Slash and Burn as a Strategy
Some Cheering Neighbors and their Families
I can hear some of my neighbors and their families cheering: see, they say aloud or to themselves, vaccines are bad, diversity stops qualified white folk from jobs, immigrants are committing crimes and taking my money; and those trans people are violating every religious and gender norm.
Their answer: Get rid of it all: science based research on vaccines, DEI programs, immigration and immigrants, and anyone who does not declare a gender and sexual orientation identical to that existing at birth. Slash and burn. Eradicate everything and everyone with which we disagree.
Yup. That’s the strategy.
I would agree that improvements are needed in governing at all levels. I suspect everyone agrees that there is political excess. I would agree that there has been wasteful spending across government.
Absence of Nuance
But, where is subtlety? Where is thoughtful review? Where is transparency? Where is nuance? Where is decency in timing? Where are efforts to eradicate unnecessary harm? Doesn’t the notion of caution have value?
The illustration above, a variant of which I have used in my own work including in my now 28 year old book, Failure and Forgiveness, speaks to the need to understand the possible varied meanings of equality. The image messages nuance. Yes. There is equality of treatment. See diagram on the left with the equal crates. But that isn’t the end of the discussion.
There is also a different way of using this term “equality.” Consider the relevance of equality of outcome. See diagram on the right with different numbers of crates so everyone can see.
And there are other possible nuances to the term “equality” too, including equality of opportunity, all of which we’ll leave for another day.
Here’s my point. Slash and burn in nature and in governance are deeply damaging. They fail to distinguish. They fail to save what needs to be saved. They use a blow torch to eradicate a mosquito.
Here’s a thought and one that some of our courts are, thankfully, implementing: pause. And in that pause, we need to reflect and ponder. I’m reminded here of the automatic stay in insolvency proceedings. That stay allows a breathing space and not just for the debtor. It allows for time to figure things out. It prevents greedy and speedy and rich creditors trouncing the rights of other and/or smaller creditors. How smart, how wise. And yes, one can move to get the stay lifted in exigent circumstances.
In the here and how, with T and EM and their minions and a scared Congress, where is the effort to avoid slashing and burning? Since when has the scorched earth policy ever worked? Consider the message of the stay, the pause, the time to ponder. It is a powerful thing to be subtle… in work, in life, in government.
