The problem with the president’s team (and today’s policymakers in general) is that they approach policy decisions as they would a science experiment: They analyze the problem, eliminate variables and come to a conclusion. It’s a (cold) purely rational process that’s all facts and no feelings.
Real life is not like a science experiment, however. Humans are not purely rational beings. They have phobias, biases and other irrational elements. Ego, hatred and childhood experiences are not something that can be turned into statistics. In a purely rational world, the threat of sanctions coupled with some sweeteners would probably be enough to convince North Korea’s Kim Jong-il and Iran’s theocrats to end their rogue ways, but that’s not the way the real world works.
This is where works of literature can help. Precisely because they’re not concerned with reducing every event to facts and figures, and because they’re not limited in length and description like policy briefs, they can explore events and people with a thoroughness that factual books and briefs can’t. They describe the world as it really is–and so are essential to making knowledgeable policy decisions.
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