falling prey to 'BMMASP!'

the dangers of rationalising

I was known for many things at the National Defense University, not least of which was my long tenure at the National War College. Probably my most time-tested idea was KYEOTP which I had written on little cards anywhere I could see from my desk to remind myself to Keep Your Eye on the Prize. It’s surprisingly seductive for us to diverge from what we need to accomplish in strategy—or teaching, or driving home from the library or anything else. It’s especially important in jobs where ‘the good idea fairy’ visits you every fifteen seconds.

My Associate Deans (and later the Deputy Provost when I moved to the Provost position) put up their own signs because invariably I would remind them of this and the concept applied to their own work. And there were a couple of people who simply found it a useful reminder to focus in a town where that aim is so tough for lots of reasons.

I was talking with a millennial (I think; these terms overwhelm at times with their precision) this morning about one of the many national controversies swirling this weekend. This individual expressed frustration with the partisan rationalising more often about current events. His frustration encompassed both the right and the left.

He focused on hypocrisy he hears too often by the left over the issue of defunding the police while the right curbing library access because those institutions may include ‘dangerous’ books. This conversation was with a man who reads and listens to a variety of sources so he has heard or read lots of arguments on each side; he engages with those arguments. In exasperation, he asked what did these people on each side think was going on here? He deeply appreciated that the unintended consequences of these actions outweigh any benefits of the actions the proponents advocate.

I coined a new set of letters, BMMAEP, to explain both sides’ reactions: but my motivations are entirely pure! But MY motivations are so pure allows us to explain away so much. I have nothing but the right answer because I wouldn’t let anything get in the way of your best interest.

This is rationalising is going well beyond differences on domestic cultural and political motivations. Late last week a Congressman opined that if the Guomindang candidate were to win the Taiwan presidential election next year, we should assume that candidate was a pro-Beijing, if not out-and-out illegitimate candidate, so the election results would be illegitimate. What? WHAT? Excuse me. Talk about overreach in thinking.

We now know better than the voters of Taiwan, those voters we proclaim repeatedly to be under threat from a non-elected regime across the Strait, whether their votes are legitimate?

Why? Why would we do that? Isn’t that what we are trying to stop Beijing from doing to Taiwan—dictating their future? Why are we advocating things like this?

Why, because our motives are entirely pure and no one else’s are so we know what is best for the people of that island or any place else. We know what is best because our motives are pure and the opposition (fill in the blank) is not.

If others accept our determined ends, then everything flows logically and easily to achieve those ends. This is a variation on ‘the end justifies the means’.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

That rationalising, my friends, is nothing short of delusional, regardless of the specific case. Just because we believe we don’t seem to have ulterior motives that does not necessarily turn the decision over to us, on either or any side of the political aisle. After all, not everyone’s long terms interests coincide with our own.

The right and the left easily identify the other side engaging in this undesired behaviour but vow that it’s just those guys doing it. Wrongo! If we defund police, does any rational person truly believe crime will disappear? Racial injustice appears an element in horrible violence against African-Americans but it is also pervasive across our society, including black-on-black violence (like white on white violence is a pervasive danger). Does it follow that all violence against the African American community results from police activity? I think not nor does it make rational sense to assume police value to society is limited only to engaging with African Americans.

In short, defunding the police seems sloppy thinking based on believing that one’s motivations and analysis are pure while others’ thinking processes are not.

Similarly, the Missouri Legislature’s decision to defund libraries because of the dangers they present to readers is similarly poor analysis at best, ignorance at worst. Libraries serve so many purposes beyond books today: they offer elderly access and help for internet access, they provide basic research assistance, they show youngsters the value of looking at books in a quiet space with others, and may more. The idea that any teenager seeking to find Lady Chatterly’s Lover cannot do so by cutting off funding for the Osceola County is laughable beyond belief. Yet those who passed that decision feel their cause is just and their motives pure, regardless of the illogic it engenders.

This thinking is more common than not lately. It leads us to cast aspersions on the motives of others, leading us to reject conversations with others. Instead of trying to explain and convince someone with different views, we see people hurl vaguely-understood buzz words at the adversary to close the subject. The number of times I hear the right accuse the left of being ‘communist’ or ‘socialist’ without grasping what those terms mean is enormous while the left refuses to clarify its use of Fascist even though many times their accusations are similarly wrong. Under BMMAEP, one does not have to explain anything or make a logical argument.

Just because someone differs with someone else does not make either or both parties wrong. They may differ but they are not automatically evil nor automatically pure and just. Most of the world is gray rather than black and white.

We do good things, the Chinese (Russians, or Iranians, or Venezuelans) always do horrible things. Our interpretation of what the Founders intended for religion, guns, or women’s rights are the correct ones while anyone else’s are perverse and anti-Christian. And on and on. Yet we don’t realise we are going this and too often we celebrate doing this ignorant and dangerous behaviour.

We must stop using this rationalising on both sides if we want to prevent further fracturing of this society and if we seek a country where people take responsibility for their own actions. Supplanting anyone else’s right and/or responsibility to reason is a guarantee for a further dumbing down and disintegration of our world.

Let’s stop being stupid, please. Our world depends on it.FIN