My recent post on Erie’s biggest enemy prompted the type of discussion I love.

The question prompted a serious, entertaining, and thoughtful discussion about some of the biggest factors that have been holding Erie back for decades. It even contributed to a similar discussion on Jim Russell’s Cleveburgh Diaspora.

A lot of you touched on the theme that I wanted to pick up in my follow-up post — namely that Erie’s biggest enemy is its own past.

TonyF pointed to it when he talked about Erie’s resistance to change. Many others pointed to a stale political system, unions, and the like.

These are all symptoms of Erie’s biggest Achilles heel — namely the fact that it is still too rooted in a 20th Century model that worked well decades ago but, sadly, is not returning.

I’ve heard many people over the years talk about how we can get Erie back to where it used to be — back in the days when the factories were booming and people were flocking to the region in search of family-sustaining blue-collar jobs. The days when men with calloused hands could put in a honest 8 hours at the plant, head to the corner bar for an after-work beer, then get home for dinner.

Those were good days, for sure. And I think we’d all like to see a return to that type of prosperity.

But the truth is, we’re not going to find that type of prosperity unless we strive for something different. Much of the rest of the world has been adapting to this new reality for decades.

Erie, when faced with a choice, continues to cling to a model that worked in the past but doesn’t seem to bring home the groceries anymore.

One commenter, Mike, said it quite well in his post on that thread:

Erie has the same problem as the old Red Sox. Leaders that all seem to be cut from the same mold. The same ideas. The public accepting the same ideas. Not embracing the changing times. The bad attitude filtering everywhere.

Erie can change, but the “old ways” need to be abandoned and change needs to be embraced- change in our leaders and change in our attitude. Einstein once said- The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

He’s dead on — and he’s also dead on in extending the analogy about the Red Sox. The team couldn’t win the big one for decades because it relied on old-style, station-to-station baseball and failed to properly develop its own talent. It wasn’t until it embraced a new way of thinking that the team was finally able to break through.

From here on, I offer you all a challenge.

Whenever you see Erie’s leaders clinging to an old way of thinking about an important issue, I want you to point it out.

When a City Council member talks about a Tullio-era idea, let’s call him or her out on it. When an economic leader talks about returning to the days of Bucyrus and EMI, let’s point out the failure in logic. When someone uses old-style ethnic-based arguments or expresses fear about taking a risk on something new, let’s encourage them to move toward a new way of thinking.

History is important. We should know where we came from.

But if we continue to hold on to it, Erie, itself, will become history.