I recently bumped into a fascinating term with which I was quite familiar by practice, but not by name. It is called the Availability Heuristic. The link will go to a wiki page with a more precise definition and some examples of how the phenomenon applies in various categories of life.
In short, the availability heuristic is a mental phenomenon in which a person relies upon the recall of information that can be brought easily to mind to form the basis for opinions and decisions. (The word heuristic is a fancy term for ”problem-solving” or ”decision-making”.)
If something can be easily recalled, it is available to the mind to serve for ”facts”, and there is a tendency (bias) to give it more weight and credence.
If you spend a week watching Shark Week on television and then are invited to swim in the ocean, your exposure to all of the gruesome shark attacks during the past week will be readily available when you decide whether or not to venture into the water.
Nah, there’s nothing to see here.
The availability heuristic predicts that you will feel a higher probability of a shark encounter than had you not watched all those shows. The actual statistical probability of being attacked does not change a fraction based upon your television habits or your ability to recall the frightening scenes. Meanwhile, you remain blissfully ignorant of the much higher statistical probability of being involved in a serious car accident on the way to the beach.
Immersion in any pool of information makes it seem more true and more predominant than it may actually be.
This bias is exactly what gives rise to social media ”Echo Chambers” regarding political, social, and cultural views.
Exposure shapes opinion. Opinion shapes worldview. Be careful out there.
There is a fine word. And with much urging telling us to find and be true to our authentic selves, I thought I’d take a crack at it. To get there, let’s think on a few things.
How many people have inputs into your outputs?
Asked another way, how many people do you feel beholden to act, or speak, or dress, or function in a certain way for?
Put in the negative, how many elicit constraints upon you, causing you to refrain from acting, speaking, dressing, or functioning in ways you may privately prefer?
Or this, to whom do you feel obligated to make these accommodations?
And to whom is this obligation legitimately owed?
When people live and work in close proximity to one another, they modify themselves accordingly.
A couple remains a couple so long as they conform themselves the one to the other.
’Tis true, the best relationships require the least remodeling to achieve conformity, but all require some. And in the best relationships, the conforming of partner to partner is what gives each the greatest pleasure and fulfillment.
Families sharing the same dwelling and utilizing the same resources find an equilibrium conferring membership privileges to those who are least able to provide for the resources needed for the family’s well being. Parents and siblings reconfigure their lives outwardly and inwardly to conform to the needs of a new baby. They continue to do so as the child advances in years, feeling themselves obligated to conform the patterns of their own existences to provide the necessities of smaller, shorter, younger persons, unable yet to secure the necessaries of life for themselves. Good parents do this for some eighteen years, not of compulsion, but voluntarily.
And is it not true that at all stages of a baby’s life, save in the first mewling months, that child is shaped, and taught, and fashioned to learn to temper the authenticity of its innocent selfishness to the needs and desires of others? Meaning; as soon as is practicable in most households, training begins to teach and shape the baby for accommodation to the needs of the people on whom it depends for survival. Bed time and nap times are employed. An interval of feeding is established. A rhythm develops. A pattern emerges. Some kind of symbiosis evolves that allows the caretaking parents and older siblings to meet the baby’s needs and appetites without killing themselves in the effort.
It is only during infancy, and quite early infancy at that, that the person is authentic in his unconcern for conforming to the needs of those around him. (The possible exception of this is the extreme advance of old-age.) Unaware of, and unconcerned for, others except as means to his own satisfaction, the infant is a living consumer of the attentions, energies, and efforts of those positioned to give him what he wants and needs. This is tolerably cute at one month, but is a veritable nightmare by age two.
So, when we speak of adults rediscovering their authentic selves, and assign any connotation of selfish indulgence as that, and only that, which is truly genuine, we are speaking of that phase of our lives which existed for perhaps three to six months at most, then vanished, as it should have.
Why then, the desire for authenticity? Especially that described as adhering to one’s true self?
No human, save Adam, was created as a reclusive hermit to live out his days consulting only his own whims and wishes.
If cooperation and adaptability are the hallmarks of enlightened humanity, it is no surprise that Eve was formed out of Adam’s rib. She has no being apart from Adam. And it had already been determined by God Himself, and not Adam, that it was not good for man to be alone. Therefore, he lay down and slept, voluntarily giving, quite literally, of his own substance, to provide the materiel necessary for a life other than his own, he having no being worth having apart from her.
And thus, from the earliest story of our race, we can learn that it is others, and our relationships and adaptability to them that gives rise to our lives. And is therefore that which gives both meaning and richness to our lives. If this is not authenticity, what is?
No one is required to yield to the childish, selfish demands of those who have aged out of infancy and who therefore ought to know better. The law of love is naught but an appeal and reminder to humans to love others As we love ourselves.
The interests of every other person are as important and valuable to them as yours are to you. They are not greater in value and have no greater claim. One may voluntarily choose to love another More than oneself, or act in another’s interests, more than one’s own, but if that person is of similar age and situation in life, it is not obligatory, and it is no part of human authenticity requiring that degree of conformity and accommodation.
But let’s consider that it is the very nature of authentic, genuine human-ness to adapt our lives to those around us. Had not our mothers literally accommodated us in their own bodies, we’d have no selves at all, authentic, or otherwise, right? It is accepting, yielding, and adapting to the life of another that makes life possible at all.
This is a dance in which we sometimes lead and sometimes follow. We sometimes give and sometimes receive, This is human authenticity. He who practices these adaptations best is most authentic and most human.
In light of the politically driven Culture Wars in the US, I googled ”how many cultures are in America?”
I found an interesting article in business insider, claiming 11 different US ”nations” with territorial borders and unique cultural and political affinities.
There are a number of other returns to my query that run along the same lines. They universally declare that cultural diversity and plurality is a characteristic of life in the United States.
That doesn’t begin to touch the innumerable sub-cultures that exist in America.
These are legitimate cultures in the sense of shared values, experiences, practices, beliefs, and norms. Some of them even have their own shared languages, art, rituals, and ceremonies.
These are facts.
No intelligent person would dispute them.
I cannot remember the last time someone forced me against my will to adopt their cultural norms, or join their culture.
I have been unsuccessful forcing people to join my preferred sub-culture: DeadHead.
And even less successful forcing them into my preferred sub-sub-culture: Christian DeadHead.
Have you been the victim of Cultural Coercion?
If so, how did it happen? Can you share how you were made to become part of a group, speak a language, appreciate the art, or literature, or music, or eat the food and drink the kool-aid of that group who made you join against your will?
If no Culture has thus far successfully forced your membership, are you participating in a war against some other Culture trying to force them to join yours?
I think the Culture Wars are just as stupid and just as failed as the Drug Wars.
If posed with the question, ‘what is a Christian?’ would you have a ready answer?
How about, ‘what is a Muslim’?
And if asked, ‘what is a Republican?’ do you know what the answer is?
Now, the million dollar question, ‘what is an American’?
Your brain has already provided you with immediate conceptions as you read them. You may not have been ready to articulate your answers, but you have general ideas, nonetheless. Did you notice whether you thought first of what is (the positive, inclusive attributes), or what isn’t (those attributes that exclude). That may be revelatory to you.
With regard to at least one of them, perhaps your instinctive response is ”I don’t know.”
Kudos to you, if you’re that honest.
Upon reflection, you will no doubt consult your experiences and familiarity with each of the designations. You may have definitions in mind for each of them that are accurate and factual, gleaned from study, observation, and participation. You may have answers that are based on hearsay, or bias. Your opinions may be entirely formed by what you’ve heard others say about Christians, Muslims, and Republicans, and Americans, and you’ve adopted those views as your own.
Regardless of what your answers are, can you be confident that your answer would be agreed upon by any member of each of the groups in question?
In other words, when you answer ‘what is a Christian?’, can you be certain that all persons who identify as Christians would agree with you? If not, does that reveal anything about:
A) the accuracy of your answer? and,
B) the definability of the terms?
What about your answer regarding Muslims? Republicans? Americans?
It is very conceivable that there are no objectively correct answers for any of the three questions you’re asked to consider in this brief essay. You no doubt have an answer. It may differ wildly from someone else’s. And even if you self-identify as a member of one or more of the groups above, others within that same group may have drastically different ideas and answers for what a member of the group is.
Generalities differ from specific cases, as Greatest Common Factors differ from Least Common Denominators, by being more inclusive.
Are there any objective facts about the groups that can be established and agreed upon? Not once we go too granular.
We are living in an age of heightened and aggravated political and cultural tribalism. We seek the emotional comfort of ideological kin. Even if it is the false-comfort of lies. We are willing to factor out one another based on least common denominators, creating such a climate of disinformation, distrust and division, that objectivity may be ready for the grave.
If you believe it’s important to think about things; if it’s important to have reasons as a basis for your beliefs; if it’s important to abandon ”Absolutism” to God alone, with everyone else, including yourself, being prone to error and ignorance, then you and I are agreed.
Form follows Function in Nature…almost as if it were designed that way, right?
”Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies, in a twinkling.
It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.”
The above quote is from Louis Sullivan, an American architect of the late 19th-century, best known for his protegé, Frank Lloyd Wright, and for developing the shape of the tall steel skyscraper in 19th-century Chicago.
His quote above, taken from an article about the artistic design of tall office buildings, has been condensed to one perhaps more familiar to most readers which is:
Form follows function
How something looks, its form, should reflect what it does, its function.
I really like the 21st-century rise of ”Lifestyle Design”. Tim Ferris, author of books including The4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, and Tribe of Mentors, would be one of the leading proponents of this school.
I find that most of the people I’ve met don’t think much about designing their lives. Their lives are designed to serve a function created by someone else.
Perhaps this is inherent in what Thoreau meant when he said,
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation…
Does the form of your life follow a function you chose? Or did someone else choose it for you?
If you’re living a life that looks the way it does out of necessity to fulfill a function that is more useful for someone else than it is for you, stop and think what you can do to re-design it so that it functions first for you.
If there is anything essential and exceptional about American Freedom, it’s to be found in the answer to that question.
“That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.”
Thoreau had economics in mind, but I think his aphorism is equally applicable to emotional riches.
Consider the common phrase, ”Happy Place”.
As in, I’m going to my happy place, or I’m at my happy place.
I looked it up. This phrase first appeared in the 1990’s in the Ottawa Citizen. But it really didn’t become part of the vernacular until the mid-2000’s.
Now, this phrase permeates the jargon of even those who fancy themselves to be ”mindful”, or see themselves as ”aware”, or as practicing ”zen”.
I have a question for you. If you claim to have a happy place, or there’s only one place where you can feel happy, what does that make all other places?
I understand and agree with the idea of having a ”mental” or ”psychic” happy place as a state of mind in which one practices reflective gratitude and meditative calm. A mental sanctuary that can calm the nerves, and that feels restorative is a healthy mental space to carve out.
But if someone needs a physical place to go in order to feel these things, they’re missing the point, right?
In that case, I’m calling bullshit.
Now, granted, there are places you can visit that come with beauty and other amenities that aren’t the norm. But most of those places ain’t cheap. So, I’ll refer you back to Henry above.
Do you find it curious that Christians get engrossed and upset about politics?
I do.
Consider:
Christians claim belief in a God who sent His only-begotten Son into the world during the time of a brutal Roman occupation of what is now Israel.
From this fact, one might deduce that politics and governmental systems aren’t a requirement for God to His thing.
It appears that if God wants to do something in the world, He can do it under the most oppressive, tyrannical regime imaginable. Can’t He? He might even use that brutal regime, unbeknownst to it, to accomplish His very purposes.
And since there are no red words in the bible that say anything about running for office, or supporting a candidate, or overturning the political system, even the casual reader of the bible might conclude politics is irrelevant when it comes to Jesus’ real mission.
There’s a passage in the New Testament that does touch on something Jesus cares about: saving the lost.
At one point He tells his followers to lift up their eyes and look at the fields. They are white and ready to be harvested, He says, telling them, ”Pray to the Lord of the Harvest that He will send forth laborers into the harvest.”
They must have listened. In the very next passage they are ordained as Apostles and sent out two by two to preach the gospel, heal the sick, and cast out demons. They are to give as freely as they’ve received, being wise as serpents but harmless as doves. He tells them, ”Whoever receives you, receives Me.”
These passages would be sermon material for months. But here’s a thought; these first, real Evangelicals were sent out, not to register voters, not to carry political flags, not to pray to golden idols of failed politicians, but to reach the lost.
In light of Jesus’ stated mission to ”seek and save the lost”, this occurred to me:
Many of the country’s affected by the pre-Covid travel ban imposed by our former President (the guy anointed by today’s misguided, seemingly-biblically-illiterate, Evangelicals and Charismatics as “God’s choice”), do not allow Jesus to be preached as Savior in those lands. It is illegal. It is punishable by imprisonment; sometimes by torture and death.
Yet, with that ban lifted, the people living in lands where the preaching of the gospel is forbidden will once again be able to come to the United States, where they will have the chance to hear it (or at least some Americanized version of it) on every street corner and on television, radio, and the internet.
If you are God, and you are actually concerned that the lost hear the Truth, would you not want them to come to a place where they can hear it?
Or would you be too concerned about the political optics of allowing people from Muslim nations in?
Bottom line: Jesus isn’t political and He won’t allow Himself to be co-opted for political purposes.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say, wherever the Holy-Spirit-filled people in this country and around the world are, and whoever they may be; you’re not likely to find them on television, or on Twitter. I’m willing to bet they aren’t thinking much about politics, or entangled with political issues.
I feel confident they’re enjoying communion with God, abiding in His Presence, unmoved by whichever party holds political power. Pretty sure they routinely pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send out laborers into the harvest while there is yet time.
Note: I realize my viewpoint may offend some readers who identify as Christians. My intention is not to cause you offense, but to raise your awareness. Christians are given explicit instructions in how to act towards political leaders in 1 Timothy 2:1-4:
”I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior;
Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”
I don’t see anything here that indicates so-called Christians should lay hands on an idol of a disgraced former president, utter false prophecies about him either staying in, or reclaiming political power, or get involved in attempts to legislate the social hot-button issues of the day.
According to the verses above, Christians are to pray for ALL that are in authority. They are to lead quiet and peaceable lives in godliness and honesty. THIS is good and acceptable in the sight of God. He wants to use Christians as the instruments of bringing the knowledge of the truth to the lost that the lost might be saved. That won’t happen if we soil our garments in the murk and muck of politics, especially when we try to append Jesus’s name to our own political actions. He is not a member of either political party, nor the water-carrier for any politician, period.
Over the course of the past year, I have changed my mind about many things, political in nature, that are still surprising to me.
Before I explore any of those particular changes over the next couple of days, I am obliged to state that I do not believe that any political system can provide the cure to what really ails mankind. I believe there is, at root, an underlying spiritual problem producing all the bad fruit that renders the enactment of governments necessary.
One of my favorite Christian thinkers, St. Augustine, famously said, ”Love, and do as you please.”
One of my favorite secular thinkers, Henry David Thoreau said, ”Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man?”
I believe they are saying the same thing. There is no law against the law of Love, for none is necessary. A nation comprised of the practitioners of love would be a nation whose cup would overflow with both liberty and charity.
However, we do not live in such a nation. We fail at love ourselves, and are surrounded by other co-equal failures. We therefore appeal to a government for protection of some of our rights, while we relinquish others.
We comfort ourselves by assigning the submission of our liberties high sounding phrases like ”social contract’, and ”Constitutional Federal Republic”, and ”consent of the governed”, but as citizens, we have reserved no ”safe word” for those times that usurpation of individual liberties exceeds the boundaries of our consent.
Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader from the floor after Saturday’s vote to acquit.
Yesterday was another sad day in the history of the Republic. It may go down in history as the saddest. At the end of the second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, in which he was again acquitted in a shamelessly partisan process, the now minority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, gave a twenty minute speech. If you haven’t heard it, you may wish to find it somewhere online, either in video, or transcribed print form.
McConnell blasts Trump for his complicity and guilt, squarely laying the blame for the January 6th, 2020 attack of the Capital at Trump’s feet. To quote him directly,
”They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election.”
“The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their President.
“And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”
In summary, he goes on to say the attack was the inevitable result of perpetrating those lies and wild conspiracy theories to his base. He says that this isn’t the fault of 74 million Americans who voted for him, but that it is the fault of one man.
At the end he all but invites criminal prosecution of Trump, now a private citizen for his role in the insurrection and attempted coup, saying that former elected officials are not immune from the criminal justice system and,
”Trump didn’t get away with anything…yet.”
Less than an hour before his speech, McConnell had voted along with 42 other GOP senators to find Trump not-guilty of the very same factual charges for which he now excoriated him from the Senate rostrum. He voted not-guilty, he explained, because his reading and interpretation of the Constitution did not align with Impeachment and Conviction of a non-sitting President or other elected public official. He argued that the Constitution simply gave no jurisdictional authority to the Senate to convict the former President, now that Trump is a ”private citizen”.
I admit, McConnell gives a compelling argument for this Constitutional interpretation. He believes the text of the relevant Articles simply did not provide for the remedy sought. He cites former Justice Story, and his views about the narrow usage of Impeachment as an ”inter-governmental” remedy to protect the state from law-breaking office holders, but that impeachment conviction is not an option if the remedy of ”removal” from office is no longer an option. This interpretation could be the correct one.
Of course, McConnell never mentions the fact that he himself had sent the Senate into recess after the House had voted to impeach then-President Trump, making it impossible for the Senate to hold an Impeachment Trial prior to the January 20th Inauguration Day.
The problem with all of this, and with McConnell’s speech, is that the Senate had voted on the Constitutional/Jurisdictional question on Tuesday, at the very beginning of the Impeachment trial. By a narrow vote of 56-44, the Senate voted (and thus declared of itself) that it did, in fact, have jurisdiction. By so voting, the Senate made its Jurisdiction explicitly part of the record of this particular trial, and part of the record of precedent for all future Senates facing similar circumstances.
This 56-44 vote is a part of the Congressional record, and carried the weight of law. It is the resultant basis of this vote that allowed the trial to proceed to the next step, the ”fact-finding” phase of the arguments for and against the specific allegations brought by the Article of Impeachment the House of Representatives had leveled against Donald J. Trump.
Had that Tuesday vote failed, the trial would have ended then and there. But it did not fail. The Senate voted of itself by a bi-partisan majority, including six GOP senators, that it did have Constitutional authority and jurisdiction to try the impeachment case. That issue was settled. It was established.
McConnell’s speech, after the fact, becomes one of the most elaborate, literallycontemptible displays of political rhetoric ever foisted upon the body politic in American history. He bases his entire rationale for not voting to convict Trump on the facts, (which was the purpose of yesterday’s vote following the closing arguments by both sides) facts his speech makes all too plain he agrees with, on the basis that the Senate did not have Constitutionally authorized jurisdiction (which had been decided, voted on, and ruled at the very beginning of the proceedings on Tuesday).
In simple terms. His speech is an admission of contempt against the Tuesday vote of the Senate, affirming legal jurisdiction, because McConnell did not agree with it.
This is the exact rationale that Trump and his minions used to concoct the BIG LIE about election fraud in the first place. They just did not agree with majority of Americans, nor with the electoral college, nor with the courts! How McConnell could stand there and blast Trump for his guilt related to January 6th while hiding behind his contempt for the very Senate in which he is the current Minority Leader is astonishing!
I would have respected the GOP senators for walking out of the proceedings on Tuesday after 44 of them voted that they did not have jurisdiction. That would have been consistent with their interpretational views. If they had done so, they would have acted consistently, and maintained their political cover to their constituents back home.
The trial would have proceeded. It would have been presented to the 56 remaining Senators who were faithful to their sworn oaths to be impartial jurors. The conviction would easily have carried a two-thirds majority ”of those present”. In fact, it would have been unanimous.
These 44 cowards, including McConnell, instead put themselves squarely in contempt of the very body to which they are elected members, the United States Senate, by continuing to act as if that body did not have jurisdiction, even though it had voted by a majority affirming that it in fact, did have jurisdiction!
If a citizen in any authorized court in this country acted as if a ruling of that court was invalid once the court itself had established its validity, on the basis that the citizen did not agree with court’s decision, the citizen would immediately be found in contempt of the court! The opinion of a citizen is irrelevant once a court or legal body has ruled.
This ploy and rationalization by the now minority party is nothing but it’s own contemptuous dereliction of duty and illegal contempt of the Senate of the United States.
If a politician or political party can set aside the clear majority vote ruling made by a legal governmental body, in this case the very Senate in which they are elected to ”serve”, simply because they disagree with the result, where do we go from here? In such a case, there is no recourse, the Constitutional Republic is dead.
Learning takes courage. It is humbling to admit that you do not know. And it is impossible to learn what you don’t want to know. Learning affects the ego with the possibility that you have been mistaken about a subject you thought you knew, or, it can introduce facts and concepts you’ve never heard before. Uncomfortable, unfamiliar, challenging truths make us confront our biases. Since it is the accumulation of knowledge and experiences that make you, YOU, a metamorphosis akin to an ego-death might be needed to emerge as the new, more enlightened version of YOURSELF.
Learning also requires intelligence, which can be defined as an aptitude for grasping truths. The greater this aptitude, the greater the chance that learning occurs even without specific intentionality. To be sure, there are very smart people who use their intelligence, not in pursuit of truths to grasp, but in devising systems for denying truth and for creating, protecting and propagating lies. To me, using intelligence this way is the essence of evil.
Rather, a good life is built around using intelligence to pursue and discover truth, and once found, to act on it. If a new discovery forces a change of belief, or a change of direction, so be it. How many ideas in your life are you absolutely certain about? How certain are you that you’ve been exposed to all the truth you’ll ever need? It is written that, “Every man’s ways are right in his own eyes.” But that verse is a warning that absolute certainty is a luxury reserved for a very limited handful of truths.
Seeking out, learning, and acting on truth sounds good until you realize it forces you to act like an intellectual nomad. Your concept of self must be fluid and dynamic, as new facts overturn previously staked out beliefs. So, the learner lives in an intellectual tent that can be quickly taken down, moved, set up elsewhere, maybe enlarged, maybe subtracted from. Brick and mortar rigidity is unhelpful here.
There is a kind of false security that comes from past knowledge. But tradition must never become a replacement for truth. Truth can move with us into the present and will guide us into the future. So let those who claim to be learners be courageous and determined to tear down any house of lies they encounter. Ruthlessly reject untruths, falsehoods, and biases as soon as new facts and new information is discovered. Pitch your tent upon newly learned truth.
