Instincts that rule us and the rational assessment of what works for the best
Do big words make you sound smarter? According to the pronouncements of essayist and three-time book author Ross Fardon, the answer is not quite. If you want to sound smart, you must stop trying to sound smart.
Ross says his writing style has been called direct, simple and clear, but saying too much in every sentence. “So it is sometimes hard work. People love or dislike it.” The reason, perhaps, is that he covers a larger range than almost any writer in a fraction of the words. “Please take the trouble. There are oodles of short direct sentences and aphorisms if you want them,” he notes in jest.
While there is no standard style that every writer must follow, it is a consensus among experts that brilliant writing is simple writing. In Ross’ case, discussing ethics, philosophy, belief, management, and civilization in his books proves to be extra challenging because well, these subjects are known to be heavy stuff. His style may be free-flowing and scholarly, but if you’re looking for a straightforward explanation of these dense subjects, his books are not tough to follow.
A self-confessed atheist, Ross is a man of practicality. When he wrote, “Most of the ideas that make our world have been practical,” he meant that he understands how this world actually works, therefore, he will be realistic and gets down to work.
He expounds, “When academics list the greatest ideas in the world, they usually list great philosophies and religions. But I only have to list the practical things – tools, clothing, weapons, pottery, metallurgy, the wheel, writing and record keeping, etc, and then in the modern explosion of ideas, the idea of sailing around Africa to the far east, west across the Atlantic and so discovering the Americas and the whole world for the first time, banking, of telescopes, microscopes, Levellers and Lilburne and government for the people, then of engines, steel making, manufacturing machinery, mining, railways and steamships, sewers to eliminate cholera, cars, the immemorial dream of flight, air conditioners and lifts, elimination of smallpox, the Green Revolution, space travel and computers and i-gadgets.”
Then again, he has chosen to write in a diverse range of subjects rather than just one. At 83, he does not think he will write much more, and certainly will not try to write fiction. “No, I am not smart enough to invent novels.” His day jobs have been mineral discovery, new technology, management, reform – the world of managing new ideas. His lifetime interests, on the other hand, have been in natural science, belief, religions, history, indigenous people, civilization – what makes the world work.
“I publish all my books as one civilization project, the management book is the center of what it takes to maintain a good society. Everything in that book is neglected all about the world every day. Management schools are not fixing things,” he says.
Like everyone else, he has his share of writers who he looks up to. “I have studied, and I mean studied, the classics in a dozen fields, and they are classics for a reason – and a few are outstanding writers as well. In writing, many people say I write biblically, and it is partly true – I have been steeped in the King James and RSV Bibles,” he offers.
He is also impressed by excellent legal writing, which he describes as a rarity, for its precision, and surprisingly by Einstein and excellent science writers. “I just try for clarity and have studied George Orwell on the art of writing. For sheer writing art, Clive James. For clarity and story-telling, Geoffrey Blainey. Mainly, I write the way a manager used to write, before all the big words,” he claims.
Never sell a book, but yourself
He likes to advise young, aspiring writers to write what they love, not for themselves, but for the readers. For him, novel writers and poets are born as it takes wonderful unusual minds. Non-fiction writers are made – by long experience as well as a curious learning mind. He enjoins greenhorns to get honest helper-readers as writers are not good self-critics; to search for the right publisher but with one caveat: “You will need luck.”
It took him until his late platinum years to be willing to publish anything aside from management, a subject he felt (and still feels) comfortable with, considering his education and professional career. Ultimately, he chose the independent publishing route. He recalls, “I had to integrate four books, and no publisher wants to handle more than one at a time. In my late seventies and with some poor health, I could not justify waiting to publish one book a year or so. I had a good Australian publisher twice offer to do my books one at a time, an option I could not take the years for. Also, that publisher did not have much hope for my books, as I am not a famous person or a known writer in such non-fiction domains.”
Looking back, he now considers it a poor mistake. “You need a good editor/indexer/publisher, I have had a long battle with self-publishing groups, doing all that myself,” he says.
Small service companies that cater to the self-publishing market may have an unpleasant reputation on the Internet, a few even have it worse, but many independent authors come to their rescue, attesting that these companies have democratized the book market to a great degree. Small players no longer need to buy publicity because their books have a chance to get as much room online as giant publisher titles. In a way, these small service firms assisting self-publishers are preserving a literary culture, not just bestsellers, so they could be doing a noble thing. It doesn’t matter how you publish; truth of the matter is most books don’t sell very well. According to a 2018 big data analysis of bestsellers (Burcu Yucesoy et al.), over three million books are published each year but very few are read widely and less than 500 make it to the New York Times bestseller list. As a NYT bestselling author has said: “What sells a book sells a book, same in traditional or self-publishing. You gotta shake your tail feathers.”
Nonetheless, Ross maintains that Stampa has been “vastly better than the huge Xlibris in the Penguin stable. Having just finished my new set of books, I have no idea how it will all pan out. Hope…It [self-publishing] has been the only way I can publish, and Stampa has been excellent in book layout, cover design and organizing publishing and distribution.”
Very few of the millions of authors who publish each year make money right away, so he thinks newbie authors should not expect to be instant big leagues. He adds that reception of a book, as thousands of authors have said, depends in the first place on four things: your own reputation; reputation of your organization – trash can do well if from a ‘great university’; fashion, fad and some freak of social communication; and if you have a publisher to back you, the reputation and effort of that publisher.
He just recently started actively promoting his books and enjoying meeting his readers – mostly through online channels nowadays with the pandemic. Yet, at his age, with a full-time carer, and not being on top of handling social media, he is almost certain he is going to find it very difficult – “unless some VIP likes to run with my books”. Pandemic or not, social media is still the best way for an unknown writer to promote himself and his works.
Is he a good sport dealing with criticism from readers? “Handling criticism, if well-intentioned, is my life’s occupation and delight, in exploration, R&D and management reform. Ill-tempered crit, probably the majority these days, is water off a duck’s back to someone with my experiences and beliefs, but if from prominent critics, it can ruin you of course,” he says.
He now hopes for discussion from anywhere in the world on all that makes for civilization and fulfilment, maybe write one or two more essays, but not big stuff as his mind is “no longer organized enough”. There is much more to his life that gives him joy: the granddaughters, the garden, books and music, and sitting outside looking across their home’s gorgeous views and neighbors.
He has always been flat out as a manager, but also loves family, study, sport, cultivation, all the arts. For the last ten years he has been a carer. He loves going back to his favorite things and people after a gruelling day at work: his whole brood, the arts, gardening, sport, and a good book.
“I had to be very good at time management through my education and career, I am not so good now, I am slowing down,” he reveals. “But the one certainty is decline,” Ross adds, perhaps trying to verbalize his submission to the corporeality of life. “Thankfully, after a wonderful privileged life on this beautiful Earth, that is nothing to get sad about but to look our last on all things lovely, every hour. The will-to-good, to joy, truth, beauty and love, frees us wonderfully.”
Bush kid has come a long way
When asked to describe himself, Ross readily declares, “I am forever a bush kid, starting in a beautiful remote run-down farm. But as a teenager I fell in love with science, writing and all the arts.”
Reading The Wisdom of India and The Martyrdom of Man at 16 was a shock that set him in search of wisdom for life. He has been working for money since 10, and got a doctorate from Harvard, has been an executive, CEO or Chairman in business and government, and has written national or world strategies since 1969. “I have been a reformer. I worked in far too many different jobs across half the world, but it gave me a ‘compare and contrast’ background about life and management – and civilization.”
Reality, in fact, triggered him to leave his Christian faith to turn to atheism, particularly after he came to grips with human origins and the natural world. He enumerates his provocations: “The complete falsity of the Biblical faith, from the beautiful but disastrous Garden of Eden myth to Jesus and the Revelations. Ezekiel and Revelations are among the vilest books written. The Fall of Man and the ideas of God of Wrath and Hell are the worst ideas in history, along with racism. The irrelevance of it all to humans who are driven largely by instincts of social animals from long before we became human, and until now. The wondrous magnificence of the real world by comparison. I gave up religion for much higher beliefs and fulfilment.”
It must be painful for believer-members of his family to know he does not believe in God, or is it? There has been a 2015 study (Kevin J. Zimmerman et al.) that found coming-out atheists are often subjected to statements and behaviors that are unsupportive of familial relationships. Ross maintains that in becoming a public atheist in comparison with the quiet atheists in his clan, he drove a wedge between himself and nine of his families he loved most.
“But we were all so genuinely committed to each other and the will-to-good (guess where I imbibed that attitude) that our love was not diminished,” he remembers with glee. “Good intellectual relations remain with a few deeply religious people. I am regarded as one of the strongest believers and most spiritual of people going around, just an atheist. My favorite words are laugh, blessings and grace.”
He recalls having a penchant for writing ever since he was a teenager but more on doggerel, school articles and fables. After that, it was management writing for life.
“I had seen four books by age ten, but from high school read widely, with the aim to read the world’s great writers,” Ross claims when asked about his early relationship with books. In a long life, one can as he has done. He reads fast, and writes position papers, which organizes one’s thinking. “And really, from about 30, I studied my main themes of the books in all my spare time.”
As for when he considered writing seriously he says, “I wrote about a thousand pages in my life’s themes in my forties and fifties, but it was still unbalanced and I burnt the lot to give myself another 20 years. But all that was crucial position papers that gave order to all my later studies.” How’s that for a reboot!
He adds, “I always write position papers as an essential to efficiency of thought. But big issues like ethics, how to affirm good people you disagree with, the ‘Bettertudes’ and major issues of civilization took me decades. I have been struggling with the Renaissance since writing a history term paper on it in 1961, and it crystallised with some books in 2017-8.”
Soul of a true scholar
Ross considers his three books (Science, Christianity and the Will-to-Good, Essential Leadership & Management, and Essays in Civilisation and Belief) equal important aspects of one great project which he calls ‘The Civilization Project’. What is the use of philosophy if we can’t manage, or of managing without ethics and the wider view of what matters? Are we to let our civilization keep failing in front of our eyes because we get belief wrong? His questions, daring the most brilliant of minds, go on and on.
Above all, he says, it is time for practical managers and reformers to speak out on the great issues of humanity. You need to be a scholar as well, to cut out false stuff, which is why it took him more than 70 years. Science, Christianity and the Will-to-Good is up in his list as the most difficult to write recalling, yet again, the time in his 40s when he burnt a thousand pages of writings to give himself a fresh start.
According to him, “It was not wrong, just unbalanced. I had to sort my strong beliefs as an atheist, work out how to affirm all good and put the will-to-good central, rationalize that I had learnt as much from indigenous peoples as from great universities, and wake up to the ‘Bettertudes’ that drive most of human experience and commitment, the core of ethics.”
Meanwhile, his Essays in Civilisation and Belief took a lifetime to complete, sort of. He had to integrate his life experience, Science Christianity and the Will-to-Good, management books, belief and love of humanity before he could write the essays.
This self-made man has always believed love is not enough and had once written, “Ethics consists of being driven by the will-to-good, to truth, beauty and joy, and to what must be done.” But what exactly is the concept of will-to-good? For this, Ross has the answer:
“The Golden Rule, from many ancient teachers, says, ‘Do unto others as you would that they would do to you.’ Jesus said we must love one another. But love is a weird and wonderful thing, mixed up with romance, and often foolish. We need something that handles tough love and doing what must be done to save a situation.”
Fast Talk
Stampa: What is the answer to Peter Drucker’s question, “How can we make business and society both productive and humane?”
Ross: I have read him for decades, and he demonstrated that all his writing and his rather daft Management by Objectives do not provide the answers to this question of questions. He was a management consultant, I am a management reformer – from the coal face. My books on beliefs, ethics and management are proven ways that fulfill Drucker’s dream. I got surprises in Australia and Fiji to find that our people were taking our attitudes to management and the will-to-good in action, back to their homes, sport and churches. Of course. Good management ways are a refining thing, so that all power exercised this way does not corrupt but enriches all about. I have found the lifetime of refining those beliefs and ways, immensely valuable in my own life’s tragedies. The ‘Bettertudes’ sum it up best.
S: Drucker is also quoted to have said: “So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.” What do you think he meant by this? Do you agree?
R: He was correct. A lot of management, and management writing and especially consulting, is about proving how brilliant the manager or consultant is. That is, overall, very stupid for teams. The first thing is to disregard most management writing, especially stuff like the Australian Journal of Public Administration. Anything that can be rewritten in less than half the length, is going to hurt you. From school reports to world business. Keep it simple, listen and respect all levels.
S: Without God, where do you get your morality from?
R: You put your finger on one of the tragedies of emerging post-religious civilization. We do not need Gods and the plethora of good and awful tenets allegedly from them. It is certain there is no God of Love, more certain that there is no God of Wrath or a Hell. We get our morality as well as our evils from the instincts that rule us, and hopefully from rational assessment of what works for the best. Morality from the deep needs for understanding, joy, hope and security, for fellowship with our closest friends especially family, from the need to look after our colleagues in the clan or we die out, to plan how to overcome winters, diseases, wild animals, droughts and enemies, to console and support under stress and tragedy. (See the one-page list of ‘Bettertudes’, attached below.)
If no prophets had ever lived, and no philosophers, at least 80% of how we believe and live would always have been the same, as social animals. On one hand, ‘We do our best and look after people.’ On the other, we strive for wealth, status, fame and power, domination over others, and because we can have warped minds, we are crueller than other creatures in satisfying these lusts.
THE BETTERTUDES – THE MUNDANE LEADS TO THE SUBLIME
We affirm that all people are born with equal rights to life, belief, liberty, respect, and the pursuit of happiness. In the pursuit of freedom and happiness, we hold these truths to be self-evident.
First, I will know myself and be true to my best. And as to all people:
- It is better to eat well than to starve, be healthy than diseased and in pain, live a full lifetime than die young.
- It is better to have secure shelter and material security than fear of the future.
- It is better to have peace than war, cooperation and friendship than strife.
- It is better to have hope, opportunity, freedom and justice than oppression.
- It is better to have democracy, government by the people for the people, a fair say in government, than any other system.
- It is better to have secular humanist society, tolerating religions not forced on others, than be dominated by any religious belief.
- It is better to manage all wisdom and resources to produce good and beautiful things and services than bad, be efficient not wasteful.
- It is better to support bold enterprise than to be bound in rules and conformity.
- It is better to have a healthy earth than a damaged one.
- It is better to know this world and be honest than to be ignorant and lying.
- It is better to be strong, courageous and reliable than weak, cowardly and fickle.
- It is better to love and be loyal than hate, to give than to receive.
- It is better to enjoy curiosity, wonder, creativity and beauty than cynicism or ugliness.
- It is better to be confident, generous, determined and decisive than meek.
- It is better to be able to laugh at ourselves than cry for ourselves.
- It is better to respect everyone’s rights, do unto others as you would that they to you should do, rather than to lie, cheat, steal or hurt; excepting the hurt of just punishment, just wars, some tough management, where the rule is the least necessary damage in doing what must be done.
- It is better to look outwards to people and the world for inspiration and for our commitments, rather than inwards to our own souls, righteousness and nirvana or rewards in Heaven. And,
- Individual property rights, free speech, an independent judicial system, state-supported health and humanist education are necessary to support individuals, societies and states.
- In sexual matters, the rights and happiness of all parties, and the happiness of children and stability of families are paramount.
Ethics consists of being driven by the will-to-good, to truth, beauty and joy, and to what must be done. We commit to study and practice what makes for fair, prosperous and happy families, societies, nations and the world.
WHAT TO LEARN FROM ROSS FARDON’S BOOKS
Essays in Civilisation and Belief
From Aristotle on, even to hordes of current writers, I have not read a satisfactory essay on ethics. Too high-falutin’. Our ethics derive mostly from the instinctive needs to look after each other as clans of social animals – 95% of human existence. The moaning about no basis of ethics without absolute rules laid down by some prophet (on behalf of some god) is dreadfully wrong, and a large part of social ills in newly non-religious societies. I provide a work-hardened natural ethics, for all people everywhere, not some local social or religious-based thing.
Likewise, even the great books on civilization fail to balance the great goods and evils of Western Civilisation, which as a simple historical fact is the standout civilization by a million miles – unique. We need this balanced awareness to block the cancel culture on one hand, neo-conservatives on the other, and all the Western hubris, and replace it with immense historical and social understanding, gratitude, sorrow and the will-to-good all at once.
Essential Leadersip & Management
Management schools the world over have been teaching special skills and theories of management for several generations now, and yet management can hardly be given more than a pass mark in business and government, churches and charities. It is somewhat better in sport where performance is measured by objective rules, often. And big-word management-speak is making a shambles of our language, let alone all business and government plans and reporting. Weep.
This is a management handbook that alone would reform society. See his comment on Drucker . Homo loco will continue to be pretty chancy as individuals, but groups can be managed to do much better together.
Science, Christianity and the Will-to-Good
In our Western World, we are still emerging from age-old hegemony of religions. Out of dissatisfaction with a lifetime of reading, I draw these great headline issues together, to condense sensible views about how we should believe and operate. Complete fusion of rationality, reality and belief. Yep. Not to be brilliant, but to condense order out of the clouds of academic brilliance out there.