a poverty of concepts

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“A poverty of concepts.”

Bernard Williams

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“The systematic hunting down of all settled convictions represents the anti-cultural predicate upon which modern personality is being reorganized.”

Philip Rieff

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Google ‘poverty of concepts’ and you will get ‘about 292,000,000 results (0.21 seconds).’  The problem is almost all 292mm results are discussing, well, poverty. My poverty, today, has to do with thinking and concepts; and ethics I imagine. I added ethics because they are important when it comes to concepts because they offer the guardrails as a concept races down time’s highway. It was Bernard Williams who said ‘our ethical life is too untidy to be captured by any systematic moral theory.’ Well. How about that? Too untidy. That’s an important thought as I share the difference between a poverty of ideas and poverty of concepts. Let’s just say, in my opinion, we have an abundance of ideas and a scarcity of concepts in today’s world; not just on ethics but in business, politics, and, well, everything. Ideas are a dime a dozen. So let me spend a minute discussing the difference between ideas and concepts. Ideas have characteristics of a moment of stillness; of nonmovement. An idea is usually bounded by time and space. On the other hand, a concept is resilient in motion. What I mean by that is that while a concept may have fixed principles, they are fluid not only during their development but within time and space. The concept will always have something that will hold them fast – an idea or some facts at the beginning – but none of those things that hold them fast will impede its successful motion and evolution throughout time and space. Maybe what I’m suggesting is that concepts are ideas that successfully mature. All I really know is that movement is the only constant and ideas always run the risk of not being able to keep up; while concepts thrive in keeping up.

Which leads me to the glut of ideas.

I don’t think I’m the sharpest knife in the drawer and I have dozens of ideas scribbled everywhere. Some business, some random, some debunking existing ideas, just lots of ideas. I bet I have even forgotten more than I’ve written down.  I give away ideas all the time mostly because I know ideas are a dime a dozen and maybe someone can make a buck from my dime. I also share them because I will think of far more ideas than I will ever be able to do. That’s true of the world in general. That’s good and bad. I have worked with startup incubators, large organizations, innovations groups, brand consulting firms, smaller organizations, in almost any industry imaginable and I can promise anyone asking, you don’t really have to work that hard for ideas. Most times the best ideas lie within easy reach if you only look close enough. Uhm. But you also have to understand that most so-called ideas are horrible. Just as ideas come in tall, grande & venti sizes, they also come in horrible, useless or extremely useful categories. Sometimes I refer to them as shallow, dimensionally intriguing or deep. Deep <capturing culture, need versus want & behaviorally insightful – linking people with purpose> is a mandatory for a great idea. Even then you can still end up with a dysfunctional useful idea. Suffice it to say not many people are deep, let alone can GO deep in the thinking. The truth is most of the people excited about their ideas are the people least capable to evaluate those ideas. Why? Well. A poverty of concepts. I have said in the past there is absolutely no excuse for not having ideas for your business. None. Zero. Zilch. I would also suggest there is no excuse for not having concepts.

Which leads me to thick and thin concepts.

In philosophy there are things called “thick concepts” and “thin concepts” (or philosopher Gilbert Ryle’s ‘thick descriptions’ and ‘thin descriptions’). Thick concepts are like: ‘cowardly or generous, has a lot of content and depth; i.e., to say that someone is cowardly is to say something specific, which requires similarly specific backing-up in terms of the person’s actions, reasons and (expressed) thoughts.’ Thin concepts have little or no depth; simply saying that an action is right or good, or that you ought to do it/not do it. The contrast is not just deep versus shallow depth. Thick concepts are those which ‘seem to express a union of fact and value and virtue (or vice).’ A thick concept not only provides description of how the world is, but also motivation to act on the world. It is evaluative and actionable. Thin concepts may be evaluative, but with little depth. If we are told something is the right thing to do, or that we ought to do it, we understand there is something meaningful in play, but thin-ness offers no direction on what it is that is the right thing to do, or what it is that I ought to do. Yeah. This means ethical behavior is found within a thick concept. Anyway. Thin concepts are defined by their poverty of depth. What that means is you can throw out ‘goodness, badness, rightness, wrongness’ as a concept, but, again, they remain thin in that just as you are told nothing when you are told that an action is the right thing to do. In other words, thin concepts are lazy arguments.

Which leads me to shapelessness.

I may have been a bit lazy when I referred to thin concepts as lazy arguments. Thin concepts are actually characterized by shapelessness. The shapelessness hypothesis is the claim that evaluative concepts are ‘shapeless’ with respect to the descriptive, i.e., the descriptions are thin in that good is just good, bad is just bad, and you know it when you see it. In other words, there is no frame for reflective definition. Thick concepts have shape. Or maybe said differently, they offer depth of description to offer a frame so they can receive the appropriate evaluation. And here is where virtue, or ethics, comes in. a thick concept of virtue extends to unfamiliar contexts, not just defined by what came before. It is an understanding a dealing with situations and not a common action implemented. Therein also lies my earlier point. An idea is stagnant to time and space while concepts shift into time and space. This also leads to ethically dealing with different situations, not the situations themselves, is how we distinguish between the characteristics of good versus bad. And that is what makes ethical/virtuous essential to thick concepts because they gains shape through actions. To summarize, it is not learning how to act throughout different situations in a similar way, but rather learning the point of acting in the ways you have been taught to act and continuing to discover what is involved in doing what is right in that time and space.

Which leads me back to poverty of concepts.

A poverty of concepts is exactly the same as poverty itself – it comes with interest charges. What I mean by that is a lack of concept today has a cascading cost. Mostly because I assume you decide, because a lack of a concept, to simply craft a flimsy hanging bridge with seemingly strong planks made of ideas. You cobble together a bridge and the ideas slowly rot away.

The reality is we can never forecast the future. The best we can do is to position ourselves in the best possible way for whatever happens. As Taleb said: ‘preparedness over prediction.’ Therein lies the power of concepts over ideas. Concepts navigate current constraints and future possibilities, always shifting, learning, as it encounters the unforeseeable and unfamiliar situations. Therefore, a poverty of concepts deprives us of the ability to navigate the present as well as the future. Ponder.