Scaring Society To Shreds

I try to live by what I call "the one idiot rule" as much as possible. That rule (my own invention), which cautions against generalizing based on one idiot's comments or behaviors, serves to remind me that the Internet grants audience to people who really don't need to be heard or heeded.

It's not a hard-and-fast rule, because there are times when the one idiot does indeed expose a broader trend.

Behold, the idiot du jour:

Ms. Pohutsky's announcement, whether it's true or a lie told for effect, highlights a massive harm inflicted on millions of Americans.

No, that harm was not inflicted by Donald Trump.

That harm is a combination of the legacy media elevating him to "monster under the bed" status and the Best-and-Brightest infantilizing Americans to the point that childish fears paralyze them.

I get the monster-izing. Put simply and cynically, it sells. The market for news, opinion, and entertainment (yes, they all blend into one) is so fragmented that success requires not only specialization, but hyperbole. It's why the harpies at The View are still employed, why AOC has drawn so much attention, why QAnon continues to peddle crackpot theories, and it's why loons like Alex Jones and Jenny McCarthy and earnest fools like Greta Thunberg get clicks and eyeballs. We are all susceptible to confirmation bias, and when we find someone that routinely confirms what we want to be true, our critical thinking and skepticism become subordinate to the dopamine highs we get from the outrage they peddle.

I also respect their right to say whatever they want, subject to the long-standing limits on speech (slander, libel, perjury, intimidation, incitement), and subject to whatever limits their employers choose to impose (he who pays the piper calls the tune, after all). I respect their right to be wrong, and even to lie (again, apart from the aforementioned limits). Such acceptance is absolutely necessary if individual liberty is to actually mean something.

Unfortunately, the separation between the monster-izers and the people who hear their words is such that the damage they may cause is too far removed to be actionable. Parents who get scared into not vaccinating their kids against measles cannot go after the antivaxx loons if their kids die from the disease. Likewise, Ms. Pohutsky has no recourse to file action against whoever put it in her head that Trump was going to do something that would make pregnancy during his term such a risk that sterilization was a better option.

What might that something be? Who the [redacted] knows? If she's worried about abortion, her state codified the right to abort at any time during a pregnancy into its constitution in 2022, and Trump is on record as being fine with leaving the matter to individual states, as noted in the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v Wade. It's also the case that there's no chance this Congress could pass a restriction on abortion, given the razor thin House majority and being seven seats short of overcoming a certain Democrat filibuster in the Senate. And, that's assuming that all GOPers would support restrictive legislation - there are at least three Senators and at least a couple Representatives who'd balk. In short, it's a non-issue - and I really doubt that the GOP leadership would burn good will on a quixotic effort to re-federalize the abortion issue, no matter how much the ardent pro-lifers in its ranks may desire it.

But, that's a rational assessment of the playing field, and rationality is routinely secondary to emotion. This is why Jonathan Swift's aphorism remains timely nearly three centuries after his death.

There is a great tragedy unrolling across modern Western history. It is the inevitable progeny of the clash between our evolutionary natures and the ease of life that human achievement has delivered. We are simply not wired to live soft lives, and with the real threats that humans have faced across millennia reduced to a very low level, invented threats fill that void. The self-serving realize this, consciously or unconsciously, and play into it.

These same people play up a facade of morality to mask this gross irresponsibility by claiming to be the only ones who can help the people they harmed in the first place. This behavior has long been a staple of those with an affinity for big government, whether they be the ones who wish to control others or the ones who wish to abandon responsibility for themselves to others. Screw things up, usually by luring people in with a siren song of "we will make things better," then demand more power and more money to supposedly unscrew what they screwed up in the first place.

This goes beyond simple fear of a bogeyman. It's why our schools are screwed up, why housing is scarce and expensive, why food and transportation and energy and other staples of life are overly complicated. Look into any of these and you'll find some do-gooders who broke a working system and then claim to be the only ones who can fix it.

Is there a remedy? Fear sells better than logic and sunlight convince, but our only recourse is the latter, because the fear approach only works in the wrong direction.