HARDWIRED

MAY 27, 2023 – Recently, while I was hiking the hills of “Little Switzerland,” a golfer in his late 20s called out a greeting to me as he strode from his cart to the tee. An extrovert, he prompted me to respond similarly. I reciprocated and added a passing observation about the late-day improvement in the weather—something like, “Nice to have the rain behind us!”

“Yeah,” he said. “Nice to get out here finally.” He was in no rush, and his stance and countenance invited further exchange.

“But how ’bout the haze?” I said, deviating a few strides from my projected path.

“Yeah. Last year my allergies were terrible,” he said, “but this year, not so bad.”

“The haze is from those fires out west,” I said. “Bothers some people worse than others.”

“I heard about fires somewhere.”

“Big ones in Alberta,” I said, volunteering a reference point.

“Yeah,” he said, as he spat over the tee marker, “forest fires have been burning for millions of years and will continue burning for millions of years.”

“Uh-huh,” I murmured, wanting to say a whole lot more but exercising sufficient discretion to bite my tongue instead. “Well, anyway, glad we’re both able to enjoy what’s left of the day without rain. Take care!”

“You too, man!”

As he set his tee near where his spit had landed, I continued on my way, loaded with thoughts about our exchange.

From his dismissiveness about the root cause of the smoky haze, I surmised that the golfer and I didn’t share similar political views. His flippant reference to “millions of years” of smoke and flame, I thought, was the equivalent of an American flag lapel pin. On its face, neither the display of our national flag nor the mention of a broad swath of time is—or should be—inherently political, but in the current age, both have assumed the intentional and unmistakable signal of political opinion.

This friendly golfer and, I hope, the equally friendly me, parted on perfectly cordial terms. But speaking for myself, I walked away with a troubled frame of mind. I’m of the tribe that believes (a) the earth’s climate is rapidly changing; (b) in the main, hyper-rapid climate change is anthropogenic; (c) climate change is linked to increased frequency of extreme weather; and (d) extreme weather is a principal culprit in mega fires from Portugal to Australia to California to . . . Alberta.

Why do I believe these points? Why do I believe anything? But closer to the point, why does the golfer believe the western Canadian fires are nothing more than a ho-hum, multi-million-year pattern, with no greater nexus to anthropic degradation of the planet than occurs with earthquakes and volcanoes? Or, au point fixe, why do I assume that on the political spectrum, a great divide separates me from that golfer?

It seems that whatever the causes of our current polarization, the condition is intensifying, not abating. This, despite what undergirds truth: logical reasoning applied to evidence of sufficient quantity and quality. The problem is that in the Age of Information, we fail miserably in distinguishing information from objectively relevant, reliable and authenticated evidence. Information includes evidence and a whole lot that isn’t. Conversely, admissible evidence excludes a whole lot of information—conjecture, opinion, unsubstantiated allegations, and the catch-all for so much of what confronts us: nonsense. We are as far from consensus on much of anything, even such universal realities as the nature of “heat” and the quality of “cold”; “light” vs. “dark.”

The foundational problem is also the great wonder of our domain: our brains and how they’re wired. With obsessive impulse our brains seek two things: 1. Answers to everything, even to questions that have no answers, thus, religion, and 2. Belonging to one tribe or another, even in our quest for total individual freedom, thus, political parties.

The bad news here is that we’re hard wired. The good news is . . . hmmm. I’ll get back to you on that.

Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

 

© 2023 by Eric Nilsson