... but I think that what you're doing is, in fact, the sort of framing that you're criticizing.
Let me try, just for a second, to reframe the problem, and see if you agree. The problem, as I'd like to see it framed, is not that a lot of people -- probably upwards of 20,000, I'm guessing -- are dead, and others badly hurt, physically, emotionally, and financially. That's a disaster, not a problem; that happened. Right now, people are doing stuff -- technical term -- to minimize the eventual damage, and that's great, and what should be done right now to do that is a problem, but, I'd suggest, not the problem.
The problem, it seems to me, is to reduce the likelihood of something like this happening in the future, at an acceptable cost (not just in dollars, but in effort, liberty, freedom, etc.). Part of analyzing and, presumably, addressing that problem necessarily is to look at what went wrong, including -- but not limited to -- people who didn't do what they were supposed to, people who did what they were supposed not to do, systems that worked and didn't work. A likely side-effect of that look is going to be the waving about of the political pelts of some people involved; that's fine.
But I'm skeptical about what extent that ought to be the focus of the discussion generally, and what I find utterly distressing and infuriating enough that I'm not going to start using swear words because I don't think I could stop is the extent to which people on both sides of the yawning political divide -- including mine, to the extent that I have a side, and to some extent I do -- are choosing to use the present disaster to settle scores both old and new, and losing what I think should be the focus.
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I'm going to drop this, at least for now, and get back to work...
Date: 2005-09-05 08:30 pm (UTC)Let me try, just for a second, to reframe the problem, and see if you agree. The problem, as I'd like to see it framed, is not that a lot of people -- probably upwards of 20,000, I'm guessing -- are dead, and others badly hurt, physically, emotionally, and financially. That's a disaster, not a problem; that happened. Right now, people are doing stuff -- technical term -- to minimize the eventual damage, and that's great, and what should be done right now to do that is a problem, but, I'd suggest, not the problem.
The problem, it seems to me, is to reduce the likelihood of something like this happening in the future, at an acceptable cost (not just in dollars, but in effort, liberty, freedom, etc.). Part of analyzing and, presumably, addressing that problem necessarily is to look at what went wrong, including -- but not limited to -- people who didn't do what they were supposed to, people who did what they were supposed not to do, systems that worked and didn't work. A likely side-effect of that look is going to be the waving about of the political pelts of some people involved; that's fine.
But I'm skeptical about what extent that ought to be the focus of the discussion generally, and what I find utterly distressing and infuriating enough that I'm not going to start using swear words because I don't think I could stop is the extent to which people on both sides of the yawning political divide -- including mine, to the extent that I have a side, and to some extent I do -- are choosing to use the present disaster to settle scores both old and new, and losing what I think should be the focus.