George Bernard Shaw had an interesting take on unreasonable men. He wrote “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Shaw’s theory is being put to the test by two unquestionably unreasonable men. Both men have been incredibly successful. Neither will ever be rich.
The first of these two characters, who will persist over the long haul, is the subject of another excellent book by Walter Isaacson, with the clever title Elon Musk. His detailed study of this unreasonable man is a masterpiece on doing the impossible.
Musk has successfully disrupted every industry that has attracted his impressive imagination. He upturned the car industry and revolutionized space travel. He has successfully built an immense satellite system that has supported Ukraine through Russian attacks.
Anyone who doubts his imagination has only to watch a video of the massive Space X booster returning to the blast pad and being “caught” by the chopstick launch tower arms. Unbelievable but true.
And he has done it all by being unreasonable. He bends only to the laws of physics, expecting his engineers to question procedures, regulations and requirements while meeting impossible time and cost benchmarks. Musk is crazy in a productive way.
So, it was always going to be interesting when the irresistible force of Musk met the immovable object of government. So far, the count is Musk one, government zero.
In the final weeks of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump was marginally ahead in most polls but the Democrats had an ace in the hole. They had an army of volunteers ready to bring their voters to the polls on election day, while Trump relied on the unproven talents of a political neophyte to bring out the vote.
Musk spent $100 million and ran an unconventional but highly successful get-out-the-vote effort that contributed to Trump’s big win. One more industry disrupted.
Now Musk has landed in Washington and things are about to get interesting. Can the unreasonable man overcome the entrenched bureaucracy? Does Must have a sufficiently compelling vision for the government to make the massive change he seeks?
Part of the answer will be found in the second, very different, unreasonable man. President Donald Trump is also a disrupter.
He brought the unconventional skills of a reality television star to the political venue and turned everything on its head. Along the way, he completely usurped the Republican party.
Now, as he enters his second term of presidency, Trump is once again tossing convention to the ditch and commanding all the media attention all the time.
Will these two unreasonable men prove Shaw right? Or does progress require more than unreasonableness?
Bet on the latter. Not all change is progress and there is a vast difference between a useful crisis and chaos for the sake of chaos.
Oh, and about that rich thing. Neither Trump nor Musk, no matter how much money or power they amass, will ever be rich because neither will ever have enough. Of anything.
On a separate note, a friend told me the other day he was annoyed with Ontario Premier Doug Ford. He will vote for Ford, but he doesn’t like the idea of a winter election.
I disagree. The disruption going on south of our border more than justifies seeking a fresh mandate. It’s just too bad Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didn’t get that memo.