Press Pause!!!

I recently read a speech written by Matt Taibbi (Taibbi speech) that did a very good job talking about the growing push to boil everything down to an either/or choice. I first discussed this in a post in April 2021 titled “Binary Blindness” (Binary Blindness". In that post I noted, inter alia, that Westerners have a horrible tendency to boil every material matter down to 2 ostensibly opposite options. Right OR Wrong, Good OR Bad, Moral OR immoral are some examples of this binary system of ethics and morals. The fundamental problem with this binary is that life itself is rarely black and white. Taibbi’s post has forced me to think further on this subject and I’m increasingly of a mind to conclude that boiling ALL things down to a simple binary isn’t just intellectually dishonest, it is both wrong and immoral. The reason - human beings themselves are NOT good OR bad, they are in virtually every single instance - BOTH.

Taibbi discusses what he perceives as a somewhat new iteration of this dynamic in the context of politics and “medicine.” While anyone who has spent time with his or her doctor can tell you that the diagnosis of almost any non-obvious disorder or illness is almost never an either/or proposition. Consider Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, a disorder from which I personally suffer. The most well trained medical professionals in the world have difficulty diagnosing this disorder because its symptoms are not reduceable to a simple checklist. Initially, I did not have chronic symptoms. In my forties I would occasionally have great joint pain, sensitivity to sunlight, muscle and joint stiffness, mouth sores, small, localized outbreaks of psoriasis but never a butterfly rash (still considered a true hallmark of the disorder). My blood tests presented inconsistent evidence of the presence of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) however the lack of ANA in one’s bloodstream does NOT mean one does not have the disorder.

Put simply, real medicine shows us that life involves possibilities and probabilities far more than it does certainty. Despite this reality almost every Westerner descends into the depths of Binary Blindness. In large part I believe this is due to the growing failure of our educational system to teach our children critical thinking skills. Indeed, the poorly named Critical Race Theory, has driven a wedge between those who fundamentally want to expose our children to something most would call the Truth versus those who don’t. As Taibbi points out, in today’s America the Truth may or may not be a “good” thing from the perspective of those seeking to control public narratives and discussions about what is, in fact, objectively true.

One of the subjects I mention in my April 2021 post is “reparations.” The term itself stirs unbidden emotions in almost every person who hears it. Personally, perhaps due to my legal training, I prefer the term “Victim Compensation.” Increasingly, over the past several decades, America has become uncomfortable with the Truth. Slavery not only did exist, it was the financial foundation of early American Capitalism. When slavery was ended by Lincoln, his actions in no way changed the hearts and minds of those who viewed dark skinned people as not fully human and necessarily inferior to those who lacked melanin. These are verifiable facts yet there are those who insist that abolishing slavery was enough, on its own, to compensate its victims. (Full disclosure here - on both sides of my family lands acquired by my ancestors were either stolen outright by the government (the State of New Hampshire in terms of my paternal ancestors) or de facto American thieves (who stole the southern half of the Rancho San Jose and all of Rancho los Nogales owned by my maternal ancestors).

Interestingly, if you ask the average American if they should be compensated for something stolen from them today, they unreservedly will say YES. If the conversation switches to compensating those who had their lands or freedom (and human dignity) stolen the response is rarely the same. The truth is that the issue requires open mindedness not only as to our history of growth through violence but also to the somewhat competing interests of practicality and true justice. My suggestion to everyone is to ditch the either/or approach to ethics and morality and seek ways to ensure that justice is served and be quick to press pause when things start becoming emotional.