Morning Thoughts: October 11, 2017

Sometimes, if I think about simple things too long they don't stay simple. Maybe that’s why we enact such dreadful laws. Thinking is hard.

This latest thing came to me this week. I decided to base my monthly urban planning column  on what I thought was a simple and accepted concept. This is, that planning represents an area of endeavor about which reasonable people can and do differ.

More thoroughly stated, the concept posits that two unbiased and sincere people can view the same set of facts concerning a planning issue, receive the same amount of time for analysis, use comparable levels of experience and education, and come to diametrically opposed conclusions. Thereupon, they simply agree to disagree, in theory at least.

It’s simple and alluring proposition. Why do we need it? Well, I believe all propositions are stated in order to serve some sociological purpose. To wit:

Despites the vast body of literature surrounding the Old Testament Book of Job, the real reason it was written was to assure an iron-age society that stuff was just going to happen and they might as well shut up about it and quit pestering the Rabbis. A person, or a society, just can’t be good enough to create a perfect world.

Move to the New Testament and one can easily imagine that the parable of the prodigal son was written to allay resentment that backsliders were being welcomed back into a Christian community that badly needed numbers.

So, the concept of logical and benign disagreement about planning decisions perhaps grew from efforts to maintain societal harmony, promote order, or perhaps save jobs. Consider the Depression-era schoolteacher in west Texas faced with a schoolboard equally divided on whether the earth was flat or round. As Lyndon Johnson once observed, the teacher’s eloquent solution was, “I can teach it both ways.”

Sometimes the disagreements, though, aren’t based on comparable levels of logic. People aren’t ever going to agree, and reason fails. Currently, for example, we Americans are engaged in a bitter, friendship-ending, politician-exploiting, emotion-venting, ratings enhancing, career-ending disagreement over whether the First Amendment to the United States Constitution applies to how certain folks react to the song chosen as the country’s national anthem.

Sadly, veterans of military service find themselves being used to strengthen the argument from either side of the issue. We do, after all, love our veterans.

Think so?

Let them propose building a treatment center for those vets in your neighborhood and see what happens.