Individuals and societies can live and learn from mistakes | Opinion

And the seasons they go round and round / And the painted ponies go up and downWe're captive on the carousel of time / We can't return we can only look behindFrom where we came / And go round and round and round in the circle game.

Ah, the wisdom of Joni Mitchell in “The Circle Game.” “There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams … .” Try not to repeat the same mistakes. Gain some wisdom. Pass it on. Humans can grow, mature and become wiser. Or we can bury our heads in the sand or blame others. Or maybe we seek counseling.

What about our aggregate selves – governments, corporations, entertainment moguls, the conglomeration of it all? If individuals can learn and adapt, so can societies. Or so it would seem. Societies should do better. Millions of minds are better than one.

There’s nothing new about drawing parallels between healthy, functional individuals and healthy, functional societies. Let’s circle back 2,600 years, when Plato had a lot to say about this in “The Republic.”

Plato believed individuals and the ideal state each had elements of reason, appetite and spirit and each thrived when these were in appropriate balance. So how are we doing on the reasoning and learning front? As so many individuals often opine, “Mistakes were made.” We’re still not sure what we’ve learned from Vietnam, the Gulf wars and then Afghanistan. But some lessons seem to be sinking in.

Manufacturing and quality are cool

American ingenuity drove a manufacturing revolution. Henry Ford's assembly line made the automobile affordable. The big three of GM, Ford and Chrysler absolutely dominated the market. Then they didn't. Japan embraced the belief in quality control, and the gradual decline began in the 1970s. We let others build things. The shift to a service economy began. It worried a lot of folks. It didn’t take long for TVs, then computers, mobile phones and high-tech gadgetry of all sorts to be built elsewhere.

Now manufacturing is cool again. So is quality. Companies have learned that the global economy’s promise was mortgaged. Manufacturing jobs pay better than service jobs. Constructing and exporting work better than just servicing and importing. Simpler supply chains are easier to control and manage.

Working from home vs. the value of 'being there'

People used to get up, go to the office and then come home. It was just a matter of time before the great work-from-home experiment would begin. Faster, widely available internet combined with software platforms let folks punt on the onerous commutes and bothersome wardrobes and just turn on their home computers and attend online rather than in-person meetings.

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The COVID-19 pandemic made it worse. Now a whole lot of people don’t want to come back. And in many cases a shortage of qualified potential employees gives workers the upper hand. But companies are drawing lines in the sand. Come back to the office, or at least come back three days a week.

What did we learn from this? What started as a valuable fill-in and supplement to office work could not substitute for the value of “being there.” Organizations are learning that the chemistry of creativity and collective productivity depends on human contact.

The high cost of a lack of civics education

The teaching of civics was long a core element of American education. But it went out of favor, often the first casualty of the need for more STEM courses. As a result there’s been a marked decline in civic knowledge, a loss of the ability to find common ground for political disagreement and an overall decline in the health of our democracy.

We’re learning what a mistake this has been. This learning spans the partisan and ideological divide. In 2022 overwhelming majorities from both parties in the Tennessee General Assembly supported establishing the Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee.

We may disagree on some details, but it’s unmistakable that objective, nonpartisan civic education is on our collective minds. It needs to stay there. We’re certainly learning that.

William Lyons is Director of Policy Partnerships for the Howard H. Baker Jr. School of Public Policy and Public Affairs and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Tennessee. He also served as Chief Policy Officer for Knoxville Mayors Bill Haslam, Daniel Brown and Madeline Rogero.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Howard Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy or the University of Tennessee.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Opinion: Individuals and societies can live and learn from mistakes