Well, youre where
You should be all the time
And when youre not
Youre with some underworld spy
Youre So Vain – Carly Simon
Released in November 1972, the world has experienced the biting revenge of Youre So Vain for more than 50 years now. Though Simon has insisted that the song was a compilation of multiple men in her life, the song was originally titled Bless You, Ben, which would hint to a more specific target (and not a good look for us Bens in the world!).
In the song, a scorned lover recounts her exs actions with a list of actions that paint the ex as a person concerned significantly about his own appearance, both physically and socially. The song has been referenced in dozens of movies and sampled in dozens of songs as well. It was Simons only No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
Actions this week have a lot of people talking about revenge. Trade policy acts, gerrymandering by various states, vaccination recommendations, and even murder have quickly led to immediate discussion of revenge and retribution.
In fact, the major murder/assassination victim was someone who called for revenge, up to and including death, in response to acts against members of his favored groups and cheered on those who exacted violence on those with whom he did not agree.
The phrase an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind is often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, though he never said those words exactly; he did agree that the phrase was an apt summation of his lifes work.
Many political commentators from both sides of the aisle have fallen into the trap of zero-sum thinking and rhetoric. Zero-sum logic states that if something positive is happening for someone else, something negative is happening for me, and vice versa.
Its an incredible logical fallacy that has been proven in sociology and ethics research to not bear out in the least, but it continues to prevail, likely because it speaks to a very primal instinct that we all share in our caveman minds.
Renowned psychologist Adam Grant spoke recently on zero-sum thinking on his ReThinking podcast, and his guest on that episode attempted to explain the attraction that remains to an obviously flawed thought process, akin to the constant issues with people falling victim to cults, despite cult leaders rarely doing anything new or different than has been seen hundreds of times before.
The easy way to explain why zero-sum thinking is wrong is simply that you can succeed while your neighbor also succeeds, and there are typically hundreds, if not thousands, of individual circumstances or decisions that have led each of you to that point. There is not one central force that must remain in balance by lifting up one and putting down anotherother than in Spaceballs, perhaps.
To further zero-sum analogies, commentators (often focusing their work on one particular side of the political aisle) will manipulate Biblical scripture, attempt to manipulate recorded history, and, most importantly, adopt a very self-assured persona while doing so.
A person in Georgia this week called immigration services on workers from Korea with work visas who were on hand to help the construction of a Hyundai plant in Georgia. She later went on her social media accounts, bragging about calling in the ICE raid, stating that there were now going to be more than 400 jobs available for real Americans.
Except that now the owners of Hyundai are reconsidering completing the plant. A plant that, once opened, would provide roughly 10,000 jobs of various types (administrative, management, engineering, manufacturing, etc.) in the community. On top of that, the 400+ jobs she thought were being taken by foreign workers? They were primarily people with experience at Hyundai plants in Korea working to set up the plant in Georgia to the functionality that has become a trademark and expectation for their facilities. They werent taking jobs that an area worker in Georgia could take because those Georgia workers had no previous experience working in Korea at a Hyundai plant!
Thats one example among hundreds of the short-sighted view of zero-sum thinking actually having repercussions beyond the initial scope of the complaint against the situation that was being questioned.
While many are going to take a recent death and attempt to spin it as a reason for expanding a violent response to the other side or even for a top-down mandated police state, its important to step back and look at things on an individual basis. Though much of the rhetoric for this violence comes from zero-sum logic, the way to end it is not to continue down the path of eye for an eye, lest we all become blind.
In Youre So Vain, Simon sings the line, I had some dreams/they were clouds in my coffee. That line comes from an observation from a bandmate that clouds in the sky reflected in a unique way in Simons cup of coffee.
Same clouds. Same cup of coffee that many others likely had. Unique view.
Any good baker can tell you that all of the planning and experience in the world is still going to lead to some uneven cookies due to variances in mixture consistency, heat of a cookie sheet, heat within the oven, and a host of other factors. Even with all of the same inputs, the outcome can have some variance.
We accept that in our kitchen, but not in our work/social life, constantly looking for someone/something to blame for our lack of overwhelming success in business, friendships, love, parenting, etc.
Sounds like someone thinks the song is about them
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