Where Are We Going?

Being in the newspaper business means we spend a lot of time listening to people with opposite views about “the truth.” Though we’re not advocating relativism – the old “If you stand for nothing, you fall for everything” conundrum – experience has taught us that truth is a very slippery thing. Intelligent people can, do and will disagree about issues that should contain inviolable truths. 

We’ve learned to appreciate this. We like understanding why one person holds certain truths to be self-evident while another does not. This is not easy to get at sometimes because debris will form around core issues, cluttering the original goal or foundational issue.

Here’s our theory on why that happens. Take any issue, such as broadband access or affordable housing or new fire stations or snowplowing. Gaining those things may be desirable, yet people divide on how to do that. They select different paths and head off. They believe they’ve chosen the right way to arrive at the common goal. Some believe so strongly in their path that they can’t stop themselves from trying to convince others by using the loudest voices they have. Soon, defending that path becomes the issue. So intent are they on having their voices heard and their positions validated that they forget where they’re going.

This has happened with COVID-19. We all want to keep our families, friends and communities as safe as we can. That’s the end goal. But somewhere along the line, we diverged on how to get there. Two basic ways presented themselves. Both ways have billboards, let’s say, that stream things that assure us we’ve chosen the right path: videos, facts, articles, rhetoric, guidelines, advice. But the billboards stream different content on the other path, reassuring those others that they, too, have chosen the right way. 

We’re now at that place where we’re all defending the paths we’ve chosen. We’ve lost sight of the destination, our common goal. Maybe we don’t even know why we originally took the path we took. The crowd swept us up, or we followed the loudest voice. So we’re living on our paths and defending them with all we have. 

Instead, we should lift our heads, concede that ours is not the only way, reaffirm the destination we all want to reach and find places where our paths converge: communities where we’re free to pursue life, liberty and happiness.