James Drogan

This most significant of questions has been posed by one of my capstone students (see TMGT 9100 Capstone, Graduate, Classroom and Online, Maritime College for a discussion of the context).

It seems to me that we too often shy away from this question.  If we do take it on, we generally do so in order to support a previously declared position.  What we need to do is to have the courage to examine it from the point of view of all affected.  I'm reminded here of a line attributed to the Nobel Laureate, Paul Samuelson; “There is no substitute for paying attention to the empirical facts of life, and no substitute for systematic reasoning about them.”

We do know how to pay attention to the facts of life and systematically reason about them, but we are either lazy (the tough questions demand hard work) or, more likely, fear the outcome.  Hence, we more-or-less muddle along hoping that someone else will resolve the matter or that a miracle will occur.