Destination thinking and its hazards
On learning to walk, getting elected, and considering how to picture the world
Because life can only be lived in one direction, we mark it with familiar waypoints: Learning to walk, graduation, marriage, and a whole host of "firsts". This creates a seductive but faulty expectation that the same waypoints apply to society.
■ Political figures often use this expectation to their advantage by promising destinations. "Elect me and we will have/do/be something" is a common refrain because it satisfies our instinctive expectations. In human life, once a person has graduated, they don't un-graduate. Once they've learned to walk, barring a catastrophic accident or a stroke, they never have to re-learn.
■ The only thing politics of any sort can offer us is a direction of travel. More free or less free. More dignified or less dignified. More responsible or less responsible.
■ These things are much harder to sell because they depend upon abstract thinking. They also depend upon incrementalism: Taking steps, sometimes only small ones, and recognizing them as pieces of a bigger project which is never complete.
■ Under directional thinking, the work is never done: Good things must be secured through unrelenting attention and bad things must be fought without rest. Destination thinking relies upon appealing but false promises. Learning to recognize the difference doesn't often come naturally, but it's the essence of knowing what makes things tick.
