iOS – the end of manuals

One of the interesting effects of Apple's iOS, found in iPhones and iPads, is that software manuals are no longer included, not even as a PDF. I remember the days when there were large manuals included with all software, though few people really slogged through them (unless there was a desperate problem, and then it was a slim hope that drove you to consult the manual).

But something about the touch interface of iOS, along with its small screen and monotasking nature, has led to the end of the manual. Rising printing costs probably helped this trend, along with the nature of digital downloads (why have a manual for something that is immaterial?), the simplified tasks, and the ridiculousness of a manual larger than the device. There is even a "Missing Manual" book series, for those who pine for the old days.

Instead, iOS invites us to explore the software. What's this button do? What happens if I drag here, or do a long touch on this command? While this may frustrate some, it's a wonderful way to learn. You can learn at your own pace the items that interest you. There is the simple thrill of discovering something new. The intimacy of iOS, since iPhones and iPads are something you hold closely, or cradle in your lap, also encourage this exploratory learning. Instead of the old Windows towers that were large, grey, and intimidating, here is something simple, quiet, and unassuming; it invites one's curiosity.

There is still a needed place for clear instructions, but I'd much rather quickly search for those instructions on a support page than find the manual and then thumb through a table of contents and index.

So let's say goodbye to the old phone-book style manual, and turn to an era of technological exploration.

Guest Entry on the Ashgate Blog

I hope you enjoy my guest post on the Ashgate Blog, where I try to frame one of the larger theological questions for theology and tragedy.

Why Policies Fail in a Policy Culture

We are a policy culture. Our institutions spend an enormous amount of time and energy creating, revising, and educating us on policies. Those policies may include important topics like racism, publicity, sexual harassment, plagiarism, and so on.

Our obsession with policies is a symptom of our times, which is obsessed with rights and litigation. Policies serve to protect individual and institutional rights, and provide a way to avoid expensive lawsuits. Policies are a sort of contract that shield us from litigation and protect our mutual rights. They are, therefore, a product of modernity.

Just as modernity birthed the notions of legal rights, contracts, and the state as the adjudicator of infractions of those rights and contracts, so it has birthed the notion of policies, which promise fair treatment. Policies are meant to protect us and to show fairness. Employers, for example, will not discriminate in the hiring policy (since there's a policy against that). A company will grant two months of maternity or paternity leave (there's a policy about that). A university will have a disaster preparedness policy that spells out what to do if there is a natural disaster that hits the campus. A church has a policy about who may work with children and how accusations of sexual abuse are dealt with. Policies are, like our justice system, impartial, and treat everyone the same, regardless of the situation or context. The policy protects the institution and the individual. Policies often develop in the wake of litigation, as a means of protection.

We are continuing to see, however, that policies can be ignored, either accidentally or intentionally. There may be an age discrimination policy at a corporation, but that company may still decide to lower employee costs by replacing an older and better paid worker with a cheaper, younger one. A sexual abuse policy may not be fully implemented if the accused person has a particular standing in a local church. The Secret Service may be out cavorting with prostitutes in Latin America.

Policies fail for various reasons. Sometimes it's simple ignorance. The dizzying number of policies in some places makes it impossible to keep up with them all, especially when they are often updated and changed. Institutions may do training about these policies, but how many training sessions can one actually go to and still be productive?

Other times, policies are not implemented because those in power simply choose to ignore or sidestep them. There may be too much money to be made, which is always a great reason for circumventing policies – I'm thinking of the mortgage related fraud in the recent housing bubble. We may want to helpful, or think it's permissible this one time. We are often tempted to do bad things. There are always exceptions and gray areas, where the policy doesn't seem to exactly fit the situation. In these scenarios, rather than preventing something unethical, policies actual encourage them, since they act as a shield. Hiding behind a policy, one can do the opposite (if one is careful and leaves no record). It's the Enron defense, claiming ignorance of the events while pointing to the policy.

In the end, policies fail. After teaching Christian Ethics and working through Sam Wells and Ben Quash's textbook, I've become convinced that a universal ethic that tries to be impartial and principled simply doesn't work. People make decisions, not policies. Virtuous people make good decisions, and they don't need a policy to tell them the difference between right and wrong. We don't make decisions by grabbing the corporate policy manual; we make decisions based on intuition, experience, and emotion.

The word virtue has taken on a sexual purity connotation, as in the "virtuous young maiden." Like Wells, Quash, and other ethicists, I mean something different when I use it. Virtue is an ancient and medieval notion that stresses character, moral experience and maturity, wisdom, prudence, and moderation. It works not from rights and contracts but from chraracter and discernment. Christianity has a long history with working in virtue theory.

Forming people into virtuous citizens, employees, or church members is far more important than consulting the policy. In our litigious world we may still need policies, but we also need to develop character. Google's "don't be evil" mantra was a start, but we need more specifics than that. Institutions need to develop a culture of respect, tolerance, and peaceableness. Peaceful people don't coerce or harass one another. Respectful people don't discriminate against others. Being skilled in virtue means you can see a situation for what it is and what the right choice to make is. The decisions may be difficult, but a virtuous person can deal with an exception or gray area much more readily than a policy can.

This also means that institutional leaders need to be virtuous, as they set so much of the spirit and culture of an institution. The hiring process for leaders needs to include ethical questioning – how would you deal with a particular situation? Employers may need to investigate a leader's moral reasoning. Virtuous leaders don't engage in coverups or have lavish GSA parties. They don't commit mortgage fraud.

In ancient China, Confucians were prized as civil servants in part because of their skilled virtuousness and honesty. It's time to realize that policies fail, but moral people succeed, and to encourage moral growth and maturity in our institutions, leaders, and citizens.

How Awesome Is Scrivener

Scrivener continues to pop up here and there, like Planet Money's Adam Davidson on the Evernote Podcast. Its fans cut across a wide gamut, such as novelists, lawyers, students, professors, and reporters. And now it's even on Windows.

What makes Scrivener so amazing is that it changes long-form writing into something manageable. Instead of scrolling through endless pages of a long document, or trying to create some sort of document map or thumbnail drawer, you have the document split up as you like, and you can navigate and move effortlessly, when and where you like. It can be "chunkified," broken into chunks of material in ways that are useful (and then combined at a later point). You can zoom in and out on the material as you like, getting an eagle's eye view or a very granular view. This is precisely what long-form writing requires. Plus, it passes one of my main tests for a piece of software: IT DOESN'T CRASH.

An interesting experience for many Scrivener users is how many amazing features are under its hood. Many have commented, in blogs or podcasts, at how a "wish it could do this" became a "it does do this!" moment. The software has been extensively thought out, with powerful features that can be discovered with a quick search of the menus or the manual, but without a lot of bloat or endless icons.

I had a "it does do this!" moment not long ago, when I was wanting to search and modify the synopses of a project while in another section of the project – Scrivener can do precisely that, allowing you to edit the found synopsis from within the search panel. This means you don't navigate away from your current place; you can search, edit and add, close, and keep going. Amazing! Quick References are also terrific, they allow you to open different parts of a project in mini-windows, so that you can work on multiple sections at the same time.

So here's to Scrivener, the most powerful long-form writing tool on the planet.

Disease Is Always a Battle

In America, disease is always a battle. We are to fight to the end against cancer, for example. Patients are valorized for declaring war on the disease (even if it is fatal).

Christopher Hitchens made this point in his cancer diagnosis and treatment, wryly noting the battle that all enjoined on him. Michael J. Fox in the April 1, 2012 Parade Magazine (a newspaper insert) article also refuses to describe his Parkinson's as a battle; instead, he describes it as a matter of acceptance.

There is a lot that could be said here. Stanley Hauerwas has long pointed out America's fear of death, our determination to die healthy and evade illness and mortality. There is also something about American optimism, that if we try hard enough we can figure a way out.

We so often want everything done in the Emergency Room, no matter the costs or outcome. Funerals, which mark death itself, are now reimagined as Celebrations of Life. The Lord's Supper in many Protestant churches is now a safely packaged experience with individual cups so we avoid contamination.

All of this leaves no room for struggling with our mortality, no place for a Stoic acceptance of a diagnosis. To be human is to age, change, and die. Christ's own death points to this. His death transforms our deaths and gives them hope of resurrection, but it does not erase the reality of aging, change, and death.

I do not want to make too much of death, but neither can we avoid it. To have a body is to pass through death. Some illnesses may be struggled with and even conquered; others cannot. In those latter situations, acceptance may be the best option. Rather than the ideology of battling disease, let us learn to accept the end that we cannot change, while hoping for a bright future beyond the undiscovered country.