My post Heroes not ogregores lamented that a top-tier newspaper’s coverage of Detroit focused on celebrities rather than systems—aka individuals not ogregores. However, a mythological approach also veers perilously close to personalization.
"in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has their reasons" --- attrib. to Jean Renoir (details in the Quotes blog.)
My post Heroes not ogregores lamented that a top-tier newspaper’s coverage of Detroit focused on celebrities rather than systems—aka individuals not ogregores. However, a mythological approach also veers perilously close to personalization.
I had hoped that Ben Cohen’s recent WSJ story on the revitalization of Detroit would help me think about whether a city is an ogregore. Instead, as usual, it focused on people rather than institutions, and one person in particular. I imagine it’s easier to write a newspaper piece on deadline if you only have to interview a couple of people rather than digging into the subtle dynamics and complicated history of a complex system.