Ralph Izzo had plenty of options Wednesday night.
The former PSEG chairman and CEO holds a master’s in mechanical engineering and a Ph.D. in applied physics, and he has sat on more boards than most people can name. So, when the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce honored him as a Business Icon at its NJ250 celebration — an event that highlighted the dozens of scientific breakthroughs in our state’s history — he could have talked about anything. He chose democracy.
Smart man.
“Sadly, our country is becoming increasingly divided,” Izzo told the crowd at The Palace in Somerset. “This isn’t a criticism of the right or the left. As long as we have one, we better have the other. But we need stronger voices in the middle — people willing to listen, challenge their own assumptions and find practical solutions.”
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How do you become one of those voices? Izzo said it starts with what you read.
“Please do not get caught in an echo chamber,” he said. “I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NJ.com and BINJE every day.”
When something from Fox News pops up in his newsfeed, he goes to CNN to get an alternative view.
“I try to hear what both sides have to say, not because I expect them to agree, but because I want to understand the issues,” he said.
It’s a scientific principle: Check the data. Then check it again.
Izzo’s warning about what happens if you don’t was simple — and a little unsettling.
“If you don’t diversify, just recognize that the current business model in communications will put you in that echo chamber, and the world will present itself to you with a strong and destructive bias, far from the practical middle,” he said.
Note the phrase “business model.”
Izzo wasn’t blaming readers or outlets. He was describing a system that works exactly as designed. Feeds learn what we click and serve up more of it. It creates an echo chamber. One we have to fight against, Izzo said.
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For a business crowd, this was no abstract civics lesson. It’s something that impacts their existence.
“Businesses cannot make long-term investments and capital allocation decisions when public policy swings from one extreme to another,” Izzo said. “The answer isn’t for everyone to agree. The answer is for more of us to participate, listen to one another and find common ground.”
Participating, Izzo said, means voting, especially voting in primaries — especially in districts drawn to be safe for one party.
Those are not elections to sit out. They are ones that require you to engage early. During the primary, which effectively decides who holds office.
When reasonable people stay home, a relatively small number of voters end up making very important decisions for everyone else, and they’re often the voters least interested in common ground or common sense, Izzo said.
That’s how policy swings from one extreme to the other. And that’s how a society built on compromise loses its edge.
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In a society increasingly drawn to quick hits, Izzo offered crib notes of his talk: diversify your information and vote.
Because no matter how many places we get our information, the ballot box remains the most meaningful act in our country.
The scientist knows it. The CEO does, too.
Smart man.
