One of the big crazes sweeping campuses and corporations is the idea of assessment. In order to properly assess, you have to set goals and define measurable means of progress. Only by setting out conditions beforehand (say, stock price target, productivity gains, satisfaction ratings, etc) for success can you truly measure yourself. It does no good to assess yourself by writing the criteria after the fact. Every corporation knows this.
So why is it that the assessment criteria for Iraq have changed so drastically, and why is the corporate Republican structure ok with it? The answer to the first question is "because it can". The media is allowing Bushco to get away with claiming that the most important victory in Iraq is somehow improving the human rights conditions over there (meanwhile, have you seen Azerbaijan lately, a staunch American ally?). They're pushing the idea that Dean is a fringe lefty for pointout out the obvious fact that Saddam's capture hasn't done anything to make America safer. If anything, the long-term situation is worse now that we've created more enemies over there during the occupation.
The answer to the second part is that corporate Republicans will say or do whatever it takes to keep this gravy train going. Assessment be damned, profit is the bottom line. I mean, I think everyone, conservative and liberal, statist and libertarian (if those are the correct pole designators), agreed before the war that we better hope we find a whole bunch of WMD ... and quickly.
Now that we haven't, now that person after qualified (and in-the-know) person has come forward like David Kay over the weekend, now that we know Iraq hasn't had significant WMD *programs* (not even WMD's!) since the 90's, why are conservatives everywhere pretending that this Iraq war is a smashing success? How, exactly, have we been made safer? Art Silber has a very good commentary on this, including excerpts from an excellent column by David Hackworth. Do yourself a favor and get caught up on the war you'd probably much rather forget about.
Posted by Observer at January 26, 2004 08:20 AMComments on entries can only be made in pop-up windows while those entries are still on the main index page. Sorry for the inconvenience this causes, but this blocks about 99.99% of the spam the blog receives.
One of the few pleasant things about no longer being with my old employer is missing out on the agony of the goal-setting process. That company started this assessment bullshit only last year for the rank and file, and they did it badly. I hadn't felt that hopelessly adrift since scratching out my first adolescent love note at age 13 (one that I never had the guts to deliver, but that wasn't an option at the office).
A friend at a certain Enormous Aerospace Firm made the snide comment, "Ah yes, we also sacrifice the holy month of January to the dark god of goal-setting."
Fact is, none of the corps keeps the goals they set anyway. Circumstances change, so goals have to as well. That's the beauty of the process: it provides the illusion of an objective yardstick for assessing employees, while being squishy enough so the high-ranking assholes can reward/fire as they damn well please. Just another bunch of them who has the gold making and interpreting the rules. So in this case, Observer, Bushco is no different from mainstream corporate culture. The fact that you, as a trained scientist who shares Fenyman's opinion of this kind of sophistry, find this to be somewhere between grossly dishonest and fundamentally corrupt just indicates how out of touch you are with that culture.
Posted by: Laid-off Feff on January 27, 2004 01:00 AMWell, we are dishonest about assessment, too, because we don't believe in it. One committee I am on is working on assessing how well our core courses promote scientific literacy, which is of course impossible to measure. We came up with an outline of how to do it and then decided to "assess" once every seven years. Our hope is that by the time of the first scheduled assessment, the fad will have died out.
The genius who suggested this is a very canny old scientist who looks to be in line to become our next provost. I'm all for that!
Posted by: Observer on January 27, 2004 07:12 AM