Alisa Ellis, vice chairwoman of the Utah State Board of Education, voted recently with the rest of the board to fund a $1.8 million pilot program to make counseling and education available as part of a program to combat the tragic problem of teen suicide. At the same time, she revealed a personal dilemma: She believed that the project was likely to fail.
As reported in a May 6 column by George Pyle, she identified two reasons for the projected failure. First, God was not going to be involved. “One of the root causes [of teen suicide],” she said, “is that we have ejected God from the public square.” Her second reason for the projected failure was the fact that government was involved, a complaint that confused things a bit since what she had voted for was a government program. “We have got to stop looking to government for solutions and make sure we are going to the family for help,” she said, “because that’s where solutions can really be found.”
Given that on the one hand she voted for the program, and then on the other, she identified two reasons why it should fail, the kindest thing to say here is that she was ambivalent.
Yet Ellis’ problems with the pilot program to help address teen suicide go beyond ambivalence and are closer to confusion, misunderstanding and even ignorance. First of all, her argument that one of the “root causes” of teen suicide — the absence of God in the public square — was efficiently demolished by Pyle when he pointed out that these days God is everywhere present in the public square, and citizens everywhere have access to him.
More damaging to her claim about the negative effects of an absent God is research cited in Wikipedia (updated on April 3, 2018) that identifies 20 “contributing factors for teenage suicide,” including eating disorders, drug abuse, sexual abuse, being bullied and social rejection. The absence of God in the public square was not in the top 20, much less identified as a “root cause.”
Ellis’ second reason for believing that the pilot program would probably fail is even more seriously flawed than the first. By insisting that we should abandon any support from government and turn instead to families “where solutions can really be found,” she makes it apparent that she suffers from “solutionitis” — the mistaken belief that solutions can be found for our social problems.
Several years ago, former Secretary of State George Shultz observed, “There are problems that can be solved, and there are problems that can only be worked on.” Teen suicide, sexual assault, drug addiction, extreme poverty, homelessness and effective government are all problems that can never be solved, but only worked on.
And the problems that “can only be worked on” have a name. Fifty years ago, two social scientists in California published a paper in which those problems that could be solved were called “Tame Problems,” and the ones which could not, “Wicked.” Teen suicide is a wicked problem, one that cannot ever be “solved,” but must be worked on continuously. What is possible is to reduce the number of young people who take their own lives. And if this is to happen, government and families, as well as schools, religions and friends, all have important contributions to make.
Understanding that our most important social problems are wicked and not tame, and so can never be “solved” but only worked on, is part of what I believe to be the most important breakthrough idea about problems and what can be done about them during the past 100 years. If we expect to make progress in dealing with these wicked problems, we must learn to think, talk and act differently about them.
There were those in the past who were able to avoid the “solutionitis” mistake. In his State of the Union Address in 1958, President Harry S Truman said, “The nation’s business is never finished. The basic questions that we have been dealing with present themselves anew. This is the way of society. Circumstances change and current questions take on different forms. But underneath the great questions remain the same — prosperity, human rights, effective democracy, and, above all, peace.”
Joseph C. Bentley
Joseph C. Bentley is an emeritus professor of management and organizational behavior at the University of Utah. He is the author of the blog tamingwickedproblems.com. He recently gave a presentation at the Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah titled “Leadership Is a Wicked Problem — And So Is Marriage.”