Dual-Consciousness People

In this Friday column, David Brooks of The New York Times, wrote an article entitled Leading With Two Minds. The article address how officers like, Gen. David Petraeus , have transformed the Army over a very short five years. Brooks opens the article with an observation that applies to many organizations and professions - - especially engineering and engineers:

They say that intellectual history travels slowly, and by hearse. The old generation has to die off before a new set of convictions can rise and replace entrenched ways of thinking. People also say that a large organization is like an aircraft carrier. You can move the rudder, but it still takes a long time to turn it around.

Yet we have a counterexample right in front of us. Five years ago, the United States Army was one sort of organization, with a certain mentality. Today, it is a different organization, with a different mentality. It has been transformed in the virtual flash of an eye, and the story of the transformation is fascinating for anybody interested in the flow of ideas.

The story is how scholar-soldiers transformed the Army. The story is about people like Petraeus, steeped in Army culture but also in some other - - in his case academia. Many parts of the story have the same type of individual - - polymaths that are interested in learning, exploring, and embracing ideas outside their direct fields and professions. Brooks refers to this type as dual-consciousness people - - Brooks explains this as:

The process was led by these dual-consciousness people - - those who could be practitioners one month and academic observers of themselves the next. They were neither blinkered by Army mind-set, like some of the back-slapping old guard, nor so removed from it that their ideas were never tested by reality, like pure academic theoreticians.

It's a wonder that more institutions aren't set up to encourage this sort of alternating life. Business schools do it, but most institutions are hindered by guild customs, by tenure rules and by the tyranny of people who can only think in on way.