Today for Thorough Thursday, we're looking at two very delicate examples of actual national conspiracies (cases of medical sabotage between the US and China) to reflect on the undue power that we inadvertently give to bad actors whenever we entertain more conspiratorial thinking.
The world is filled with incompetence and cruelty. Facing it pragmatically is how we begin to deflate its hold.
#MediaLiteracy #GlobalHumanism #Medicine #Politics #US #China
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/what-two-very-real-national-conspiracies
@MLClark Is it a rebuke of logic and reason by a portion of civilization that things have gotten to this point?
Where did it start going sideways, or is it that it always has been going sideways, only the pace has quickened?
I'm a strong believer that we deceive ourselves amid all our tech into thinking that we're any more enlightened than our ancestors.
Every generation before us had people fighting injustice, striving to grow.
And every generation had well-intentioned people who supported awful systems, too.
Most of us are small-c conservative thinkers--risk averse, less open to experience--and this makes people who consider themselves "good" easy supporters of whatever least rocks the boat.
(So no - I don't think we're a "logical" people. I think we know what will help us best to fit in with our tribe, and we are *very* good at changing our facts to sustain harmony with the in-group. That makes us coherent actors, and maybe even rational - but with the "reason" for our actions centrally being about fitting in, not pursuing any notion of a higher truth or more inclusive moral framework.)
@MLClark Goodnight M L. I do hope you feel better soon. And yes, you have certainly given me much to ponder.🙏 💙
@Tacitus_Kilgore
I'm also just crawling into bed with a fever, so take my pragmatic humanism with a grain of salt.
I love the whole selfish, cruel, frustrating, narrow-minded, fear-driven, authoritarian-inclined lot of us - if only because this is still the only chance any of us has at bearing witness to the cosmos.
We're extremely limited instruments.
But we're making the best go of it that we can.
Night Tacitus! Happy pondering!