Visions of Motivations

I often hear people surprised and disappointed at the manner in which groups of people behave, that these groups of people should behave differently.  It is very rare that I disagree with the sentiment, at any level you want to look at humanity, from individual to species, there's a whole bunch of stuff we should be doing differently.  However, I do feel that I am less surprised about much of the behavior.

What do I actually mean?  A few examples are business executives putting profit above the welfare of their employees, or police harassment/racism/brutality, or politicians putting being elected above anything else. A moral person by almost any measure should put the well being of other people above the difference between being rich and being very rich.  The job of the police should be protecting people rather than harming people.  Politicians are there to actually get things done rather than to be able to stay there.

None of these problems surprise me, not so much because I am so jaded by their recurrence, but because of how I think about motivations.  When deciding what to do for a career a young person creates a picture for themselves of various jobs and then imagines themselves in that role and determines how that would feel. 

When thinking of being a businessman it would be usual to think of a rich man in a suit who is looked up to for their power, who have people rushing to attend to their needs, and someone who wins competitions.  The sort of people who derive pleasure from that image will try to become business executives.  People motivated by wealth, power, being served by others, and competition are essentially by definition not motivated by the distribution of wealth and power for a more egalitarian existence.

When thinking of a policeman most people would think of him chasing down and capturing a bad guy, someone breaking the rules.  A policeman is someone imbued with the power from authority to physically restrain and intimidate certain people.  If you are motivated by being the physical symbol of official power then you will try to find ways to express that power against those who are not a part of that official power.  In these imaginings I think we can all agree that the bad guys are rarely well off white women. 

When thinking of politicians what image comes to mind?  Is it something other than the applause and adulation of a crowd towards a person delivering an impassioned speech?  Does the actual content of the speech matter much to that image?  If you are motivated by an impassioned crowd then you will try to find ways to produce an impassioned crowd, which is exactly what politicians do.

All of these examples are painted with a broad brush.  There are ethical businessmen, dedicated to producing a useful, quality product while providing a real living for their employees.  There are policemen who are motivated mostly by helping and supporting a community.  There are politicians primarily motivated by policy for whom getting elected is a prerequisite rather than the primary goal.  It is also true that almost all of the people in these professions would deny that their primary motivations fall along these lines.  Still, I think there's a lot to this stuff.

People in different areas of life are there to a very large extent because they have chosen to be there, and people choose things because of their inherent motivations.  If you can start with what motivates people to do certain things rather than starting from what people should do then you will get a better understanding of what to expect from people, and be less upset all of the time when they do that instead of what they are supposed to be doing.  Spies are always going to try and get the maximum amount of information possible, your privacy is the thing their motivation wants to remove, and your safety is their justification to get what they want.

Is this a paen to cynical acceptance?  Perhaps a bit.  However, I do think that trying to work out why people do things is better than simply being outraged that they do and demanding something different.  If you want to fix things then you have to understand what is broken first. 

If you wish to produce more socially conscious businesspeople then you need to alter the image of a successful businessperson somehow, I have suggested that the best way to do this is to make philanthropy the gaudiest, most coveted sign of true wealth and prestige. 

If you want government to work better then you need to get people more interested in governing than being elected, which requires disconnecting campaigning from governing.  At some point it seems likely to me that somewhere politicians will become seen as an unnecessary middle-man between the electorate (who now have the ability to vote for things 24/7/365) and lobbyists/special interest groups.  I expect that the result of such an occurrence would be a new found respect for representative democracy.

I don't know how to stop cops from getting their jollies from intimidating people, something that has been quite evident in every single interaction with the police I have had (and usually I have been on the "cop's side.")