Q&A

What is your book, Path to Power, Road to Ruin, about?

It's about the dangers of people’s dependence on ideologies and ideological thinking. The book explains how ideologies can be so popular, but at the same time so harmful to humanity. It describes the serious consequences that flow from our commitment to ideologies and shows that the claims made to give ideologies credibility are highly flawed and inconsistent with the realities of history and rational thinking. Path to Power, Road to Ruin exposes the myths surrounding the most popular religious and political ideologies. Using historical and current examples, it explains their true nature, what drives their success, and why they are so dangerous for us all. And finally, it describes how we can free ourselves from ideological domination going forward.

What inspired you to write it?

The book started with a chance trip to the Yale College Bookstore in New Haven. While I was there, I came across a book, entitled The Specter of Genocide. The book was a wake-up call for me because it showed me that mass killing and genocide were much more frequent events than I ever realized. I simply wasn’t ready for the reality that there were over a hundred incidents in the course of human history, where anywhere from 100K to tens of millions of people were killed at one time and place. Reading the stories of these events awakened me to the reality that a large number of these grim episodes were associated with religious and political ideologies, some of which I myself embraced. This very disturbing realization triggered the extensive research into ideologies that became the basis for my book.

You are a former company CEO. You graduated from Yale University and have a Master’s Degree from Columbia University. But none of it involved religion, political science, government, sociology, or psychology. So, what informs you to pen such a book?

It’s true, I do not have degrees in any of these areas, but I have studied each in depth. What does distinguish my background, however, is that I have a lifetime spent doing intensive research and analysis. I know how to efficiently acquire an in-depth understanding about many different subjects, intellectual disciplines, and business situations. The essential element that runs through my educational and professional background is not the functional disciplines but my research capability and my ability to gain unique insights about important questions from fact and evidence-based analysis of almost any category. And finally, there is a willingness, on my part, to do whatever work is required to get to the truth about a situation. For example, I spent years doing the research necessary for my book Path to Power, Road to Ruin, The Danger of Political and Religious Ideologies.

How can we discern and understand the true motives behind the narrative that leaders seek to promote?

The leaders’ motives are always the same. We know from history that smart, ambitious people soon come to realize that, if they want to acquire power, dominate their societies, or effect significant change, they have to find ways to attract and control large numbers of followers. People have learned, from experience, that one of the best ways to do this was to harness the motivational and organizational power of mankind’s ideologies and use that clout to persuade people to join their group and commit to their causes. Their ability to actually attract a large group of supporters depends on their ability to effectively address potential followers’ anxieties, fears, desires, wishes, and hopes. The most successful ideologies are not necessarily the ones with the best doctrine, but rather the ones that do the best job of targeting potential supporters’ needs and fears.

Why are certain belief systems so appealing and powerful?

Ideologies get their power and attract a following by addressing peoples’ very real anxieties, fears, desires, wishes, and hopes. The three most powerful need/problem areas, according to the experts in the field of psychology, are: the strong desire to reduce existential anxiety about the challenges of daily life and the ever-present threat of death, the need to eliminate doubts and uncertainty about what to think and what to believe, and the powerful craving for status, self-esteem, and belonging. Satisfy these wishes and appease these fears and you go a long way to getting a prospective follower’s attention. Inevitably, the most successful ideologies are the ones whose problem/need presentation resonates most closely with their target audience’s life issues.

You speak of the severe consequences associated with embracing ideologies. What are they?

There are five serious consequences that have recurred throughout history. Ideologies:

• Trigger the brutal mass murder of hundreds of millions of people. There have been over 100 incidents where 100M or more people were brutally killed;
• Unnecessarily prolong and intensify human conflicts. The 80 year conflict between Israel and Arab world and the 80 year old conflict between the Indians and Pakistanis are two relevant and current examples where competing belief systems cannot reconcile;
• Justify the ruthless repression of people on the bottom rungs of society, much as the Hindu belief in Karma has sustained the caste system in India;
• Split societies into warring factions that can never reconcile, just as is happening in the United States today, where competing ideologies fight endlessly for dominance;
• Limit human social progress by keeping mankind locked in violent ideological conflict, just as disruptive ideologies have done every time mankind seems to be getting close to developing a more harmonious world order, e.g., after the two World Wars and after the collapse of the USSR.

Is it possible that an ideology really is special and worth living by – even dying for – whether it’s political or religious?

What is your litmus test to know if one group is legitimate or better than the rest? My litmus test is whether ideologies use supremacist, absolutist, or utopian ideas as their key motivators and drivers. Since these three ideas are often behind the worst consequences that are experienced when ideologies dominate a society, it is almost a guarantee that problems will result. On the other hand, if an ideology avoids using these three beliefs as part of its core philosophy, then there is a very good chance that it will be better than the rest. The better belief systems just don't use them. They reject the idea that one group of people is better than any other and deserves special treatment; they avoid rigid absolute thinking in favor of more flexible, fact-based bottoms-up approaches; and they discard the notion that there is an ideal outcome to this life.

Why do you say that, at their core, ideologies are deeply flawed responses to life’s pervasive challenges?

Traditional ideologies, like religion, communism, nationalism, and racism, are generally positioned as though they are the one and only solution to life's major issues and problems. Leaders claim that they and they alone can help improve your life. But this is nonsense because living inside an ideology does not provide lasting solutions to life problems. In fact, it is just a distraction that precludes more realistic thinking. Instead, we should focus on alternative belief systems, such as the ones described in Path to Power, Road to Ruin. They deliver the benefits of conventional ideologies without the terribly negative consequences that have historically accompanied traditional belief systems.

What types of myths surround our ideologies?

Both religious and political ideologies depend on myth to validate their beliefs. Because the doctrines of most religions can never be proven to be valid, religious leaders must turn to the extraordinary, the miraculous, and the other worldly to give their claims and beliefs credibility. Specifically, religious ideologies use dubious proclamations about the divine revelation of sacred texts, mythical claims about the miracles performed by prophets, and questionable assertions about the existence of invisible deities in order to validate their doctrines. Also, political ideologies rewrite history to erase all the errors and flaws from their past so that their leaders or nation look infallible in the conduct of their affairs. They make exaggerated claims about their greatness or superiority among all nations to justify their taking aggressive actions against their perceived enemies. They construct false narratives about how the world works that rationalizes their ruthless suppression of people on the bottom rungs of society.

Why do so many people from every generation seek to find a utopia?

It is the difficulties of this life and the natural human desire to be free from its problems that cause man to focus on utopian solutions. The harsh reality is that this life is extremely difficult. Anxiety and fear are present throughout our lives; we have to deal with wars, violence, conflict, disease, and famine; we have to work very hard every day of our lives just to survive; and we have to suffer through the loss of loved ones and the fear of our own death. That is why, since the dawn of time, mankind has imagined many alternative outcomes to this life that would eliminate such problems, including building ideal societies, imagining paradises in the next life, or a undertaking a complete restructuring of society, as communism attempted to do.

Is the real problem with any group or belief system that it espouses a rigid approach to life, failing to make changes or expand its tent?

Well, it’s definitely one problem and an important one. People like rigid ideologies because they promise certainty and structure, which makes them feel more comfortable with the extreme variability they find in everyday life. That’s one reason why people often remember dictators with such fondness. Dictators deal in absolutes and absolute certainty. They remove all doubts and uncertainty about life and take away all decisions and flexibility in the lives of their followers. So, followers don't have to worry about making life decisions or taking responsibility for themselves. They can leave it up to the dictator. Of course, the real problem with this absolutist approach is that, once it gains traction, everyone’s thinking remains inflexible and calcified and thus precludes any growth or advancement. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church grew so repressive that medieval European society didn't advance at all for almost 1000 years.

How does an ideology allow us to buy into hatred and the demonization of others?

Any time an ideology creates certain classes of people and ranks them according to their relative importance or status in society, problems will result. We know, from research, that humans are very quick to spot and focus on differences between themselves and others. This happens at a very early age and is pervasive across the species. Such attitudes make it easy for people to see themselves as superior and others as inferior. Claims of inferiority are typically reinforced by using denigration, dehumanization, and demonization tactics which lower one group relative to the other. Such approaches have the effect of creating dislike, hatred, and set up inevitable conflict. So, when supremacist ideologies claim that certain classes of people are superior to others and have the right to dominate, control and even eliminate those others, hatred is an inevitable consequence.

Isn’t the world just going to always be divided into groups, from cults and religions to gangs and nations?

It is obvious human history says this has been the case, no? Yes, mankind has always been divided into an almost limitless number of groups, all vying with each other for ascendancy and a place in the sun. They do so by competing aggressively to be different and better than the other groups with whom they interact. They use whatever means are necessary to achieve their supremacy, including a variety of strategies that both raise themselves up and simultaneously lower others. In this way, they ensure they always come out on top and, at the same time, are prepared to marginalize and even eliminate those others, if necessary to achieve their objectives.

So, what is the road to a better future? What can we do about our divided lusts for various ideologies?

You can achieve a better future by walking away from, or at least reducing your dependence on ideology and ideological perspectives. There are four ways to do this. First, do the fact and evidence based research that allows you to get to the truth about your beliefs before accepting any ideas proposed by others; Second, reject those ideologies and ideas that are based on supremacist, absolutist and utopian thinking that have consistently demonstrated a strong tendency to trigger really bad outcomes; Third, substitute less harmful belief systems, like those proposed in Path to Power for the more dangerous and consequential beliefs that are popular today; and fourth, learn to study history to see how humanity has handled similar situations in the past before accepting any new belief systems.

You write that “holding beliefs, based on objective reality rather than on faith, myths, or the manipulation of others, does in fact lead to superior outcomes.” Can you give us an example or two?

In my book, I give several examples of how beliefs and positions developed from fact-based approaches consistently outperform more subjective approaches, in areas as diverse as investments, business, sports, warfare and even psychotherapy. The example that I talk about the most is how, during the Global Financial Crisis, the people who were most successful in navigating the catastrophe were those who did their own in-depth, fact-based research into the mortgage business. They discovered, contrary to popular opinion, that mortgages were not safe investments and, that the whole mortgage business was on the verge of collapse. They realized huge gains by betting against the mortgage market, while those who followed the consensus views, based on standard Wall Street thinking, suffered huge losses.

You grew up Irish Catholic and conservative, the son of two immigrants. You can see how easy it was to embrace what your parents instilled in you. How could one, at a young age, have the knowledge and ability to oppose authority – family, clergy, teachers, and societal peer pressures?

There is very little chance that a young child will ever stand up to the important adults in his life on issues of religious and political beliefs. In most cases, he will be lucky to make any progress against such a goal until he is well into adulthood. Challenging childhood beliefs requires that the individual has a position of power in his environment so that he can assert new principles. But, it also requires that he has had either enough lifetime experience or has done enough research to allow him to compare alternatives. He will need this preparation to help him break free from years of indoctrination and make any necessary changes in his beliefs.

You say that there are two distinct modes of thinking in this world—ideological thinking and its antithesis analytic thinking. How are they different?

Ideological thinking is top-down thinking, typically imposed or uncritically accepted from above, while analytic thinking is bottoms-up, developed from the ground up, based on intensive fact-based research and analysis;

• Ideological thinking has a strong tendency to be inflexible and rigid, not open, while analytical thinking is responsive to change or modification based on new information and insight;
• Ideological thinking is principles driven thinking where a set of fixed principles is accepted without regard to consequences, while analytical thinking is consequences based thought, where no idea goes forward without an evaluation of its outcomes.
• Ideological thinking and ideas are highly subjective, rely on unreliable sources of authority, such as faith, revelation, and myth, while analytical thinking is grounded in objective fact-based research and analysis;
• Ideological thinkers let others think for them, while analytical thinkers think for themselves and forge their own destiny in matters of belief.
• When implemented live in the real world, the superiority of analytic thinking gets translated into superior results, no matter what the category.

Your book identifies three dangerous ideas at play today. What are they?

The first is the idea that the United States can return to its former greatness: This idea has been tried many times in other countries over the last century and has resulted in miserable failure for the country involved and also for the world at large. The examples of Ottoman Turkey, Imperial Japan, and Nazi Germany during the 20th century are very instructive and show that this is a failed strategy. Yet it's being tried again 100 years later in Russia, China, and the US.

The second is the idea that it would be acceptable if America shed its democratic ideals and governing structure and became an authoritarian dictatorship: At least a third of the people in this country say that this would be acceptable to them. But most of those people have never lived in a dictatorship and have no idea how unpleasant it would be. Such people think that the dictator would serve and advance their particular interests. But that seldom turns out to be true, because the longer the dictator is in office and the more powerful he becomes, the more he ends up serving his own purposes and harming his people.

The third idea is that it would be perfectly acceptable for our country to exclude or marginalize certain groups within our society and then restrict their rights and access to the benefits of our society: This idea is based on supremacist notion of the superiority of certain groups, none of which have ever been validated by historical precedent or genetic analysis. Further, the United States is now facing the most serious competitive threat that it has ever faced in its 250-year history, i.e., China. Given that China has four times as many people as we do, the US cannot afford to be excluding anyone from its society. It needs the best and brightest from every group if it is have the resources to compete.

You write of the dangers of political and religious ideologies. Are they similar to cults or any “ism” that blinds us to seeing the truth?

A cult is a group that is centered around a charismatic leader who exerts considerable personal control over his members’ lives and thinking. The cult leader may adopt a belief system, often extreme, to sustain control of his flock. Ideologies, on the other hand, are different in that they can attract large numbers of people, based primarily on the appeal of a set of beliefs. Ideologies link multiple ideas into a comprehensive view of the world that establishes a framework for people to follow in their day-to-day lives. As a result, ideologies are able to attract significant numbers of people without that same level of personal control, manipulation, and isolation involved in cults. However, it is important to recognize that both are bad for humanity in that they keep people from thinking for themselves and developing evidence-based, rational belief positions.

You warn that it is not just dictators like Russia’s Putin or China’s Xi that we need to watch out for, but that Trumpism is selling an ideology that could radically change the fundamental structure of America’s form of government and democracy. What exactly do you mean?

Over the last twenty years of their rule, Xi and Putin have turned their countries into rigid totalitarian dictatorships. They tolerate no dissent or disagreement and systematically eliminate any ideology or person or group that might block their path. China, for example, has eradicated all religions in China, including Tibetan Buddhism, the Falun Gong, and Islam. And there is no going back on the path that they are on. Similarly, Donald Trump has completely cast aside the rule of law in the operation of his presidency during his second term. He is forcibly removing all obstacles to his will, governing by Executive Order and fiat. He is very open in his support of dictators around the world and admits his predilection for an autocratic approach. He sells this massive change by appealing to Christian Nationalism, Libertarianism, Supremacism, and other right wing ideological perspectives, all under the umbrella of “Make America Great Again.”

So, do you believe that Christian Nationalists could be altering our country?

It is a serious threat. Many would like to turn our country into a theocracy, i.e., a state that is governed by the religious authority. We know that Afghanistan, Iran, and other Middle East countries are governed by the religious, using religious law and morality to dictate societal norms. These systems are distinctly non-democratic. They quickly become totalitarian in their approach and outlook, something that is completely inimical to the American way of life. The whole rationale justifying this position for the United States is based on the dubious claim that America was founded as a Christian country, has remained a Christian country; and therefore, should take the final step of inserting Christianity into every corner of society. They make this argument even though the number of those claiming to be Christian and actively participating in Christianity in the US has been persistently declining for years.