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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Instinctive desire to ‘do something’ almost always leads to bad policy

By David McElroy · October 2, 2017

When there’s unexpected tragedy in the world, I always know what to expect from myself. My first instinct is to call someone I love and say, “Are you OK? Are you safe?”

It’s a very instinctive and irrational desire to reach out to try to protect someone who couldn’t possibly have been threatened by a shooting in Las Vegas today. It’s just so instinctive that it takes time for my conscious rational brain to kick in and remind me, “The people you love aren’t in danger, so you can relax.”

The many centuries of human history seem to have wired us in this way. When there is a danger — to ourselves or others — the first thing we’re programmed to do is think of the people we love and to think about how to protect them.

When something terrible happens, who do you think of first? Who do you want to tell about news in your life? Who do you want to protect? Your complicated answers to those questions will tell you who you really love — because your instincts tell you the truth.

When these terrible things happen, our instinct tells us — very strongly — that it’s our job to fix the situation. We first try to immediately protect those people we love. Then when it’s clear they’re safe this time, something else unconsciously kicks in. Because we recognize this as a danger to someone we love, an instinctive part of us says we have to do something now to fix it — or at least insist someone else fix it.

Every time something terrible happens — such as the as-yet inexplicable murders in Las Vegas — millions of people around the country experience their own version of this instinct. As they work their way through the realization that their loved ones are safe — this time — the other voice starts instinctively shouting.

“Somebody has to make sure this can’t happen again! Do something about it! Now!”

As the more rational parts of the person’s brain starts taking over, his biases start leading his thoughts. Whatever he already thought made sense is suddenly urgently important.

A person who already dislikes guns will insistently latch onto this idea as the thing which would have prevented the current tragedy. Even if you can show him that he is in more danger — statistically speaking — when he just drives a car or takes a shower, it doesn’t matter to him. He has latched onto that idea. He can’t even hear the downsides of eliminating guns, because his mind is locked onto the instinctive belief that guns are the real problem.

A person who already has a dislike of foreigners — maybe someone who’s predisposed not to trust Muslims or Hispanics, for instance — might latch onto this idea as the key to making the world safe. Even if you could show him in economic and statistical terms that we’re all better off with immigration, it doesn’t matter to him. He’s latched onto the notion that we need a wall to keep “bad people” out. He isn’t interested in the downsides of cutting immigration — and he doesn’t care about the moral case — because he thinks building a magical wall would keep everyone safe.

Everyone has a different pattern, but the first part is the “who you care about” and the second part is the policy bias. In a time of crisis, those things combine to make you scream for some politician to fix things.

But there’s bad news when it comes to the evil which people do to one another. Human beings will always find reasons to kill each other. Always.

We mourn some murders and glorify others as heroic. There will never be a shortage of ways to kill or a shortage of people who feel justified in killing.

People will kill with guns and knives and fertilizer bombs and military drones. People of all sorts will kill, whether they’re white or black or Muslim or Hispanic or Nazis. They might live next door to us. They might live on the other side of the world. They can be anywhere.

This truth is scary for those who have no desire to kill at the moment, so we will constantly argue about how to stop the killing. Depending on your social or political bias, you might want to ban certain weapons or deal harshly with lesser crimes. You might want to “lock them up and throw away the key” when people commit small crimes. You might even want to target demographic groups.

These debates will always rage, but the real issue is the hatred that’s built into the human heart. Some call that hatred “original sin.” Whatever it is, though, there’s something in us that can turn anyone who’s pushed in certain ways into a killer.

This evil is a problem of the heart which will never be cured through legislation or force.

No matter what you do — or what you goad politicians into doing — your solutions won’t work. You can’t force people to be good. You can’t force people to change their hearts. You can’t force people to love one another.

So when something terrible happens, protect your loved ones from the immediate danger if you can, but remember that pushing politicians to save you won’t help.

If the world is going to change, it’s going to happen because individuals make the decision to stop hating and to start loving. You can’t make that decision for anybody but yourself. You can’t make that change for anybody but yourself.

The solution starts with genuine love in your own heart, not with forcing others to change. Work on changing yourself instead.

In the meantime, reach out to the people you love in times of danger. They need you and they need your love. Let them know you choose to love them — because genuine love is always a choice.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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