David McElroy

If Jesus wanted to reveal Himself to you, how do you suppose He’d do it? A South Carolina couple is convinced that Jesus is blessing them by mysteriously superimposing His fuzzy image onto a Walmart receipt. If this is the best Jesus can do, the photographic equipment at the right hand of the Father leaves a bit to be desired.

It’s easy to make fun of people such as this — and I’m not discouraging that in this case — but there’s a more interesting point to be made. Most of the time, people see what they want (or need) to see. It’s a well-known phenomenon, although it goes by different names. (This article by Michael Shermer is a good overview of the science behind it, although I have to caution that I think Shermer has a history of being too quick to dismiss everything he can’t explain.)

I’ve seen this in my own life when somebody saw Jesus’ face in a door at a local hospital. (More about that in a moment.)

This tendency to find simplistic explanations for random events affects most people. When folks just see Jesus on their Walmart receipt, it’s not a big deal. But what about cases in which people start seeing irrational things in economics (“Imports are bad!”) and then insist that society be reordered to fit their prejudices? It can lead to the idiocy of the modern state’s economic policies. What about when people see conspiracies by racial or ethnic groups (“The Jews are out to get us!”) and start trying to destroy those people? It can lead to Nazi death camps.

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I’ve struggled for a long time to figure out what to call my current political position — or whether I have have a political position anymore. It depends on what you mean by “political,” I guess.

As the word is normally understood, I’m apolitical, almost to the point of indifference. If you’re talking about the bigger question of how power is organized and distributed, that’s a different matter entirely. I’m certainly not a statist. I’m also no longer what you’d consider a minarchist. But I’m finding that none of the variations of “anarchist” really work for me anymore, either. (All of the labels just seem to confuse the issue.) I’d like to take a look at why I think the debate between anarchists and minarchists is going to cease to matter soon.

Let’s say the debate is among plantation slaves about whether to co-operate with plantation owners for better treatment or to openly revolt. You could quibble about how good the analogy is, but I’d say it’s reasonable.

You could make good arguments on both sides of that argument. The ones arguing for co-operating and working for better treatment and better working conditions would be the pragmatic ones. That position would especially appeal to the slaves who might have built up a bit of status or privilege with the owners. For them, it could seem foolish to risk everything, especially when the chances of success seemed low and they weren’t sure what would come next. The ones arguing for open revolt would take the position that being a slave of any sort was immoral, demeaning and unacceptable. I can understand how each would feel. I’d like to think I would opt for open revolt, but if the danger were really great, I might not. I might play it safe.

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When you see an actor in a movie or on a TV show, you know that the person is acting. You don’t expect that the lines he says reflect what he is in real life. What you probably don’t know is that you should assume the same thing about politicians.

I was reminded of this earlier today when a frustrated friend sent me a link to a story about a married Republican state legislator in Ohio who was found drunk with a young stripper and charged with DUI. The legislator is Rep. Robert Mecklenborg, who has a history of backing strong “family values” legislation that plays well with the GOP voter base. My friend is originally from Germany, and she gets frustrated with American politics at time. Her comment today:

“This is sad. Why are some thinking they are so above the standards they impose on others?”

I don’t get outraged by these incidents and haven’t in years. It hadn’t really occurred to me until today why that’s true. The people who are outraged at such hypocrisy assume that the things politicians say represent something about what they really believe and think. I know better. I know that the delivery of their lines on a political stage has almost nothing to do with how they live their lives.

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