Concept Conflicts
About a month ago I was watching A&E up here in Canada (which is quite similar to, but different from A&E in the United States) and came across a program which I believe was titled “Airline”. The show followed different people in an airline, primarily the ticket and gate agents. There is also a British version of the show which airs right after the American one. On the British version, a crisis occurred and there was a major accident on the freeway leading to the airport, so a large number of people were late for a specific flight. They tried to hold the flight as long as possible, but schedules being what they are, had to seal up the plane and send it on it’s way.
One lady came in just after the last people allowed through and wanted to get on the flight but was rejected because she was late, though not her fault. She asserted that the plane was still on the ground and she could be let on. The person behind the ticket desk got on her phone and called down to the gate and was told that the plane had left, and so she told this to the lady, who was getting more and more irate. The lady used her cell phone to call the company headquarters, which told her that the plane was still on the ground and wouldn’t depart for another 40 minutes. She was happy.
Once the whole mess was worked out, it was discovered that the plance had closed it’s doors and pushed back from the gate, but would not be taking off for 40 minutes due to scheduling. They couldn’t open the doors due to security policy which would require them to deplane everybody on board and then reboard everybody, or some such nonsense.
What I will never forget is this lady screaming at that tick agent “You lied! You lied to me! I don’t appreciate being lied to!” In fact the ticket had not lied - I lie requires an intent to deceive. She had simple relayed the information which she herself had been given. She was mistaken and wrong, but she had not lied. I frequently think of her stupid antics when I see the “Bush lied” people. He may be shown to be wrong (yes, I know they have found small amounts of WMD and related equipment in Iraq), but there is no reason to believed he lied. Believing something wrong doesn’t make you a lier, it just makes you wrong.
Confusing being wrong with lying is a simple yet crucial thinking mistake. It shows that a person is unable to distinguish between two closely related yet different ideas.
The other concepts which many people tend to confuse are those of oppression and hardship. That is, if you have to work long and hard hours to put food on the table, you must not be free. Thus, the only way we can have a free people is through socialism/communism/wealth redistribution or some such nonsense.
Oppression is caused by an external, deliberate force. Dictators are abound in the world. Oppression need not be caused be a central government (it can be argued that a group like the KKK oppressed black people) but it is the most well known type. Usually speech is restricted, your religion is not of your choosing, there are no elections, immigration and emigration are controlled - even your movements inside the country my be tracks or restricted.
Hardship is due to external forces which are not deliberate. Events such as natural disasters are not deliberate. Same goes for power failures. Life is what it is. It will not be “fair” in the sense that not everybody will have either equal opportunity or equal results. It will not be “fair” in the sense that there is no guarantee that life will be somewhere between poor and good, but at least decent. And there is no guarantee that life will be “fair” and in a walk in the park where you don’t have to do anything.
People seem to believe that plant or company closures are deliberate attempts to oppress people. That could not be further from the truth. Most managers do not like closing down anything exactly because of the human costs. But it is not possible in business to run at a loss for an extended period of time. Thus when a mine is no longer viable, it will be shut down. A mill producing a product for which there is no longer any market that cannot be retooled will eventually go out of business. A plant which has overpriced labour (usually due to unions) will be shut down eventually because it is unprofitable.
All of these events involve some sort of human involvement, but they weren’t oppressive. The relationship between two groups was terminated, but they were not oppressed. Nothing was stolen from workers. The workers were able to seek work elsewhere. They were able to go back to school if they couldn’t find work in their field. Oppression occurs when somebody prevents you from exercising your rights as you see fit. The only way to view this as oppressive is to assume that the workers were entitled to that particular job, to which I ask why? Why were those people entitled to that particular job. There is no rational explanation. Thus they were not oppressed, but their lives have become more difficult.
Always keep an eye out for mistakes like those above. They are generally good indications of fuzzy thinking.