disproportionately to the cost of the holiday? Chances are that I would be ridiculed and perhaps even reprimanded by my superiors. They believe that my ability to positively affect conditions is limited and is prescribed in their policies and procedures, and any attempt to affect conditions outside of those limitations is discouraged. And most people buy into their limitations because they do not want to risk a reprimand or other negative consequence. As a result, most people suffer a diminished sense of personal responsibility and, of course, have a lesser ability to positively affect conditions in their lives.
Fact Addiction
Somewhere along the way, in our pursuit of the “right” answer, many of us became addicted to facts. Indeed, we associate “facts” with virtue and rightness. Many think that those armed with facts are more credible, indeed better, than the unarmed. We built a system of criminal and civil justice that depends first upon identifying facts and then applying law to those facts. We extended the mentality, and indeed the process, far beyond the courtroom. Kids taunt each other with expressions like, “You can’t prove it!” Parents interrogate their kids to discover the facts, so they can determine who is right and who is wrong, and who should be punished and who rewarded. When there is trouble at school, teachers vow to “get to the bottom of it.” This continues all the way through to the most sophisticated levels of human activity, where anything uttered on Wall Street, at a biotech convention, or in the U.S. Senate must be validated by verifiable “facts” or it is discredited.
But what is a fact? It is a mere snapshot of reality. As a snapshot, it is limited in time, range, and