Claude Monet: Sandvika, Norway (1895)

"I expect they'll continue trying, anyway."

The Lake Woebegone Syndrome might have proved the most damaging of all the popular delusions. Some would vote for Dunning-Kruger, "a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities" (Wikipedia) Different people favor different foibles, but for self-sustaining delusion power, Woebegone works for me. Named after Garrison Keillor's fictional Minnesota town of Lake Woebegone, where, in his description, "the men are strong, the women, good looking, and the children, above average." Keillor describes a fictional place that perfectly encapsulates a common human aspiration. Who wouldn't want to call such a place home? Who didn't, at some level, hail from a similar myth, if only because the world of our youth might have seemed more understandable, more reasonable? I refer to my hometown as the center of my universe, where gravity works right, and Keillor taps into that sense when he characterizes Lake Woebegone. Who doesn't aspire to return to such a place? Who doesn't secretly try to recreate that sense when designing something?

It's common that a company, when considering recruitment, produces a process intended to create a little Lake Woebegone. They recruit for the equivalent of strong men, good-looking women, and above-average children. They employ a variety of tools intended to assist them achieve their goal. They might select from graduates of only a few more highly-ranked universities. They might insist upon advanced degrees. They might subject every candidate to tests to identify only the most suitable. Yet they find that not everyone they recruit falls above average in performance on whatever curve they might choose to determine fit. However strenuously filtered, the resulting population will continue to represent the usual range, perhaps skewed one way or another, with a select few geniuses and some counterbalancing idiots in practice and everyone else huddling around some mean, however shifted. There's no such thing as a population where everyone's above average.

The incumbent's ill-named Department of Government Efficiency, itself no paragon of anything except absurdity, claims to be "cutting out deadwood" and "trimming staff to mission-critical." Both of these phrases serve as tells that someone might be pursuing The Lake Woebegone Syndrome. The belief that staff includes deadwood might be unreproachable, but a belief that one can successfully prune that piece without upsetting some delicate, subtle balance often proves delusional in practice. Likewise, the notion that any system includes very many utterly irrelevant parts. Systems operate as wholes, not merely collections of separable elements. In that sense, every element might be considered mission-critical, especially those without a clear connection. After careful evaluation, one might begin usefully testing to see which elements might be excused and might even realize some success. Still, merely whacking off superficial-seeming elements without prior deep analysis often produces unintended consequences. Cutting deadwood paradoxically always initially degrades capability. There are no free lunches.

It's no great sin to attempt to streamline operations, though the manner of method matters more than might seem obvious. Even the most simple-seeming system tends to be unimaginably complex in practice, and we're perhaps most skilled at perceiving them as more trivial than they actually are. It often proves self-defeating to approach fine-tuning with much arrogance. An All Ya Gotta Do Attitude might be the most encumbering mindset to carry into any effort. A sense of humility might better serve everyone involved. The Department of Government Efficiency seems primarily populated by kids in the earliest stages of their careers. They have demonstrated little respect or interest in the history of the contexts they savage. They seem to begin their work with quotas, mindsets that define success in terms of how many heads they can chop. This without first even gaining an understanding of the mission involved. They couldn't have been better focused if they intended to produce useless upset. If they believe they in any way embody the animating spirit of efficiency, they are only deluding themselves. They are obviously not whatever they were cracked up to be.

The Lake Woebegone Syndrome stands as an example of the sort of a priori thinking that so often dominates the modern mind. Instead of beginning with beginner's mind, we seem to need to convince ourselves that we're supposed to already know without having gained any experience in that context. We're concerned that someone might discover that we're undercover, learning on the job, praying that the systems we interact with might disclose how to better deal with them. Instead, we bring out a priori notions and fill ourselves with presumptions. We approach our next great challenge as if we'd already mastered it from the outset, ensuring that our upcoming episode will be another parody of the predicted performance. Our ignorance could be our wisdom. Our lack of understanding can only become knowledge if we acknowledge when we do not know. This whole Government Department of Efficiency isn't actually a government department or apparently interested in achieving efficiency.. It seems to be a smoke screen intended to conceal sinister operations. They might only be fooling themselves, but whatever they try, they will most assuredly never produce a population where all the children are above average. I expect they'll continue trying, anyway.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NextWorld, #PureSchmaltz