"It's nearly impossible to overestimate the lengths to which the governments of this world will go to have their own way, punish their enemies, and enrich their friends. No tactic is untried, and while practically all governments claim high moral purposes, practically all go by the book—Machiavelli's Prince, that is. Machiavelli's viewpoint, one shared by most national leaders, is that the highest morality is the preservation of the state and its power; therefore, in the service of state survival, any low blow is justified."
—John Jacob Nutter
The CIA's Black Ops
Our objective in this section is to illustrate the use of one methodology, the Ishikawa diagram, that can be used to undertake an analysis of root causes. Root causes are the most fundamental, or ultimate causes underlying some phenomenon which we are concerned with understanding so as to bring about change. The advantage of undertaking a root cause analysis is that its results permit us to focus on the real problems, instead of dissipating our time and energy by addressing symptoms.
The humanistic concern is for the well-being of the human species as a whole. In sharp contrast, the Machiavellian politics of nationalism and corporatism, that seek to advance the interests of small but powerful constituencies, are a very real and very dangerous aspect of our world — and in some measure probably always will be.
Nevertheless, we are all members of one species. We all inhabit one small planet with finite resources. We share a single environment. While this view is anathema to nationalistic and especially corporate interests, even the leaders of nations and corporations must inhabit this planet with all of the rest of us. Even they have families, and will have descendents. And soon enough there will be little enough left for anyone to enjoy if we continue down the self-destructive path we have been traveling. So we must hope for the best, and work for it as we can, wealthy and poor alike, American and African and European and Asian alike. It's virtually certain that all will not be for the best; but perhaps all won't be for the worst either, if we work hard.
But in order to hope for and work for the best, we must know what to work for. We must set goals and establish priorities. Here too, a root cause analysis serves us well.
Fortunately, industry has developed tools that can help us to identify the underlying causes. Although the tools have somewhat intimidating names, they're easy to use. The first tool is the Ishikawa Diagram, which is a graphic tool that helps us to isolate underlying causes. The second tool is Pareto Analysis. Pareto analysis is done following the use of the Ishikawa Diagram, and helps us to identify the most important of the underlying causes. The Pareto Principle states that "only a 'vital few' factors are responsible for producing most problems." To put this another way, 80% of the effects (problems) in any given situation may be the result of only 10% of the causes. So if we first address these most important, "vital few" causes, we will greatly increase our effectiveness, and will often find that the less significant problems will resolve themselves.
The first step in the use the Ishikawa Diagram is to identify the problem that you want to analyze. A concise phrase that capsulizes that problem is then put in a box to the extreme right of the diagram.
Now, we said that as Humanists our concern is for the well-being of the human species as a whole. And as a whole the human species is not doing well. Poverty, ignorance, disease, and the misery that attends these are endemic. So if we're going to "save the world," the problem that we want to analyze is the pervasiveness of human misery.
The first element in an Ishikawa Diagram looks like this:
Here the "effect" is the problem that we want to analyze. It's called an "effect" to emphasize that the problem didn't come from nowhere. Rather, it's the outcome of one or more specific causes. The arrow to the left represents the sum total of the various causes leading to the effect.
So first we'll want to substitute "human misery" as the effect that we're interested in.
Again, this is a symbolic representation of the fact that what we're looking for are the root causes of the misery of humanity as a whole.
Now, running off of the line at the left, at an angle, will be various obvious, or "first order" causes of human misery. These will be all of the "surface" problems that we'll want to look into more deeply later on.
Before continuing with our diagram, let's list some of the more obvious, "surface" causes of human misery.
- War
- Poverty
- Oppression
- Ignorance
- Crime
- Disease
- Hunger
Now, the next thing to do with our diagram is to make each of these a "rib" running off of the main "spine." The result looks like this:
What we've diagrammed so far shows that crime, oppression, war, hunger, disease, ignorance and poverty are some of the obvious causes of human misery. We may not have identified all of the obvious causes, and may wish to add more as they occur to us. Still, we're ready for the next step: identifying the causes of each of these immediate causes. Let's call each of the causes of the immediate causes a "secondary cause." So, for example, if an immediate cause of human misery is war, then a secondary cause will be anything that causes war.
Now we ask ourselves: "What are the causes of war?"
Obviously, matters such as this can be debated endlessly. If we do so, we'll never finish our diagram. On the other hand, we don't want to attribute false causes. The solution is to use the best answers currently available and leave the door open to future research. Too, eventually, we'll begin to see interconnections that will make our analysis clearer and better-justified.
The best contemporary research suggests that wars are most often fought for the following reasons:
- To control territory or national resources (i.e., to increase wealth, often to benefit an elite)
- To maintain or increase power, often by crushing potential rivals (typically so as to increase wealth)
- To maintain or increase cultural and/or religious and/or ethnic influence
- To further the personal ambitions of those in power (often to increase wealth)
Civil wars and revolutions are most often fought when the bare necessities of life can no longer be obtained, often because of the economic oppression of an elite.
If we now build these insights into our document, we arrive at the following:
If we now wish to refine our analysis, we can repeat the diagramming process for each of the secondary causes. As we do so, we'll want to look for common denominators in the causation of other secondary causes.
That further analysis (not diagrammed here) would look like this:
- The desire to control territory or resources is typically motivated by the desire for wealth.
- The desire to maintain or increase power is typically motivated by the desire for wealth or prestige.
- The desire to increase cultural, ethic, or religious influence is often intertwined with the desire for wealth or prestige.
- Personal ambition often concerns the desire for wealth or prestige.
- Civil wars are most often fought over the economic oppression of elites.
- We will also often find that any wealth or prestige obtained through war primarily benefits elites.
Our somewhat over-simplified root cause analysis of war, then, looks like this: the root cause of war is the desire, often on the part of a wealthy elite, for still greater wealth and prestige.
The desire for wealth and prestige is rooted in human nature, and can only be restrained, in the end, by an ethics of moderation, or else wholesale modification of human nature by such means as genetic manipulation. Of the two, an ethics of moderation is clearly far less dangerous and more socially acceptable.
The emergence of elites is largely a consequence of failed or poorly designed political and economic institutions.
Therefore, in order to eliminate human misery, we will want to concentrate some of our effort on the development and implementation of an ethic of moderation. (The development of such an ethic is the task of philosophy.) The implementation of an ethic of moderation is an essential task of (non-authoritarian) religion. Crafting institutions that restrain the emergence of elites is the task of political scientists, system theorists, and economists.
If we now wish to continue our analysis, we will have to repeat secondary cause analysis for each of the immediate, or first order, causes of human misery.
[Essay to be continued, pending secondary cause analysis for each of the remaining first order causes.]
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