No turkey tips or yam secrets here. Oddly, a different American tradition itches me today.
Recently, I was discussing with an acquaintance the increasing numbers of cardboard-toting streetside beggars in our town. He cut me off in mid-sentence, declaring, "Oh, those guys are total fakes. They stand out doing nothing all day then go back to their houses with two hundred bucks."
The day before, a Facebook friend averred flatly, "The federal government is building a national DNA database using samples from sobriety check stops."
I cannot say with certainty whether or not either of these two assertions have any merit. I simply don't have the data to reach even a tentative conclusion, let alone close cases.
They, apparently, do.
With debates raging over the role of faith in public policy, the potential dangers of climate change and the differences between anecdotes of insurance coverage loss and broad statistical views of same, there lurks in our society an insidious threat to peace, security and even liberty: the threat of knowing.
Not information, or even data, or the access to same. Data in itself is neither a threat nor a relief. It just is.
No, it is the assumption, by so many regards so much, that data is unnecessary. Information is superfluous. Because we already know.
Whether revelations come from holy writ or a brother-in-law's email or an authoritative journal or some yammerhead down the bar, too many of us fall prey to the delusion that, whatever the subject, a Last Word can be, or even has been, achieved. What's that bumper sticker? "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." Typing those words, I can almost hear them spoken in exactly the same tone in which my friend told me about the luxurious lifestyle of street beggars.
That tone, the subtext of which is always, "Don't challenge me on this," is, in this yammerhead's opinion, the key to much of what is terribly wrong in our society.
That settles it. I've got all the proof I need. The time for debate is over. Ad nauseum, all slathered in arrogance, sanctimony and veiled (or not) insult.
And, all too often, so terribly wrong. The Titanic can't be sunk. The plant is earthquake-proof. The aluminium tubes are for centrifuges.
Those who read my writings will often find a tone of easy confidence, of sureness in position and, yes, often contempt for some points of view. What this seeming certainty belies is a deep, unshakable doubt. That I've got all the facts. That I'm not being deceived by sources. That I know what the hell I'm talking about in the first place.
That doubt, that reflex of self-questioning, is, ironically, the only thing that gives me the confidence to press "publish" on these musings. The times when that Internal Uh Oh has stilled and all questions have stilled are so often the prologues to terrible lessons.
If there is one credo that I wish could replace all our mottoes and declarations, it would be simply, "I dunno, let's see." That the eagle on our seal has his talons full with arrows and wreaths is a shame, for that leaves no limb free to scratch his feathered head and say, "I'm not so sure."