"Obliquity" is a 2010 work by John Kay expanding on an essay he wrote for the financial times on 17 January 2004. Having only been 13 in 2004, it is hard to say how novel the concept must have seen then, but what i feel is very clear is that the idea neither needed repetition over 21 chapters; or adds anything novel now.
Certainly the basic concept is a profound one, and one i'm sure many of us understand or identify instictively: that to achieve what Kay describes as "high-level objectives" (eg. running a successfull business; managing developments of cities; praising God) a direct approach is not only often inappropriate but less effective. For instance, Kay shows how those who set out specifically to make money are rarely as rich as those who seek to improve human understanding of science or have their business make a meaningful contribution to society. Equally, those who set out directly in the pursuit of happiness in a hedonistic indulgent approach to life are rarely as happy as those who undergo essentially self-inflicted hardship such as climbing a mountain or raising children. In more concrete terms this also results in those apparently paradoxical or "brain-teaser" problems and riddles that we all so often relish: for example travelling west-east along the panama canal to make the shortest journey east-west from the atlantic to the pacific and the dog running four times as fast as the master in the "go-and-return" problem.
And certainly, if the main objective of the development of the book was research and collection of further examples to express the point, the work is incredibly successful: 200 pages are chock full of paintings; chess-players; forest management; football players and (perhaps where Kay excells most) business anecdotes on huge names like Boeing and Ford. However, whereas in many ways the main benefit of the financial times article was its ability to summate this broad, amorphous idea of "thinking outside the box" into the neat little word "obliquity" (or pursuing objetives obliquely) the book loses a lot of that punch by trying to unravel a broader conept of high level objectives, intermediary goals and the applicability of models. In brief i think these awkward extensions can be almot entirely summed up in the two examples he himself gives:
1) The 3 stonemasons: when three stonemasons are building a church each i asked what he is doing. The firrst says "cutting a stone" the second "building a cathedral" and the third "glorifying god". The point being that the most successful stonemason will be the third who is pursuing a "high level objective" even though these need to be expressed practically in intermediary actions. The nature of an uncertain world and the the uncertainty even of your objective means that these intermediary actions should be flexible to change over time explaining why great cathedrals like Notre Damme were conceieved very diferently by different architects over hundreds of years.
2) The late bus: after waiting 15 minutes for a bus which should arrive every 10 the question no longer remains when the bus will arrive according to the model (which suggests the longer you wait the higher the chance it will arrive any second) but whether or not your model is appropriate at all.
But that's sort of it. The rest of the book is largely filled with repetitions of points he has already made and it is difficult not to feel that the Daniel Crewew of Profile Books listed in the acknowledgements as "urging me to develop the argument into a book" has forced a writer i have nothing but the highest regard for, into stretching the argument needlessly thin for the purpose of attracting a dim audience both captivating by the obliquity "buzz-word" and who need this concept reaffirmation to understand the idea. Perhaps i'm being pompous. More often than not i've wished an author could have repeated his point to consolidate my understanding of what he meant and here maybe it was only my pre-existing understanding which made that irritating.
But beyond that, there isn't even any development. From page 1 the burning question i kept waiting to be explained was "so what?". If problems are best solved obliquely, what does that practically mean i should do? Do i directly try and approach problems obliquely now? Does that even make sense? There seems to be something of a roadblock paradox at the end of the argument. If i know that not pursuing happiness is the best way to pursue happiness; does that not mean i really am just directly pursing happiness? I don't understand. And it concerns me that there doesn't seem to be a particular desire for this to be understood either. It's rather reminiscient of any number of articles which points out a problem and then fails to suggest a solution. "That pipe has rusted so very soon it's going to fall through and all the water flood the house. Well, isn't that a stimulating and interesting problem". Yes. But that alone is of little to no help. I already know that pursuing problems obliquely can provide better answers: we've heard about "thinking outside the box" and solving riddles outside the confines of the structures they create. But that in itself doesn't help us do anything new. It doesn't help us identify when, where and how to do that. The closest he comes is a description of "problems whose answer is as uncertain as the means of solving it". But this describes almost every difficult problem. We already know "leading a fulfilling life" is a more complex problem than "how to win at naughts and crosses" so what are we adding by labelling it as a difuse objective, plagued with uncertainties?
As far as i can see, not very much.
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