David McElroy

Most people are afraid to turn around when they’ve made a choice they’ve determined to be wrong. If they turn the wrong way down a road — confidently declaring it to be the way to go — they persist with the error long after it’s obvious.

We humans hate admitting we’re wrong.

We trap ourselves with our desire to be consistent, even if we don’t consciously know what we’re doing. Most of us are terrified of being seen as contradictory, so we’re afraid to reverse course and say, “I know I said X, but I was wrong and I’ve realized Y is the truth.”

Most people keep themselves locked into X long after they’ve realized Y is true, because they’re too weak to admit to having been wrong and forthrightly turn around. This is what Ralph Waldo Emerson meant in a widely misunderstood passage in his 1841 essay on “Self-Reliance.”

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I have no idea whether Google engineer James Damore is a bigot or not, but I am convinced that most of the people attacking him have proven themselves to be bigots by their responses.

Last week, Damore shared a 10-page memo on Google’s internal communication system. His thoughts have pushed buttons of millions of progressives, sending many into hyperventilating attack mode — because Damore outlined his views about why Google is approaching the issue of diversity very poorly. He claims that the company’s drive to promote women and minorities has resulted in a lack of ideological diversity instead.

Damore has been called all sorts of names, most of which use language I wouldn’t even repeat. If I ignore the attacks containing profanity, most of the least offensive among the rest claim he’s sexist and bigoted. Many people have called for him to be fired. Why?

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I haven’t been able to quit thinking today about this picture of little Macey Gaines sitting with her father as they edited video two years ago.

I shot this picture for a magazine story about a Birmingham couple who have a very successful YouTube channel with half a million subscribers. Cullen was a software developer and his wife Katie was a psychologist. After they launched a YouTube channel just for family and friends, it mushroomed.

After Cullen lost his job in a downsizing, he dove into making the YouTube channel grow. Katie eventually got to quit her job, too — and they now make a nice living from home producing videos for their fans, who come in droves to keep up with the couple and their two children. (Their son Brooks has been born since I photographed the family.)

So why is this little girl — and this picture in particular — on my mind today?

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