The Cult of the Imperfect

Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, a pioneer in the development of radar, was instrumental in creating a system to detect airplanes that many say contributed to the Royal Air Force’s 1940 victory at the Battle of Britain.

Explaining the decision to employ the far-from-perfect radar to protect the British shores, Watson-Watt said, “Always strive to give the military the third best because the best is impossible and second best is always too late.” This attitude of being good enough, not perfect, has been dubbed ‘the cult of the imperfect.’

Voltaire summed the attitude nearly two hundred years earlier when he wrote, “The best is the enemy of the good.”

One reason the goal of perfection is counter-productive is that the effort needed to try to reach it is so consuming that if you do reach the goal—a big if—, that which was sought has come too late to be useful. Britain needed radar detection in place by the summer of 1940. Third best would have to do. If they had waited to employ the best system possible, they may well have been run over by the Nazis.

Perfectionism is also undesirable because the pursuit of it squeezes out resources needed to achieve other goals. If more time and money had been spent on creating the perfect radar, Britain would have to have diverted resources from elsewhere, perhaps from having built the planes that engaged the Luftwaffe.

The perfect is impossible in human affairs for reasons. A family of values guides our lives and as with any family, there are conflicts. What is good one time, in one place, for one person may not fit with what is good at another time, in a different place for someone else.

The values we hold dear cannot all be realized simultaneously, no less realized when others hold their own different and sometimes contradictory values. Utopias most often fail to respect the dignity of individuals because they insist on being perfect societies, a place that realizes all material, social and moral goods.

Perfection is impossible in human affairs. Perfectionism leads to frustration at the very least. More seriously striving for perfection can produce fanaticism. And most fatal of all, if we seek perfection in that which we love, we wouldn’t love at all, for no one is perfect or can ever be.

Below are some thoughts on living with life’s contradictions and limitations.

1.

Self-delusion is helpful, in small measure.

Self-doubt is useful, in small measure.

2.

Inconsistency is desirable, in small measure.

Accept imperfections, in small measure.

3.

Don't pursue the perfect.

Cultivate the human instead.

4.

You cannot know everything that is knowable.

Accept that your knowledge is incomplete.

5.

You cannot see everything because you cannot see everywhere.

Accept that your perceptions are partial.

6.

In a desert, a tree offers shade.

In a forest, an opening offers sunshine.

7.

In a drought you say, Rain, rain.

In a storm you say, Sun, sun.

8.

Tears — water in which to drown,

Rain to water the spirit?

9.

Is water the same once it has fallen?

Are rains and rivers the same?

10.

The door is open—

Is someone going or coming?