The Adolescent Cult Of Getting It Right - Road to the Middle Class

JOURNALIST and writer David Halberstam, tragically killed in an auto accident, lived by the modern journalist’s code. When you take down the politicians and the generals: Get It Right, writes James Bowman, author of Honor, A History.

In championing the culture of “getting it right,” today’s journalists are only following the culture of the academic middle class, which generally lives by observation and the bon mot.

Unfortunately the dirty work of living in the world involves action. And as the saying goes, if you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t learning anything. Life is a trial-and-error process of getting things wrong and then acting to make it right.

"Getting it right" is of course an admirable ambition for a journalist, but it is an exercise that has little in common with what generals and politicians must do, which is to lead others through situations of mortal peril with appallingly incomplete and inaccurate information to guide them. Getting it wrong is a given... For the man who must act and not just observe, the only question that matters is how quickly he can recognize and recover from his mistakes and how strong is his will to keep fighting in spite of them and the inevitable setbacks they cause.

The criticism of President Bush in recent years, like the routine criticism of businessmen, betrays this adolescent view of life.

And of course it is appropriate that liberals and Democrats and academicians all celebrate being right and mercilessly criticize anyone who makes a mistake. In the bureaucratic and education and media sector hardly anyone is involved in real action. There is no bottom line for professors and journalists; win or lose they keep drawing their salaries.

But in the real world you struggle from mistake to mistake, and you try to learn as you go along.

People who make with the criticism reveal the adolescent fuzz on their cheeks. Nobody who ever had responsible charge of a real project, and had made real mistakes in their life, would talk like that.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.