“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald
I don’t know if it’s me getting older or the world getting more complex—maybe both—but being a nuanced thinker feels more important than ever. Nuanced thinking is the ability to hold subtle, often contradictory ideas about a situation, a person, or an event, and still make sense of it.
I don’t think nuanced thinking is our default programming. One of the first books my father read to me was Vladimir Mayakovsky’s bluntly titled book of poetry What Is Good and What Is Bad. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong in starting with absolutes—this is how we instill values in our kids. But life is messier than childhood morality tales, because people are complex. The same person can perform both good and bad actions, and even good intentions can lead to terrible outcomes.
We also have to think across timeframes. A decision might be good in the short term but terrible in the long term. Investing thrives on such nuances. The same CEO may be the perfect leader during a company’s growth phase but detrimental in maturity (Uber comes to mind).
Henry Ford revolutionized the automotive industry and was also a vile antisemite. Hitler admired Ford and even mentioned him in Mein Kampf. Should Jews drive Ford cars? That’s not for me to say, but IMA does take a nuanced approach in our investment philosophy: one of our investments, Rheinmetall, is a German defense contractor that made tanks for the Nazis. I personally embrace nuance as well. Richard Wagner, a known antisemite, died six years before Hitler was born, yet many Jews refuse to listen to his music. I respect that, but I personally love Wagner’s music. The world is complex.
This brings me to Tesla and Elon Musk.
Last week, I received a lot of responses to my article about Tesla. They ranged from “Stop spewing your anti-right propaganda and stick to data” to “You don’t like Tesla stock. Are you saying your next car won’t be a Tesla?”
Tesla and Musk are full of contradictions. I’ve literally written a (small) book about them – you can read it here.
You can admire what Musk has built with Tesla yet question his ethics in promoting the stock (he made a lot of promises that have not come through, and a lot that have). You can both agree and disagree with his political choices and still think Tesla has achieved something extraordinary in building over two million cars in less than two decades. And at the same time, you can come to a reasonable conclusion that the stock isn’t a good investment—at the present time.
I love my Tesla. But my personal experience and analysis lead me to the conclusion that its Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode is dangerous. I think Musk is wrong to avoid lidar and radar. I’ve learned a lot from Musk. He’s both my hero and anti-hero—a person to learn from both for what to do and what not to do. Life is complex.
The ability to hold conflicting ideas without breaking—this is the superpower of our age.
Key takeaways
- Nuanced thinking—holding contradictory ideas simultaneously while making sense of them—feels increasingly crucial in our complex world, despite not being our natural default programming.
- The same individual can embody profound contradictions (like Henry Ford revolutionizing automotive industry while being antisemitic), requiring us to develop comfort with complexity rather than simplistic moral judgments.
- Tesla and Elon Musk perfectly exemplify these contradictions—one can admire Tesla’s extraordinary achievement of building millions of cars in under two decades while questioning Musk’s ethics or disagreeing with his political choices.
- Investment decisions particularly demand nuanced perspectives that consider timeframes and contexts—a CEO who excels during growth might falter during maturity, and a company’s achievements can be separated from its current stock valuation.
- The genuine superpower in today’s world lies in holding conflicting ideas without breaking—embracing that I can love my Tesla while believing its Full Self-Driving mode is dangerous, and viewing Musk as simultaneously hero and anti-hero worth learning from.
When was the last time you tried FSD? Granted, it was not always well regarded, but is now getting very close to being safer than human driving & is very impressive in my opinion.
I appreciate your balanced perspective on life’s complexity. It gives me hope. Life is messier than childhood morality tales, but if you look closer at childhood fairytales, they are anything but simplistic. You can still be trying to solve the underlying riddle through every stage of life.
What follows is a distillation of a longer essay prompted by recent political unrest.
Lately I’ve been thinking about a classic poem by William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming. It starts out with the poet mulling over what happens when “turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer … things fall apart (and) the centre cannot hold.”
What does it take to hold to the center, defend it—not fly off the handle and automatically go to extremes on either side of an issue or belief. Obeying the power of centrifugal force. Not arguing with it. It’s much harder than it might seem. It requires looking at both sides or all sides really and not allowing oneself to be swayed by public opinion. I guess it’s an ideal of mine. I do come in a little left of center most of time, to be honest, but as I’ve been reminded numerous times in recent months, what’s happening in our country right now is not normal. Some of us may say, “We’ve never seen it this bad before,” where roughly half the “liberal” population (who did not vote for the new sitting president) may now be viewed askance as the “enemy within” by the other “conservative” half of the population, but it has been this bad before. It’s just never been this out in the open. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
It seems to me that the line, “The center cannot hold,” appeals to an empty sense of pathos of and disconnection. Yeats seems to be almost a detached observer. Is there grief in this poem or a grief disowned? Maybe that is his point, but it also raises an ire in me, one that says no—no, we can’t let that be. We can’t just let it be what we are becoming.
“And what rough beast, its hour come at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” Yeats imagines the beast as “a shape with lion body and the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, moving on its slow thighs …” but I imagine the beast somewhat differently. The Second Coming is a poem that begs to be deconstructed by an American. Will the little guy slouching toward Bethlehem like a character played by a much younger Bill Murray only poke his head out on Groundhog’s Day?
Everyone needs to take a look at his/her/their own shadow, and of course not everyone will. February 2 is an imaginary day of a dream turned inside out. The key is to soften just enough to look back over your/my/our shoulder—not in a moment of fear but in an unguarded moment of humility. And see Christ in the beaten man lying on the side of the road, and meditate again and again (as the Pope suggested in his reply to Vance’s tweet) on the parable of The Good Samaritan. Throughout history, heinous deeds have been committed in the name of Christ, breaking more than one of the Ten Commandments. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Enough pretending to be God. Enough.
When I am closed tight, I open by creeping up on you (my shadow side) and lying beside you all night, holding my eyes open with toothpicks if I have to—holding the picture for you of your eyes opening to the morning sun, holding the space open long enough to create a sense of compassion, so you know you are not alone now or ever. The wiser voice inside me is saying, although it’s hard to know what’s real when the field has been flooded with “disinformation”—lies told on purpose to subvert and distort perception, it will be enough to know you strive to keep your field green with hope, you keep your heart true.
I hold the space for my children and my family to thrive and be healthy and whole. I hold the space for the man who does not want to look at the shadow in his dream to look at himself in the mirror while he’s shaving (or conversely the woman putting on her eye makeup). You are not my enemy. There is space at the breakfast table for you. There is space at the table for everyone. Not everyone will come, but there is space all the same.
Can we have an American reading of The Second Coming? More than a “cautionary tale” or a searing indictment of the state of the world, I could not locate Yeats at the center of The Second Coming. I never questioned it. From the standpoint of what’s happening in America, I question it today. There needs to be a person at the wheel, a caring presence who will own the outrage and grief and not simply resign and disconnect from all feeling. Stop listening to the voices that say America is dead, democracy is over—voices that heap blame on Democrats for being “too civil” —or on Democrats who don’t disown friends and family who voted for Trump. Or Republicans for being Republicans. Or tech bros for being tech bros.
Ai-yi-yi! It makes me nuts. I don’t care which party you’re affiliated with. I don’t care who you voted for. I don’t care which religion or none, whether you identify with the gender you were assigned at birth or one you chose on your own. It doesn’t matter how young or old you are, whether or not you are “ablebodied” or have a child with special needs. WHOEVER YOU ARE, I care. Starting at the center yes, but not with a heart closed tight. With a heart breaking open.
You either buy the new-old regime hook line and sinker like the MAGA guys who rip through town flying their American flags in their pumped up trucks, or you think there’s a method to the madness that’s gonna fix our economy—even if that means hacking into the data system and giving trillion dollar contracts to billionaires. Or you dig down deep within yourself to find the courage to call out unlawful acts and stand on the ethical and legal principles of the Constitution. Recognize there is power in numbers and commit to stay in it for the long haul. Don’t come unglued or sink into despair. Hold the center with the strength of your convictions. Take a lesson from the passion that doesn’t belong only to the yea-sayers but the passion rooted in the solid strength of an unerring moral compass.
I just wanted to say I live in the UK and my pension has been affected by the decisions taken by President Trump and I do not hold any Tesla shares. I drive a BYD Dolphin which I love. Much cheaper. Anyway I wanted to say how touched I was to recieve a birthday card from you. I could hardly believe it and it really made my day! Thank you so much.
I think about the Fitzgerald quote whenever I think about Ukraine. Mearsheimer is right about the laws of physics (Russia is too big and geographically vulnerable to not have influence over Ukraine) but the Ukrainian people are entitled to self-determination and more than that, have earned it in their heroic war.
Likewise, I agree Musk has been an extraordinary business leader who has revolutionized several industries. He rightly deserves a place in the pantheon with individuals like Ford and Jobs. Nevertheless, he has extraordinary weaknesses in his character that greatly limit the circumstances where he can be successful, and as it seems his character issues are intensifying over time I think they will bring about his downfall. Does it make sense to apply his business approach to the social security system or the air traffic control system? Do you trust him not to share American military secrets with China?
Personally, I want to discourage people from buying Tesla cars in order to cause financial loss for Musk to send him and other oligarchs the message that they need to stay out of government. Bill Gates’ philanthropic approach seems like a much more appropriate model for the extremely wealthy to engage in the larger world.
I wrote (and then deleted) a very poignant and lengthy response. It was incredible. Trust me! Bottom line: you write great though-provoking essays. And I will be hearing Wagner differently now that I’ve learned something new about him. Thanks!