Taking Things to their Logical Conclusions: is it just another Monopoly board game?
If you're just another game piece, how can you be a player?
Spring 2021 has been a ripe time for questioning all the things we thought we understood.
Consider the Covid-19 pandemic. Are the vaccines effective? Is herd immunity obtainable? Did ‘the scientists’ screw things up and demonstrate that science can’t be trusted? Did the Chinese government cover up a lab leaked virus? If so, why? And what is an appropriate response if they did?
Or consider the economic impacts we’ve collectively experienced as a nation and as a planet. Did government imposed business shutdowns better the pandemic outcome, make it worse, or make no difference? Did stimulus efforts stimulate enough? Did relief payments relieve enough?
And longer term economics: will the people unemployed over the past 15 months resume working or have they become welfare dependent leeches? Is inflation going to wreak economic havoc like the late 1970s experienced?
Then there’s matters like racial inequity: do the lives of Black people matter more now than before? Do the lives of White people matter less? What is ‘critical race theory’ and should we fear it being advanced by educators? If so, who does it harm?
And then there’s other big questions I’ve faced at a personal level while wending my way through the big topics above. For many, many people, some have been asking the same questions because of similar experiences during the past 15 months: what are the implications for friends experiencing ‘long hauler’ effects from contracting covid? Will future elections fully represent the collective will of the majority of citizens? Has the media been right in its coverage of many of these topics and if it has or hasn’t what is the value of media to us all?
Also: someone critical to my life passed away, be it romantic partner, parent, friend, sibling or child: how do I/we go on?
The last question is a universal one that has occurred throughout human existence while most others seek answers to more recent experiences. There is no single answer to it. There’s two certain universal truths: we all must live and we all must die. How we process the deaths of those we love is always going to have multiple answers. There is no ‘right’ answer. Most of us will choose to live on, absorb and adapt in whatever way we can. I feel sympathy for everyone struggling through such enormous losses.
As to the other big questions, most can be answered accurately with ‘maybe’ or ‘I dunno.’
To take these questions to their ‘logical’ conclusions provides several paths:
1) I have biases and my conclusions will confirm my biases;
2) I have feelings and impulses and my conclusions required me to project them onto others with the assumption that ‘they’ feel the same feels and impulses I do;
3) I’ve rigorously self-examined my biases and feelings, carefully extracted them and will make an educated, more objective best guess at an answer; or
4) I can’t reach a firm conclusion without more evidence.
In simplest terms, a ‘logical conclusion’ often isn’t. It can differ simply because our life experiences differ. Coming to a widely accepted common conclusion requires a significant amount of evidence to be valid. And evidence collection takes longer periods of time than our influencers want to grant us.
Those influencers, be they politicians, media outlets, academics, social institutions, economists or business execs are just marketing, in most cases. I maintain the best answers - the correct answers - require solid evidence which means, in some cases, just choosing patience and further investigation. In some cases, too, enough evidence is already in.
Which leads to the most unsatisfactory conclusion of them all: I can’t answer all of them in this newsletter and won’t begin to try. But I will get to each of them in subsequent newsletters as I believe it seriously unwise to ignore any of them.
The proper role of a journalist, in my opinion: if your mother says she loves you, you gotta check out her motives.
In a time of information overload and influencers demanding quick decisions, the best course is usually to take more time. Reflection, introspection, looking at the big picture and small, researching past historical lessons, understanding human psychology: together these lead to the most successful conclusions. It may not quench the immediate public thirst du jour but except when there’s an immediate emergency like an incoming meteor or incoming pandemic, taking the time to examine all the evidence is the right answer.
I now possess all of them. So now you can safely ignore everyone else and only listen to me all week.
Or you can simply ignore me and be wrong.
Which, in part, is my way of thanking subscribers and readers for the time and patience you granted me this Spring while I wrestled with life, death and politics. I was reading and ruminating throughout. Plus doing a lot of stuff for friends with major health issues. And like the rest of you, the relief that has come from the vaccination process and the departure from the daily torture regimen of the now-deposed Narcissist-in-Chief has also been a fresh feature of life to absorb and revel in. Gracias, to each of you.
Tune in all week for my divine conclusions. And please do share with your friends too.