At an event yesterday, maybe four different men asked me: Why didn’t you write a book about solutions? (Women almost never ask this.) It’s a businessman’s need, this thirst for “actionable” solutions. And I’ve come to believe this need masks another, deeper one: for absolution.
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I’m seldom asked this question by women or people of color. Perhaps because being on the wrong end of a major power equation gives one an appreciation of criticism, of the work of dethroning prejudices and lies.
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I take every question provoked by the book seriously. But in recent weeks I’ve started to realize that this thirst for insta-solutions is a psychological reflex and need more than an intellectual inquiry.
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One man after another asks it, and often seems to think he’s the first to ask it. There is frequently a suggestion that writing criticism is easy. He could have done that himself! What would be useful is a plan, maybe even numbered.
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Anand Giridharadas Retweeted Lisa Kays
Pause for this great insight from a Twitter follower.https://twitter.com/lisakaysmsw/status/1046454919157485570?s=21 …
Anand Giridharadas added,
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Sometimes I hold out on principle. Sometimes I give in and start suggesting new tax rates. But what I always want to say is: Why does the existence of a book with criticisms so rankle you? Why do you itch to move on so fast to answers? What if you sat with it a moment?
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The books with solutions have already been written! If you are persuaded by
@winnerstakeall, persuaded of the need for systemic reform, hundreds of experts have written thousands of books on what fairer tax, labor, social, gender, education policies would be.7 replies 13 retweets 129 likesShow this thread -
The rush to solutions reflects this hope: that barreling past diagnosis to get to prescribing will bypass the phase of blame. Criticism takes sides. Solutions can involve all.
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But would you ever trust a doctor who skipped past diagnosis and opened up the pill cabinet and started tossing bottles at you? Prescription follows diagnosis. Solution follows analysis. Action follows reflection. Doing follows seeing. And it has ever been so.
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Replying to @AnandWrites
It is easier to sit in absolution and a “fix” than the discomfort of the disease and its toll—whether emotional or physical. Imagine having to sit in being part of causing the pain/disease. I think that’s where the urge to move past comes from.
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You are very smart. This is so helpful.
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Replying to @AnandWrites
Thank you. And I’m just putting into clinical/micro terms what you are already pointing out/seeing in systemic/macro terms. It’s one of my favorite hobbies.

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