You know lost in the whole Michael Jackson Leaving Neverland mess is how utterly arrogant we’ve become.

One of the more painfully popular posts on Facebook is “Michael Jackson is guilty as hell. If you disagree please unfriend me now.” No debate, no discussion…this is cowardice and arrogance. I can’t trust people like that…you’re not particularly insightful.

Until the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912 the passenger liner was considered to be unsinkable. Indeed 1,503 people paid for that arrogant assumption because White Star Line did not have sufficient lifeboats to accommodate the entire complement of passengers and crew.

(The unsinkable arrogant assumption was compounded by their presupposition that not all passengers and crew would require evacuation at the same time: they assumed the lifeboats would easily go back and forth ferrying people to safety as effortless as an evening constitutional. Errr, yeah.) Again 1,503 people perished for that certainty. That was 1912. And yet here we are in 2019.

Journalists need 2 to 3 sources before they can publish something. If you feel comfortable watching one documentary and are able to make a definitive clear conclusion that is not willing to invite any debate, discussion or dissent of any kind…that is frightening. It’s not even the simple debate of is MJ guilty or innocent; it’s beyond that.

The basic premise of that corny Facebook post is that there’s no two sides to every story…which is not what I’m saying.

I’m saying what if you’re wrong?

I don’t care about being right; I’m terrified of being wrong.

We still have the death penalty and if you’re gonna execute a man you had better make damn sure he committed those crimes. Unfortunately we’ve executed innocent people (current estimates are between 30 to 50…yikes!!). My social standing is utterly meaningless if I’m wrong.

That’s not justice. That’s not right. It’s not good.

Absolute concrete certainty is a red flag: I can’t trust you.

If you’re going to shortcut the critical thinking process like this…how can I know your other thinking isn’t as lazy? This is symptomatic (and symbolic) of why we’re experiencing a dearth of leaders and bold ideas. We actively discourage dissent and popularize faulty logic.

We are…as a society in trouble.

We’re not concerned about lifeboats because we’ve decided we’re unsinkable.

This is exactly like climate change…we have opportunities to correct this, to effectively address this but if we continue to ignore these distressing bright red flags it will not end well.

-28-

Listen to My Summer Lair @ W • T • F

Also published on Medium.