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"Serving Fellow Man" - Doug Garland
Doug is focused on serving fellow man and to do that he has focused on a concept known as the "Tall Poppy Syndrome." Doug wrote a book on the topic and has been studying it for over 10 years. Through that work he believes the "Tall Poppy Syndrome" is a human condition that has been present since the beginning of time and it explains why humans always seek fairness and justify our actions by cutting others down (analogy being, when someone looks at a field of poppy plants, their inclination is to cut the highest ones so that they can all be even).
A concept like this is ripe with philosophical and societal questions, which Doug and I dove into throughout the show. Doug's main thesis was around the ideas that 1. we should celebrate tall poppies as they are necessary to make society thrive and 2. the approach of cutting down or "cancelling" tall poppies is counter productive and wrong. As we discussed though, there are numerous counterpoints to consider to that view; what if the playing field isn't even for all poppies to grow, what if a tall poppy exploited smaller poppies to get to their level, what if once a tall poppy reached their level they abused their power, etc.
What became clear to me in this discussion is that there is a lot of validity to this concept and likely it explains a good bit of the cancel culture we see today. But, we have to be very careful to not apply the concept in an overly simplistic way. It would seem wrong to say any time you cut a tall poppy it is a bad thing, just like it would seem wrong to say any time a poppy grows too tall it should be cut. What I appreciated about Doug's thoughts as we probed all of this, is that he acknowledged the most important take-away from his work is that people (all people--the cutter, the cuttee, and anyone observing) need to be more thoughtful and self reflective before they jump to conclusions. Human nature seems to push us to assume our assessments are accurate, leading us to rash actions. Doug, myself, and hopefully those listening all need to be better at challenging our own assessments in search of a greater good.
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By Terry McMullen
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Doug is focused on serving fellow man and to do that he has focused on a concept known as the "Tall Poppy Syndrome." Doug wrote a book on the topic and has been studying it for over 10 years. Through that work he believes the "Tall Poppy Syndrome" is a human condition that has been present since the beginning of time and it explains why humans always seek fairness and justify our actions by cutting others down (analogy being, when someone looks at a field of poppy plants, their inclination is to cut the highest ones so that they can all be even).
A concept like this is ripe with philosophical and societal questions, which Doug and I dove into throughout the show. Doug's main thesis was around the ideas that 1. we should celebrate tall poppies as they are necessary to make society thrive and 2. the approach of cutting down or "cancelling" tall poppies is counter productive and wrong. As we discussed though, there are numerous counterpoints to consider to that view; what if the playing field isn't even for all poppies to grow, what if a tall poppy exploited smaller poppies to get to their level, what if once a tall poppy reached their level they abused their power, etc.
What became clear to me in this discussion is that there is a lot of validity to this concept and likely it explains a good bit of the cancel culture we see today. But, we have to be very careful to not apply the concept in an overly simplistic way. It would seem wrong to say any time you cut a tall poppy it is a bad thing, just like it would seem wrong to say any time a poppy grows too tall it should be cut. What I appreciated about Doug's thoughts as we probed all of this, is that he acknowledged the most important take-away from his work is that people (all people--the cutter, the cuttee, and anyone observing) need to be more thoughtful and self reflective before they jump to conclusions. Human nature seems to push us to assume our assessments are accurate, leading us to rash actions. Doug, myself, and hopefully those listening all need to be better at challenging our own assessments in search of a greater good.