https://lessig.medium.com/the-costs-of-distraction-a5d982e0df65
"I floated this image on Twitter to test the reaction it would trigger. That
reaction was as I suspected. The challenge to express the point latent in the
image — a point I think we all must focus — is as clear now as it was before.
And just as difficult.
That point is this: The task of governing is to focus attention on the most
critical issues first. It is to solve those issues first, and then to move down
the list from most important to less important. The task is to keep attention
where it matters most, and to avoid distraction where it will only weaken the
capacity — the political capacity — to address the issues that matter most.
That statement assumes we can say something about which issues matter most.
That assumption is difficult, because it begs the question (in the modern sense
of that phrase), “most important for whom?” And that question, in turn, reveals
a critical and unavoidable ambiguity: An issue may be “the most important
issue” for some, but not the “most important issue” for all.
I know this ambiguity — deeply and personally. My middle kid is non-binary.
Crafting and defending a world in which they can flourish as they are is, for
me, the most important issue. When I come into their room and find them weeping
after reading about some new law targeting them, or us, their parents, I feel
the rage of a mother bear defending her cubs.
That rage just grows as I recognize the base and meaningless reasons that we
must fight this issue now. This is not like abortion. I believe absolutely in
the right of a woman to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. Yet
I recognize there are people who honestly and morally believe the fetus is a
“person.” And so I get their fight to regulate a woman’s choice. I don’t agree
with it, but I understand the moral reason (for them) behind it.
The fight against the non-binary community is not that fight. This issue was
forged by and for the politicians. It is deployed for the purpose of generating
hate, because hate, they believe, will earn them votes. It is the basest and
worst of politics. And its consequence will be that this child I love more than
life will suffer in a world where intolerance and hatred have been nourished
and fed by people who have no better argument for getting elected than “hate
them, vote for me.” Thus for me, trans rights is the most important fight there
is. For me, that issue triggers a fury that I know for no other issue that I
have ever argued for.
And yet — and this is the critically difficult point to understand and to
express and to live — I don’t believe that this issue that is most important
for me is the most important issue for us."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
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mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
