When Evidence Fails

It is an enduring myth of the Enlightenment that humans are rational creatures, seeking their enlightened self-interest based on the evidence of their senses. While reason has proven a powerful tool in science and technological advances, in the realm of other human endeavours, it has revealed considerable weaknesses. Emotion, instinct, gut feelings have all proven more powerful from time-to-time leading decisions which evidence and reason could never support but which we somehow justify. We are, it seems, the rationalizing animal.

This is not a criticism of my fellow beings. I am as prone to these things as anyone else and if I fall into the trap less often, I can only thank those people who taught me to question everything, including my own conclusions, with a critical mind. I don’t always get it right.

It would be a disaster if we were to accept, as some polemicists would urge us to do, to abandon reason and evidence as the guiding principle of both our public and private lives. We would succumb quickly to the loudest voices, to the popular will, which, in retrospect, is so often not merely misguided but incredibly harmful.

The recent conflict between the Truck Convoy (I will neither use their self-congratulatory name or the derisive ones used against them) and the government is a case of point. The people who occupied Ottawa and their supporters in Canada and abroad seem to believe they are being oppressed. They also seemed to believe their non-evidence-based “science” was accurate and that people who actually do science were wrong. They also believed a lot of things that could easily be shown to be false.

But not to them. They were emotionally and psychologically committed to their beliefs and those who attempted to question them or even asked the protesters to clarify what they meant by words such as “freedom” or “oppression” were met with howls of rage and abuse and in some cases, assaults. Reason is a limited tool against rage. Evidence has little impact on emotion.

What are we, those of us for whom the balance tips toward reasoned debate and away from emotional diatribes, to do? Engagement and persuasion can be tried but only by those with deep stores of patience and specific skills; most of us soon fall into the trap of anger and invective. Our rage confirms the validity of theirs. Everything devolves into us versus them.

Of course, there were many people who could talk to the convoyeurs: people who validated their opinions, grievances and anger, often for their own benefit. As long as you confirmed their bias they seemed like gentle reasonable folk and it would be easy to be fooled into thinking they were. Certainly, I think a number of politicians were so fooled—some woke up and realized their error, but it was difficult for then to back away from their previous public displays of support. Some tried; others doubled down.

Eventually, the government decided to rely on the one tool of reason that has an effect on everyone: the law. It was clear, to anyone who lived in Ottawa, at least, that the protesters would have never left, even after the pandemic ended and the government mandates were over. The emotions that drove the original protest had morphed into deeply held grievances that could never be assuaged. They could not and did not listen to their fellow citizens or to the politicians who had befriended them—ignoring their calls to depart. They did not listen to their own so-called leaders (leadership means little to libertarians, or, if you prefer, anarchists). They would not go until the government made them go.

But they haven’t gone far. They have an agenda and it has little to do with democracy or freedom. And what can we do about that? Try to be reasonable, I guess, try to think critically, questioning everything, especially our most strongly held beliefs. Try always to be kind and do the right thing. Try to listen and persuade with reasoned argument and evidence even when it seems pointless to do so.

I’ve been wrong about things and changed my views when evidence overwhelmed me, but it was hard. Sometimes, it seems that it would be easier to just go with my gut. But then I think, my brain spews out thoughts and words—some of which have value—what my gut spews out is only good for fertilizing flowers and spreading disease. Not entirely comforting but it’s what I’ve got.

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

Return to the Parapet

I have completed my time of reflection and retreat; I am refreshed and strengthened by it. Still, the continued presence of the occupying force is disturbing despite the waning of their numbers. The prince has declared that this occupation cannot abide and has moved forcefully—despite the opposition of certain factions—to end it.

His vizier and her tax collectors have commanded the banks to stop the flow of gold to the occupiers, especially sums being secretly carried across our borders. Bit by bit, it is being seized and held fast. Many of the leaders of the invading force have been taken into custody and are being held under bar or bond until they can be judged. Some have eluded capture but the chief spymaster declares he knows their habits and habitual haunts and his long arm will reach for them in due course.

Today, our forces have won a great victory, seizing many of the siege engines and driving others away but I fear they have not gone far and will regroup to test our mettle once again. Some of the occupiers have lost heart or have discovered the duplicity of their masters and departed. Others are determined to remain, hurling taunts and insults at our loyal troops and even, it is said, using their children as a shield against capture. Condemnation has rained from all quarters at such dangerous abuse.

The old Captain of the Guard has given up his office and been replaced by a more forceful figure who has promised to being the occupation to an end. The bell is tolling now for those who still remain, unrepentant in their defiance. There are those who worry that the prince has moved too forcefully while others bitterly complain he should have done so sooner. Such is the burden of leadership, assailed on all sides while trying to find the judicious path to peace.

I was disturbed to find that some in our fair city have given succor to the occupying force, despite the assault on the livelihood (and ears) of their neighbours. Some have even joined the horde and demanded the overthrow of our lawful government. Such, of course, is the price of freedom in a peaceable kingdom: everyone has the right to be wrong.

Everyone also has the right to resist the law but must suffer the consequences if they do. The philosophers disagree on much but most accept that there can be no freedom without responsibility.

In happier news, the plague that has scoured our land these past two years has begun to recede, though it may, as it has before, arise again. Still, the coming of spring may bring release to a people grown tired of hiding from the world and from each other. It seems odd that at the moment of our salvation, brought on by the diligence of our people in following the prescriptions of our physics and barbers, the horde chooses to cry out inchoately as if their sacrifice was greater than ours.

For myself, I find my return to the parapet both gratifying and yet fraught with anxiety and distraction. Some of our seers warn that this is the beginning of the end for our way of life, while others dismiss it as nothing untoward. I do know that it has silenced other voices, calling out for justice and pleading for action to save us from a changing Nature. Perhaps that was the aim all along, to turn us from the proper course with noise and contradiction. It is no surprise that those who support the horde and its presence in our city also shelter hateful men of vile opinions and deny the need to curb the present behavior. This may ultimately make everything else we do or think mere sound and fury signifying nothing.

All things must pass. Both the trivial concerns of the moment and the greater tribulations to come will pass and the world will go on as it must. But, I fear, unless we attend to larger matters, it may go on without us.

Photo by Rémy Penet on Unsplash

Freedom

Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains. So said Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the opening line of his book The Social Contract. Of course, he then goes on to propose a set of rules which constrain individual actions which we all agree to in order to live in a civil society.

Karl Marx didn’t merely turn Hegel on his head, he also tried to subvert Rousseau with the opening lines of The Communist Manifesto: Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains. He argued that only when you became conscious of class oppression could you understand the necessity of change. Karl was big on necessity as the foundation of freedom.

 Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge in the modern world, defines freedom “as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one’s purposes.” Check back tomorrow, it might have been edited to say something else. The freedom to edit is the very basis of Wikipedia.

Some argue that freedom belongs only to those who can seize it, with force if necessary. It is the law of the wild west—a fundamental myth of American life, which like all myths is mostly divorced from the truth. It did give us the axiom that no matter how fast you are with a gun, there is always someone faster (which carried far enough suggests the means for faster-than-light travel). In such a world only one person can ever be free, which makes everyone else what?

Others, like Nelson Mandela, argue that freedom is not merely casting off one’s chains but to live in a manner that respects and enhances the freedom of others. Freedom ends when it impinges on the freedom of others. That sounds like what the majority of Canadians would consider accurate. A free society is one that allows everyone as much freedom as possible but not all the freedom in the world.

Freedom without responsibility to me is mere license, the ability to do whatever you like no matter what the cost to others. License is only freedom to those who are unconstrained; to others, it can seem like brutal repression.

The other aspect of license that seems to appeal to so many is choice without consequence. Yet, many philosophers and rebels both would beg to disagree. Freedom is not the power to do as we like but to do as we ought. That is, freedom can only be understood and attained through moral action and the acceptance of personal responsibility for doing what we choose to do.

Of course, like most things in our lives, freedom is a social construct, one that is highly malleable and can be bent and twisted to serve anybody’s agenda. Wrapping yourself in freedom excuses the oppression practiced by racists, homophobes and misogynists. The trick for the rest of us is to see through the pretty shiny wrapping at the reality that lies beneath.

To return to Rousseau, we find a fatal flaw in his argument. Freedom did not predate the social contract but grew out of it. There is no state of nature where man existed as a solitary figure, totally free from constraint. Such feral creatures could never survive. If we are born free, it is only because we are born into a society that recognizes, encourages, supports and limits our freedom.

Anything else is nothing but a happy lie we use to justify our selfishness.

Photo by Hussain Badshah on Unsplash

Fresh Start

At the start of every year, however you define the beginning of the year, we make promises to ourselves. We set out to become better people or at least better versions of our current self. Those who set out to be monsters are probably already there.

We break those promises sooner or later but I suppose the mere act of making them is important; it suggests that change, improvement, is something we think is possible. And anything that is possible, in a quantum multiverse, could happen.

My own goals are modest.

I promise to meet every commitment I make – whether it is for contracted work or doing my share of the house work. I may not take on a lot of new commitments but those I have I will fulfill.

I will engage with the world creatively and actively which is to say I will stop reacting to things and trying to apply old solutions to new problems. I realized a long time ago that I can not control what other people think, feel or do; it is a big enough struggle to control what I think, feel and do.

Thinking has never been a problem for me though I have been told that I sometimes overthink things. Still, I hope to expand my knowledge and understanding in every area where my curiosity leads me. That hardly is a rigorous approach to exploring the wide range of subjects the world presents to us on a daily basis but, as I have no specific goal in mind, curiosity is the only guide I can follow. I hope that this pursuit of reason will let me say interesting and useful things to others but sometimes knowledge is its own reward.

Controlling my feelings is a more difficult thing. Feelings often spring unbidden from events or interactions. I can no more control them than I can keep the tide from coming in or the wind from blowing. But I can strive to understand where they come from and why and I can attempt to let good feelings—love, compassion, friendship, generosity—guide me and use negative emotions—fear and anger, sorrow and despair—to learn more about myself and my relationship to the world.

The one thing everyone can do is control their actions. Unless our moral compass is completely fractured or we have gone so far down the rabbit hole of thinking anything we want is a moral act, justified by emotions we don’t understand or thoughts that are not our own, each of us can distinguish between right and wrong, between the helpful and the hurtful.

At the very least we can abide by the central precept of the Hippocratic oath: if nothing else, do no harm.

Now that’s an optimistic way to start any new year. So, until tomorrow, think hard, feel good and act kindly.

And that’s fifteen minutes (I’m old now and ten minutes won’t cut it).

Future Thinking

The past is irrelevant.

Well, like most categorical statements, it’s not entirely true. The past can serve – if you approach it with a critical mind – as a guide to success. And failure. It can at least tell us how we got to the here and now.

Still, it is surprising how many people, on both the right and left, spend most of their time staring behind them, either with fond, if misguided, nostalgia or with bitter resentment. The past is a rich lode that can be mined to fuel present day prescriptions to restore a glorious era or overcome ancient wrongs.

But here’s the thing. While you may make tremendous efforts to re-write the past (so much easier than living in the present), you can’t actually change it. It’s over and done with. Despite aphorisms to the contrary, it’s dead, Dave.

More importantly, the past will always be that home to which you cannot return. As for those people who say ‘we should have done it differently…’ Well, you didn’t. In fact, for the most part, the speaker wasn’t even part of that mythical we; in some cases they weren’t even born.

So, while the past is not exactly irrelevant, it is largely unimportant to our current existence. You can’t change it and you can’t return to it. So grow up.

So what does that leave us? The eternal present and the envisioned future.

Which is plenty. By some metrics, there is now more ‘present’ than there has ever been. More people, more nations, more problems and more possibilities.

Everything we do occurs, by facile definition, in the present. But, at the same time everything we do extends into the future.

Ah, the future. Unlike the decaying body of the past, the future is pregnant with possibility and change. Indeed, every time we act in the present we create a different future. Science fiction fans will be familiar with the idea of ever-branching futures – each one shaped by the billions of actions taken by billions of humans every second. Most of those futures are indiscernible from each other, but no matter.

In truth, there is only one future – the one we all wind up living in. Almost nothing we do makes a bit of difference to that future. Even powerful people like Presidents and CEOs and public intellectuals and revolutionary leaders spend most of their days doing meaningless things. It is only in hindsight that we can ever say that this action or decision mattered.

Which might make life seem rather pointless and powerless. But it doesn’t.

We can have whatever future we collectively want. But that’s the thing – it is a collective decision. It’s not like some leader can take us to the future (any more than they can return us to the past) because they don’t know the way anymore than the rest of us. A book called Superforecasters recently pointed out that it is possible to make really good guesses about what the world will look like three months or even six months from now – but three years or six years. Not so much.

Maybe that seems pretty limited but still it does suggest a way forward. Conversation, dialogue, shared visioning – it’s not much but it may be the only way to get the future we want.

And that’s ten minutes.

Freedom

Everywhere man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. So thought Jean Jacques Rousseau back before the French Revolution. One wonders what he might think now. Plus ça change… and all that, I guess.

Freedom is relative, of course. Very much a case of the chains half on or half off. In the West, we often talk about how free we are and, yet, whenever someone chooses to exercise that freedom, say by refusing to stand up when an anthem was played, we get all sorts of responses – such as the pastor who stated at a football game (to wild cheers) that anyone who refused to stand, should be shot.

That struck home since, on occasion, I’ve refused to stand for such ceremonies. I got some dirty looks – or, this being Canada, some sidelong glances – but no one pulled a gun on me. Of course, talk is one thing – it’s a free country isn’t it? – but action is quite another. “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”

Religious freedom is one area where people become particularly confused. They feel that their freedom has been limited if they aren’t allowed to impose their views and values on other people, aren’t allowed to be paid by the government but refuse to serve citizens if they don’t like the cut of their jib. It’s public service folks! If you want a cult-run state, move to North Korea.

Or they believe in freedom religion but only for their own. Daesh (ISIS if you like) is all for freedom of religion – you’re free to convert anytime you like. And if you don’t… well, you have no one to blame for yourself.

But, of course, freedom can take many forms. In some places, people have proposed right-to-work legislation – even imposed it – but what they really want to do is take away your freedom of association, or put it more bluntly, they want to outlaw unions. And why not? Employment they say is a matter of a contract between two people – a boss and a worker. It’s a bit like saying that anyone can get in the ring with the heavyweight champion of the world and expect a fair fight.

Still, we have the right to vote, right? Well, we do as long as someone is watching. But look away for even a moment, and someone will start to find ways to exclude some voters. Voter registration and identification is just a modern form of the Jim Crow laws that were designed to keep black Americans from voting or the Indian Act in Canada that denied indigenous people the vote into the 1960s. Even when we talk of wasted votes or design systems where votes don’t really matter, we find ways to limit political freedom – at least for some of us. The very wealthy can always buy whatever freedom they want and often do.

Still, not all is lost. In the West at least, what used to be solved by force of arms – war and revolution – is now achieved through voter revolts and populist movements. Not always pretty but less likely to enslave us. And if it does we can turn to another old time thinker who said, echoing Rousseau: Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

And that’s ten minutes.

The War on Drugs

The war on drugs has taken a new and somewhat bizarre turn with the interview of El Chapo – the notorious Mexican drug lord – conducted by actor, Sean Penn and published in The Rolling Stone. It created a bit of a stir among the chattering classes and a lot of embarrassment for Mexican and American drug enforcement agencies who have been trying to track him down ever since he escaped from a maximum security prison six months ago. Meanwhile satirists, critics of the drug laws and Mexicans in general have been having a good laugh. A lot of them admire the nerve of the fugitive, it seems.

Guzman – his real name – wound up being captured, in part because of the interview, and is expect to be extradited to the USA to face charges ranging from murder on down. He will undoubtedly be convicted and shoved in a prison somewhere – if his money doesn’t, once again, help him escape.

The most interesting thing El Chapo said in his interview was that nothing – his capture, his death, millions more for police or fences or prisons – will interfere with the operation of the illegal drug trade. In that he is probably right. If the war on drugs was an actual competition between nation states, the United States would have been on its knees a long time ago.

Prohibitions never stop the prohibited product being consumed. The prohibitions of alcohol did nothing for America but increase deaths from tainted bootleg alcohol and establish the Mafia as the major crime organization in a multitude of cities. It also founded the fortunes of a number of still prominent Canadian families but that’s another story.

It is unclear to me why America is so determined to prohibit – rather than control – the use of drugs. No doubt, drugs do harm but there is plenty of evidence that drug use can be mitigated if treated as a medical condition rather than a moral failing. Studies in cities in England where pilot projects temporarily turned heroin use into a medical issue rather than a legal one saw dramatic reductions in death rates, a virtual elimination of petty crime and even the return of some addicts to productive work and family life – even while their addition was maintained and managed. The experience in Portugal has been similar.

Movements to decriminalize or even legalize drug use in America have taken halting steps, focusing on marijuana which is not, apparently, physically addictive though it may be psychologically so. In the long term, government control of drug sales will reduce the negative impacts of the drug trade and make it less attractive to criminal elements. There will continue to be some violations of the law but it will be reduced to the level of the local bootlegger – a problem for society but seldom a threat.

I’ve long believed that all drugs should be decriminalized, medicalized, regulated and, in some case, legalized. The savings in terms of law enforcement, health care, and personal suffering would be considerable. And I’m not alone – the mayors of America’s largest cities have called for the same thing.

You have to wonder who exactly is profiting – aside from drug lords like Guzman – from the current system?

And that’s ten minutes.

 

Boycott America

I’ve visited 15 American states; mostly in the west but a smattering on the east coast as well and around the Great Lakes. I love New York and Boston, Seattle and San Francisco, Denver and Santa Fe. I’d like to visit New Orleans or return to the deserts and mountains of New Mexico, Utah and California.

But I probably won’t.

America troubles me – not all of America and certainly not all Americans. As the saying goes, some of my best friends are American. But there is a central core of America that troubles me – that core who see carrying weapons openly in public as anything other than bullying, those Americans who are happily racist, homophobic  or misogynistic (though their heads explode when you call them out on it), Americans who believe that wealth signifies virtue.

What to do? I’ve boycotted products from countries that offended me. For two decades – especially after Tiananmen Square – I wouldn’t buy anything from China. I fought apartheid by avoiding products from South Africa. I even boycotted American grapes in support of farm workers in California.

So I’m considering boycotting America. I’m not sure if I can avoid all American products. They are Canada’s largest trading partner and a lot of American-made parts go into things made in Canada. But I can avoid travelling to the United States. I can refuse to spend my tourist dollars there.

Will it make a difference? I doubt it. I expect the very people I’m protesting will say – stay home you snotty nosed liberal. We don’t need your dollars. Oddly enough, America does need the dollars of foreigners to run their own economy – to create jobs at home – but those types of Americans still believe in trickle-down economics when even the IMF and the WTO say it’s a failed strategy. Rich people and their sycophantic supporters aren’t all that good at actual economics.

I suppose the logical step would be to refuse to sell my books in the USA. Exactly the opposite. I’d like to not only keep my money at home – I’d like to bring their money here.

This all probably sounds a little extreme – and it’s meant to be.

My point is that people have to realize that consequences have actions. It’s like those stores that refuse to serve Muslims or gays. They may initially do okay – as right wing crazies send in orders from all over America – but in the long run, a business that refuses to serve a sizeable percentage of their community (including progressives like me who will spend elsewhere) will fail.

There is much about America to admire. The progress they have made – and which people like Trump and Cruz want to roll back – is miraculous. Most Americans believe in caring for their neighbours and believe in playing an important role in maintaining a prosperous and progressive world. They even believe in reasonable gun control. American values of equality, liberty and democracy are exemplars that the world can learn from.

Which is why it is doubly disappointing to watch some Americans refuse to defend those values – who prefer isolation, fear, hatred and guns in every hand. Maybe America needs to boycott itself.

And that’s ten minutes

What You Don’t Know

It is a commonplace expression that what you don’t know can’t hurt you. This is patently false and a little bit foolish. If you don’t know that Lyme disease is spread by the bite of ticks, you can easily turn a walk in the woods into a very long and painful illness. If you don’t know that malaria and dengue fever are spread by mosquitoes, you risk death when all you wanted to do is photograph lions.

Ignorance is often fatal yet many embrace it like their long-lost brother. People take comfort in not knowing things. There are those who publicly take pride in being ignorant of the facts, in not being experts in anything, in not being scientifically literate. Sadly many of these people are political candidates.

Things get worse. There are those who are happy to tell big lies in service of what they see as a bigger truth. Someone might think that a certain behavior is evil and offensive or just too damn titillating (so many of the liars get caught on film in tawdry bathrooms), so they make up things to make it look even worse. They make up lies to make innocent people look like villains and evil people look like heroes.

No one can stop people from lying. As soon as we learn language we learn how to use it to get what we want. Everybody does it a little. Makes things up to make themselves look better. Sometimes the only way they have to make themselves look better is to make others look worse. So maybe it is in our natures to lie.

But why are so many people willing to believe those lies? Usually it is because it is too hard not to believe them. If we don’t believe that climate change is a conspiracy of scientists to pry money out of the taxpayer, then we have to believe that maybe it is a real thing. A real thing we are contributing to.

And that, one presumes, would mean that we would have to change. And most people are averse to change. The joke on them is that by refusing to change a little today, they will have massive change forced on them later on. Ha, ha, very funny.

When that happens – and you can pick your own set of lies to believe or truths to be ignorant, about race, or economic inequality, or women or refugees or vaccines – they will be angry. And they will do everything they can to cling to the lies that political or religious or corporate leaders blithely tell for their own self-interested purposes. Like shoot people at women’s health clinics. Or beat up protesters at political rallies. Or set off bombs at mosques. Or any number of evil acts.

Of course they didn’t do it because of the lies they were told or because they were ignorant. They will have done it because they were deluded. But who fed their delusions?

Don’t ask me. I prefer not to know.

But that’s ten minutes.

Skeptics

I saw someone today claim they were not a climate change denier but rather a climate skeptic. I understand why they might say such a thing. Being a skeptic seems like a healthy rational thing to do. Being in denial is generally associated with having some mental disorder or perhaps an addiction. In this case, I suppose, to oil.

I admire skeptics – people who refuse to accept something as true simply because someone in authority says it is true. Many – though not all – skeptics are particularly skeptical of religion. Others demands that ‘extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.’ However, there is a point where skepticism is not skepticism at all; it is full out refusal to accept that any proof does or even can exist to shift their point of view. This is an admirable position I suppose when it comes to belief in God; after all, religion is supposed to be a matter of faith and anyone who would demand proof of God’s existence might be dismissed as ‘one of little faith.’

However, science is another matter. When the preponderance of evidence – all the evidence – points in a certain direction, the only value of skepticism is to continue to run the data – all the data – to see if there is a flaw or if there is an alternative theory. However, picking and choosing data or claiming that all the data that doesn’t agree with your particular idea is false, or better, yet, part of a great conspiracy… well, I did refer to mental illness.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that climate change deniers are only a bunch of quacks. Some have legitimate questions and are determined to make sure of the facts before buying into the consensus. Interestingly, when they do their work, a lot of these people come to accept that maybe there really is something to this stuff. Others hold on no matter what. Some people are a lot like the Fonz. They have a hard time saying they were wrong.

There is nothing new to any of this. Back in the sixties, you could find medical researchers who claimed that the link between smoking and cancer was a false one – bad science or some kind of conspiracy to take away people’s pleasure. A few of these people were legitimate scientists who had questions; the rest were mostly in the pay of cigarette companies. Law suits since those days have proven that they knew full well they were in denial – well, they were outright lying – in order to protect their bosses’ income. Recently, a court in Quebec ordered the largest payment ever from tobacco companies to their victims, I mean, customers, proving that you can run but you can’t hide. Sort of like the people in Florida who are running from ever rising sea levels.

I could go on – the psychology of people who embrace conspiracy theories is fascinating – but I’ll refer you instead to an interesting book called Voodoo Histories that explores that in depth. As for those who engage in denying evidence for monetary purposes – they’re not very interesting; they’re just evil.

But that’s ten minutes.