Heroes and Value Clarification
Last night Heaven Admin rented a movie called Flash of Genius.
The movie opens with the main character, Bob Kearns, a college professor, played superbly by Greg Kinnear, telling his engineering class that there is much more to engineering than the engineering itself. There is the importance of ethics. He gave as an example the service to mankind in the engineering of a pacemaker and the disservice to mankind in the engineering of the gas chambers.
The whole movie is about truth and honesty and fair dealing. It is about value clarification. This man invented the intermittent windshield wiper. Major Detroit car manufacturers had tried and tried to perfect this mechanism without success. The major car manufacturer that Bob Kearns went to with his invention had no intention of being honest with the inventor. They didn’t care if they tricked him and stole his invention. And that’s what they did and did deliberately.
There were no gray areas here. The car manufacturer’s dishonesty was black and white. And they had no shame. That is what amazes me. I can understand the tendency for greed and deception. What I can’t understand is the company’s not having any sense of embarrassment about it, not caring at all if they are dishonest, not caring how their dishonesty may impact another human being’s life. I don’t know how they justified it or lived with themselves.
Now, I would think that all of the inventor’s friends and family and associates would come to his aid. Not at all.
After Bob Kearns had pestered the car manufacturer, they had a flunky offer him $250,000 for the rights. Bob asked: “And will they admit that I am the inventor?”
The answer was no.
Bob Kearns said: “This is not about money. This is about honor.” And he refused the money.
His friends and family thought he should accept the $250,000. They were unable to rally around him. “You can’t fight a major car manufacturer in Detroit.”
I used to do a whole lot of value clarification with my classes, and I surely would use this movie with them. Here are some of the questions that I would ask my students, have asked myself, and I will also ask you and why you have the answer you do:
Would you have accepted the $250,000 without the acknowledgment that the invention was yours?
Would you have accepted $30 million dollars without the acknowledgement?
If you were Bob’s wife, would you have left him because you couldn’t live with his obsession of making this right in the face of insurmountable obstacles?
If you were his children, would you have been disappointed in your father for not letting anything stop him?
If you were Bill Kearns, would you have turned down everyone’s advice to quit, including psychiatrists’ advice?
If you were Bob Kearns, would you have continued your full-time fight for twelve years?
If you were Bob Kearns’ family and friends, would you say Bill had been right to do as he did only if he won? Is that what your opinion would be based on — the results?
I am not able to answer all of these questions the way I wish I could. Of course, how do we really know until we’re faced with the reality?
What I can say is that there are all kinds of heroes, and I am a fan of Bob Kearns who would not give up.
Like paula, I would have been so proud of him if I were his child. I would not have let him, if I were his wife. But if I were him, I would have taken the money, and doen something else very speacial with it.
Godwriting is a blog by Gloria Wendroff and is about Gloria's daily life as the Godwriter of the Heavenletters project that is having a profound effect on the lives of people around the world.
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