But now Curmie has a new charger and both the time and space to give this question due consideration. There are, of course, a multitude of possible answers—at the largest scale, there’s global warming (this would have to be #1 because it affects everyone and because the situation continues to get progressively worse), the possibility that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine might evolve into something even worse, the ongoing threat of sectarian terrorism, plus a hot of other issues, of course.
The likelihood that after the 2024 elections the leader of the free world, whether it’s the current incumbent or his predecessor, will be a bumbling, mentally unstable, octogenarian (yes, Curmie knows, Donald Trump would be “only” 78 on Inauguration Day 2025; go with me here, Gentle Reader) is certainly a cause for some concern. Significantly, as Curmie suggested earlier this year, there’s literally no one in either party to vote for, only a lesser-of-two evils alternative to an even worse candidate.
Other issues—gun violence, restrictions on 1st amendment rights from both the left and the right, wealth/income inequality, immigration policies, abortion rights, etc.—are more US-specific, but they are, or should be, on the minds of all Americans, and global implications are certainly present if not necessarily paramount.
But Curmie ultimately decided to distinguish between the general and the specific. Finding solutions to the former is more attitudinal than policy-based. I was already heading in this direction when I read an excellent response from another of my friend’s friends, suggesting that we concentrate on what he calls “empathic thinking.” This idea is at least a first cousin if not a sibling to Curmie’s point of view, but they’re not quite the same.
Curmie’s first musings on the subject vacillated between distinguishing between short-term and long-term thinking, and between self-serving and altruistic motives. So the temptation was to declare the #1 problem to be a concentration on short-term personal advantage. It is this attitude that leads to “gotcha” journalism, to political demagoguery, and indeed to a wide variety of deceitful practices.
The best example of this phenomenon that comes to mind at present is the GOP’s labeling of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which is virtually identical to the program instituted by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts, as some sort of extreme left-wing authoritarian plot. (Yes, the actual bill, despite being a net positive, was bloated and all but incomprehensible, but they didn’t know that yet.) But it was more important to Mitch McConnell and his minions to deny President Obama a victory than to work for the betterment of the country.
McConnell, of course, has raised partisan hackery to dizzying new heights, but there are plenty of pols, pundits, and other self-proclaimed authorities from every point on the political spectrum who practice the same kinds of chicanery; they just aren’t as good at it… or as proud of their own duplicity.
Ultimately, though, “short-term” and “self-interest” are two problems, not one, aren’t they, Gentle Reader? Putting them together, though useful in philosophical terms, does seem to evade the larger question of a single “pressing issue.” So how do we re-define this contemplation?
Those who know Curmie personally, or who have read this blog (or its predecessor over on Live Journal… yes, really) for a period of time, will likely know that he is something of a Confucian. As I wrote over a dozen years ago:
One of the central tenets of Confucian thought is the avoidance of lengthy and complicated rules structures. Every situation is different, and one can never anticipate all the possible permutations. Confucius’s solution is not to try. He advocates placing authority in the hands of a junzi (gentleman) who is sufficiently endowed with both wisdom and ethical sensibility to be able to adjudicate disputes.
The junzi business may be a little intellectually elitist even for Curmie’s taste, but the recognition that every situation differs at least slightly from every other is of crucial importance, and is too often forgotten. Take a story that has made the news in various permutations repeatedly in recent months: a white police officer kills a black man. There are three basic responses: A). “the cop is a racist,” B). “the cop was doing his job; don’t resist and you have nothing to fear,” C). “tell me more.” Only C is an acceptable answer, but Curmie fears it would place last in the voting.
There are bad cops, and some are violent racists who hide behind a badge. (There are also bad, violent, cops who aren’t racists.) Moreover, in some situations killing someone is legitimate. Confucius identifies three possible scenaria, each with a different ethical response. Obviously, one possibility is murder (or manslaughter), which cannot be countenanced. But killing in self-defense is justifiable. Moreover—and here’s where it gets really interesting—Confucius argues that failure to kill in certain circumstances is unethical. He was talking specifically about protecting one’s lord, but it’s just a short step from there to thinking about protecting an innocent victim (or more than one).
And each of these descriptions is subject to shades of meaning, especially but not exclusively in terms of motive—the cop really did think he was reaching for a taser instead of a handgun, or really did think the toy brandished by the victim was an actual weapon, for example. Perhaps he was attempting simply to disarm an assailant and slipped. There are as many different versions of the story as there are incidents.
But too many people seek only the opportunity to exercise confirmation bias, attending to the one or two facts which fit the conclusion they’re already 80% of the way to making, and casually neglecting any contradictory or even ameliorating evidence that doesn’t fit the already-constructed paradigm.
Tell me what you understand of the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and I’ll be pretty likely to identify your politics. At one level, this is unproblematic. At another level, it’s the essence of this argument.
So what do we call the “pressing issue”? How about “intellectual laziness”? This manifests not only in our impressions of individual stories, but also in our political decision-making, and here Curmie uses the term “political” to refer to all manner of maneuvering for personal advantage, not simply in running for mayor or Congresscritter or whatever.
Many years ago, Curmie was recruited by the then-current holder of a position of some responsibility in a subgroup of a large professional organization. Being on a nominations committee meant that you were familiar with the goals of the group and cognizant who the rising stars were most likely to be; you’d seen their work and their participation in group activities. Committee membership was an investment of time and knowledge for the betterment of the organization.
More recently, being on that same committee is advertised to graduate students attending their first conference as a way to more quickly move into their own leadership positions. The committee didn’t call up good people and urge them to run for office; they sat back and waited for self-nominations, effectively making self-promotion the sine qua non of opportunity. Even when no one came forward, the committee did nothing. Intellectual laziness.
Needless to say, self-promotion is valued over actual competence (let alone excellence) in more places than just the academy. A politician without “name recognition” not only has little chance of success, but is more than likely to be ridiculed by the chattering class for the audacity of merely having good ideas instead sucking up to the right donors and hiring a first-class publicist. Intellectual laziness.
As a longtime professor, Curmie was already seeing a decline in students’ ability to think over a decade ago. In that same blog piece linked above, Curmie wrote this:
Needless to say, a lot of students founder a little in my freshman-level classes. They get glassy-eyed stares when I refuse to tell them whether Biff or Willy is the protagonist in Death of a Salesman, mutter about unfairness when receiving less than full credit for a plausible conclusion unsupported by argumentation, panic when I disagree with an opinion expressed by the textbook author or a high school English teacher (who got a C from me in this very class a few years ago). They can't think, in other words. The more cynical among you might suspect that I play devil’s advocate from time to time, just to see if a given student really has the stuff of scholarship. To this accusation, of course, I indignantly respond, “Moi?”.
Curmie regrets to say that the situation has only deteriorated from there. Indeed, whereas Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind” can be inspirational, the same cannot be said for pissing into the wind, and that feeling of despair became a significant reason why Curmie is now a professor emeritus.
Part of the cause for this disintegration of the educational system, and hence of the culture, can be traced to politicians’ fetishistic desire for quantification and “accountability.” You’ll note, Gentle Reader, that the latter term is in scare quotes, because the sole consideration of the determination is performance on a standardized test.
If you’ve followed this blog at all assiduously over the years, you’ll know what Curmie thinks of that idea. If not, you might start here. Short version: as part of an evaluation, such tests are not without some merit, but they measure test-taking strategies (and freedom from testing anxiety) at least as much as they do skill. And they only measure that which can be measured: that is, only things for which there is a single, unassailably correct, answer.
Curmie used to tell Theatre History classes that if someone tells you they know for certain what Aristotle meant by “catharsis,” you should run, not walk, away from this person. You should similarly avoid those who are unequivocally convinced that Robert Frost is or is not being ironic in closing “The Road Not Taken” with “…and that has made all the difference.” There are countless other examples, of course.
You are also free to decide that, say, Anton Chekhov was the greatest playwright of the modern age, but you’re going to need to back up that assertion with analysis—with thought. You can’t just fill in the bubble on the Scantron sheet, because there is no “correct” answer. Why is Chekhov better than Ibsen or Lorca or Williams? Responding to that question requires analysis, recognition of alternate possibilities, and actual thought as opposed to memorization. (As an experienced theatre director, Curmie suggests that actors’ ability to learn their lines is not the only criterion by which their success ought to be measured.)
Does the educational status quo, driven largely by non-educators, encourage intellectual laziness? Unquestionably. Does the political system do so? Of course. Does what passes for journalism do so? You know what Curmie thinks on that score from the way he phrased the question. Does business suppress thought in the name of being a “team player”? You may answer in the negative to this one only if you’ve never heard of Elon Musk.
Anyway, that’s Curmie’s answer to the question of our most pressing issue as citizens of the world: intellectual laziness. Thanks for your patience and endurance in making it this far, Gentle Reader.
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