An Uncomfortable Truth

Our former Vice President called global warming an “Inconvenient Truth”. Global warming has now evolved to climate change because the warming idea was not holding up. Had he started with the change idea I could have agreed with him all along. Let’s face it our climate has changed continually since the beginning of time, so no change here and oh, by the way for vast preponderance of time humans had nothing to do with the changes. Given that, it is probably more than a little egotistical to think we can reorder things at this stage.

But today I want to talk about an “Uncomfortable Truth” – life is neither fair nor politically correct. By the way this also has been true since the beginning of time. We can pretend all we want that the dice come out of the cup of life evenly distributed but it doesn’t happen that way. Were that the case we would not have had a Picasso, Einstein, Madam Currie or the homeless guy on the corner. Some will be luckier, some smarter and others less so. Even though some are smarter they will not always apply themselves and therefore not capitalize on their advantage but conversely some not so gifted will bore in and exceed what might otherwise be expected of them. Some will be what I call “Members of the lucky sperm club” and be born to wealth and presumed power while others will come from modest, or even poor beginnings, and go on to accomplish far greater things than the members of the aforementioned club. On the other side of the equation are those that are born to poverty and even homelessness and struggle to, and often do not, break the cycle but even here we have more than a few that have risen above their early circumstances. I might add that most do not like my definition of fair – “Fair is when neither side is totally happy”. Think about it, if one side is ecclesiastically happy, the other side more than likely feels screwed. So let’s accept that life is not fair and while we do what we can to help those in need not get our shorts in a bunch as this plays out.

Gender and race! Even uttering either of these words one risks being branded as politically incorrect or worse. For starters there are only two genders – one is either male or female – and that is a biological certainty. While some may argue that their biological identity doesn’t describe them, I’m sorry you are either male or female and absent some fairly radical hormonal and surgical changes that does not change. (Even then one might argue that the changes are only superficial and under the covers nothing changes.) Now that we have that agreed let’s also agree that men and women are different and I am not only talking about their plumbing. By saying that I am not in any way intimating that one is better and the other worse just that men and women are different in the ways they approach and do many things. Similarly this does not mean that one is right and the other wrong just that they are different. As an aside, just because I would do something one way and you would choose to do it another does not necessarily mean that one of us is right and the other wrong; it generally means there is more than one way to reach the goal. Back to gender. Not only are these differences there, they are probably how the human race survived. Think about it in the context of building a team. The strongest teams are not composed of all with similar strengths and weaknesses but are made up of those with a mix of contrasting strengths and weakness were one members strengths offset the other weaknesses.

As one watches current events unfold it would be easy to think that everything that happens has a racial component. News flash – that is not the case. Believe it or not most of life goes on without any consideration of the racial mix of those involved. And when there are occurrences that make the nightly news that involve those of different races it does not mean that the racial differences caused or were in any way involved in the issue. Are they sometimes, sure, but for the most part those instances are the anomaly. That said, the almost constant focus on the anomaly’s in the media will tend, and does tend, to create the illusion that everything is that way and creates the feeling in some it is OK to act that way. By the way, it might help if instead of calling the actions in the riots looting we call it what it really is – robbery and arson. Do people tend to congregate with those similar to themselves – be it ethnic, racial, economic status or other reason – without a doubt but once again this has gone on forever and typically happens almost without any conscious thought. Is there still a racial divide – most certainly but I would argue that the continual focus on that as the reason for all that is wrong in the world only works to deepen the divide and does nothing to bring things together.

Expecting life to be fair sets one up for being continually disappointed. Being politically correct in my mind only provides a way to avoid discussing the real issues. And the good Lord only knows we have real issues to discuss. Be it gender inequality in compensation, how to solve the conundrum in the quality of education in the inner cities even though we spend more money per student there, rural vs. metro services availability, the current ISIS threat and on and on. No shortage here. But we can only expect real progress once we agree to take off the gloves, remove the varnish and in the words of a great philosopher – Take life on life’s terms.

Loren Berg