But...

...what if we're wrong?

It's the title of a book I read a while back.  The premise, "what if we're wrong," is intriguing/enticing and the opening explanations of it are interesting.  The author, Chuck Klosterman, begins with gravity, how 2,000 years of Aristotelian theories about gravity were wrong.  The "facts" people believed to be inexorably true were not true.  So, then, what things do we believe to be true today aren't true either?

Another book I just finished, Origins, a novel by Dan Brown, is quite different in substance, but still caused me to ask a lot of questions.  There again--Questions.

I've actually thought about this, or at least a version of it, for a long time.  What of the questions we don't ask.  I tell students, often, "I don't have a lot of answers, but I do have a lot of questions."

But what questions aren't asked?  Why don't we ask them?  I suppose that's for a variety of reasons.  The answers to them might be so "self-evident," at least to us, as to render such questions useless or even silly.  I suppose that's what people thought for 2,000 years about Aristotle's teachings.

Sometimes they might be uncomfortable questions, the answers upsetting, causing self-doubt, personal and collective, for instance.

And some questions are not asked because of fear.  Who wanted to risk the anger and retribution of the Medieval Catholic Church?  Doubters faced not only imprisonment or death, but worse--the death penalty of the soul, excommunication.  Ask Galileo and others!  And today, who wants to be called names, marginalized or ignored, even isolated?  After all, we are (at least most of us) social animals.

Amherst historian Henry Steele Commager once wrote that a society's most important members are its critics.  Abraham Lincoln surrounded himself with men who were not yes-men.  Socrates believed that the unexamined life is not worth living.  We have failed to learn from these men.   We make it very difficult to practice what they've taught.

As I've written before, it's easier to accept than it is to question.  Questioning is an important part of challenging, of scrutinizing.  I know, personally, those who question are often marginalized and ignored.  It's far easier to be a sycophant (We don't get to use that word often, so I'll take the opportunity!), a bobble head who agrees with whatever is offered.  To challenge those in authority, long-held beliefs, etc. takes courage.

Switching gears, I find it laughable to hear members of Congress threaten to cite witnesses before their committees with contempt for lying.  Lying!  Excuse me for falling into the cliche-ridden trap of politicians and lying, but seriously?  Perhaps they should clean up their own house(s) before they start flinging charges around.

I know, I know.  "But that's different."  Of course it always is.  I suppose one might argue that lying under oath is one thing.  Just plain lying is another.  OK.  But don't "just plain lies" also harm people, all of us?

What is particularly galling are the lies euphemistically called "campaign promises."  I'm guessing that the candidates know they are telling lies just to garner votes.  They have no intentions of following through on their lies, er, promises.  And voters seem to have come to accept campaign promises, at least many of them, as lies.  As I have asked before, aren't many broken campaign promises prime examples of fraud?  And if they are, what aren't the perpetrators prosecuted?

In the same vein, I filled out a local school board survey the other day regarding an upcoming bond and millage election, November I think.  I repeatedly indicated I will vote no on both.  Even when tossed in with another local bond issue, on which I said I will vote yes, I still said I'll reject the local district's two proposals.  At the end, I was asked my reasons.  I was pretty blunt and said both the school board and the administration have made poor decisions in the past, have been deceitful if not outright dishonest, etc.  I have no confidence in either (which may be redundant because, for the most part, the school board is a rubber stamp for the administration).  This is not a question of viewpoint, either.  The deceit and/or dishonesty, for decades, has been out there for anyone interested to see.  I am certain, beyond doubt, that my survey responses will be ignored.  As long as the sycophant/bobble heads continue to vote the way school boards/administrations (and other politicians) want, why would they change?

Last but not least today, I have been reminded of this several times in recent weeks, obliquely if not directly.  So-and-so "is not as bad as" another so-and-so.  NO!  As I noted in the past few elections, Presidential and otherwise, I no longer will "hold my nose and vote for the lesser of two evils."  NO!  Over the course of the past few decades, look where this has taken us.  As noted above, as long as voters continue to accept the crap the major parties throw at us, we will continue to be fed crap.  It might take an election cycle or two for voters to force parties to change, but it won't if voters don't rise up and say, in effect, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"  I realize, for many people, times are pretty darn good right now, at least financially/economically.  But there is more to life than money.

This is naive of me, I know.  But I cling to the precept that character matters, still.  Apparently to many folks it doesn't.  As long as "the trains run on time" (They didn't, but I'm not quibbling.), all else is fine.  Moral fabric is important.  And we are losing it quickly, if we haven't already lost it.  I can't for the life of me understand how Americans, for a couple of decades now, have accepted poor moral behavior from our leaders in all walks of life merely because "the economy is good."  I actually had someone tell me that during the Clinton/Lewinsky Affair.  If our leaders, and not just political leaders, can act immorally and unethically, why can't the rest of us?  I know that much of this, the immorality and lack of ethics, has been going on forever, but now it occurs openly and we know it.  By ignoring or at least dismissing it, we condone it.  By extension......

This was driven home a couple of weeks ago while I listened to the radio coming home from class.  a caller referred to the Michigan governor's campaign, "...and I'll fix the damn roads!"  I found the use of "damn" to be offensive, although most people probably cheered.  Anyway, this caller said he was driving down a road with his 5-year old daughter.  He hit a sizable pot hole that jarred the car.  He was stunned, then angry, to hear his daughter say, "Fix the damn roads!"  This came from a five-year old!  I know, I know.  I'm a prude.  Maybe most people think it's cute for a five-year old to use language like this, but not me.  Perhaps it's the father's fault; he's said it?  But maybe it's the fault of the people who thought it was cute for a candidate for governor to say it.