1:00PM
If you choose option A, people die. If you choose option B, people die. If you choose option C, D, E, F, and all the way to Z, people die.
Right now, leaders are making history and inevitably history that will leave many dead and many grieving, no matter which way they go. It is an age-old problem in ethics, often called the trolley problem. In one version of it, I believe a trolley is going down the tracks towards 5 people. If the train doesn’t move, it will kill the 5 people. However, you have the ability to shift the train to another set of tracks, saving those 5 people, but there is 1 person on the other tracks, and if you make the decision to switch, that person will die.
I guess the main difference here is that there are many many more people and many many different tracks to which one could switch the train. Stay at home? Social distance? Do nothing? Which businesses stay open and which close? Which drugs do you approve and which don’t you? What do you do about schools? Suicides? Who gets money and who doesn’t? How quickly do you decide all of these things?
I don’t envy leaders right now of any type, especially political ones. I feel a deep pain in my heart when I actually think about the decisions they have to not only make, but live with for the rest of their lives, and have people remind them of the decisions as well. I think most politicians are used to deliberating on decisions, taking their time, passing legislation when the schedule deems fit. Yes, there is some last-minute deadline pressure as always, but once that’s over, there is some breathing room. With this, there seems to be decision after decision, moving at lightning speed, and seemingly never-ending. I wonder how many politicians have those skills to make those decisions but also have the skills to maintain their health in light of it.
This is maybe where I worry the most. I worry that almost all of us are going to feeling the pain of this pandemic for many years to come, if not for most of our lives. I particularly worry that our politicians will. That the current politicians and the future politicians will have deep trauma related to this and lead from the trauma. That the pain will bleed into decisions, communications, and overall ways forward for humanity.
I remember reading somewhere that someone said they didn’t like politicians until they realized that being a politician was about having to make a decision between two shitty alternatives. When you finally make the decision, people blame you for choosing a shitty alternative without realizing you only had shitty alternatives.
I hope that politicians and civic leaders have the strength to apologize, to forgive, to grieve, and to come back to the joy of living and having faith in humanity. May we recover.
