David Noer, a professor emeritus in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, had his monthly column published Nov. 15, 2009, by the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C.
The column, “The fallacy of treating symptoms, not diseases,” uses four community examples to demonstrate the seductive fallacy of treating symptoms of civic discord, not underlying causes.
The examples were the removal of the Warnersville artistic bench, the Dell plant closing, reinstating Ahmed Blake to the Greensboro Police Department, and retaining Gucci Mane as entertainment at the A&T homecoming.
Noer’s primary point was the need to hold leaders accountable for dealing with fundamental issues and not to collude with them to accept shallow, symptomatic solutions.