Your Most Vexing Political Problem?
Would you Help us to Solve it?
Can you identify a major, persisting, obvious, yet easy to solve problem in your society or community?
Do you view its resolution as straightforward and highly beneficial?
If so, are you ever amazed at the roadblocks you face as you
expose the problem and promote its solution?
Your arguments simple and plain, aren’t they?
Your opponents don’t get it and you often wonder why, don’t you?
The arguments they come up with are so poor that you quickly dismiss them, right?
Also, you would be willing to change your mind if you encountered a compelling reason to do so, wouldn’t you?
Would you care to reflect on your difficulties with institutions, especially governmental ones?
They could be much more helpful, couldn’t they?
Some even appear to be defending the wrong side of the issue, peddling
from their bully pulpits invalid arguments based on ignorance or
questionable morality.
Even influential leaders who agree with you will soft-peddle the issue for
diverse reasons—like fear of the voters or more urgent priorities—rather than
courageously educating the public and their colleagues. They may even urge you to drum up grassroots support before they dare come out of their closet—flattering your ego
and assigning you another burden.
Let us now assume, for the sake of the argument, that these leaders and institutions did their job, boldly working to
serve the public. Evidently, they promptly
would:
notice that this issue produces emotional conflicts and resentment among
many people
perceive this situation as a problem
add it to their to-do list
let the public know that they are aware of the conflict
make plans to work on it
As they would get to it, they would tackle the
controversy:
They would invite the public to formulate their grievances.
As you would personally respond,
they would:
welcome your comments
thank you for them
prod you with some clarification questions
ask you for the leaders or experts you trust regarding this matter
promise to contact them should enough people recognize their leadership
and expertise like you do
They would compile and summarize the information they would get, from all sides of the issue.
They would contact leaders and experts in all relevant fields.
They would look for some solution that would satisfy most people.
The result, from your perspective, would probably be
favorable: they would either agree with you
or surprise you with some original idea that would convince you to alter your position.
In the worst case, they would persuade your friends but not you, leaving you in the
unenviable position of being “right and isolated.”
Even in this unfavorable case, considering that there are very few people in your situation,
they may do you some favor to alleviate your legitimate discomfort.
Evidently, governments and other institutions do not deal with your most vexing political problem in this fashion.
Why would that be?
Could they be ignorant? Have they not noticed the controversy? In view of your activism, it is unlikely.
Could they be incapable of dealing with the problem? Yet, as we just observed, it is not difficult.
Could they be aware of the problem but unwilling to confront it? This is a
serious accusation,
but in light of the above, it would be an error to summarily discard its
possibility.
If they indeed understood the problem but had no will to solve it, would it be possible to
prove it?
Could they perhaps knowingly ignore other issues too?
Would they be that corrupt?
How could this be demonstrated?
Would there perhaps be one issue that would expose their hypocrisy
in a way that would exclude lack of knowledge or resources
and that would be easy for ordinary people to understand? This may be key to
resolving your problem.
It so happens that there is such an issue. You now stand in front of its proverbial
rabbit hole.
Once you have explored it, the problem that brought you here will appear to you as child's play
and you will realize why you may have naïvely thought that what has caused
you so much grief would have been institutional indifference or opposition .
It has been less a matter of random incompetence or negligence than of
intelligent design.