on privilege or revealed wisdom.