Some folks are going hard against Dr. Brix, no introductions necessary, for suggesting that it's just possible that things won't be as bad as they seem. She could be wrong about that. Nobody really knows how bad it's going to be.
People are going to make mistakes during this time, even responsible people. Her mistakes are different than the ones you'd make, but if you were in her position you'd be making mistakes too -- mistakes that would cost lives, just as hers will. It's going to be important to understand.
This is true even for that most maligned of all people, Donald Trump. He's making mistakes every day, but they're not the same mistakes that the overarching governing class would make. That's useful, even if it's disruptive. He shut off travel from China; they all called him racist and said to be sure to attend the Chinese New Year parade in your local city. He was right about that; they made different mistakes. It's helpful to have the corrective on both sides, perhaps. Our disagreements may be our strength.
As far as she is concerned, she's thinking about the psychological strain and the economic one. Everybody's seeing an endless flood of doomsday stories, while they lose their jobs and the economy tanks. It's not out of order to point out that the data coming in suggests that it might not [see comments] be as bad as you've been hearing (day and night, if you follow these reports obsessively). People are seeing their lives ruined, things they've invested their hearts in destroyed. She's erring on the side of giving them hope. Maybe that's wrong; but maybe everything's wrong, in the sense that there's no free ride. Every choice imposes a cost in blood.
The strongest pillar of Christianity was always the fact that people knew they needed to be forgiven for the things they'd done, even if they did their best to do right. In harder hours than we've known but late, that was understood personally by nearly everyone alive. If God can't forgive us, who can? Can we forgive ourselves? Can we forgive each other?
We're going to need to do.
5 comments:
Nobody really knows how bad it's going to be.
*Raises hand*
I already know the worst case and the best case in the quantum field. And so do others. Which timeline or reality is manifested by the collapse of the quantum energy states, is a different matter.
An excellent reminder.
It's not out of order to point out that the data coming in suggests that it might be as bad as you've been hearing (day and night, if you follow these reports obsessively).
Should that sentence say "might NOT be as bad as" or am I just missing your entire point?
Sorry, that sentence was one I revised on the fly as I was writing it and screwed up along the way. I see it is not clear in more than one respect, including the one you flagged.
What I meant to say was that it's reasonable to give people some reasons to hope if you have any decent reasons, because they're facing day-and-night reports of horror and disaster. In addition to which, they're seeing evidence of at least massive economic disaster. The psychological costs can and likely will translate into real blood costs sooner or later, through stress-borne heart disease or alcoholism or drug abuse or suicide.
So there's a cost to providing hope if it proves to be false hope, but there's also a cost to not providing hope whether or not it proves false. Both choices end up killing people you didn't mean to kill.
Thanks, Grim. I want to send this along to a friend and wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying. And thank you for the further explanation.
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