Theft at the Public Till
Note the critical role played by goals in sorting the information. The surfeit of information, the cries for "more," the demands of our complex society, leave each of us and our experts at a loss. We are adrift without the goals necessary to sort the information deluge. Henry Aaron once asked: "What is an ordinary member of the tribe to do when the witch doctors disagree?" In my view what to do is to assert that there is a primary goal -- to increase the quality of life. Using this value as a filter, each of us -- and the decision makers who claim to act for us has a base from which to view the world. The setting of priorities is critical. The word "triage" comes to mind a word referring originally to life and death choices and meaning selection or choice according to quality. Yet, if that quality cannot be perceived, how, in a world of limited resources, how is the triage supposed to occur? To perceive quality is to see patterns that underlay manifest events and happenings. It means perceiving the forest through the trees. Well-developed individuals have a penchant for seeing connections between things, for relating things and events one to another. Humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow said that the healthy mind sees things whole; overspecialization and fragmenta- tion are signs of psychic malfunction. The ability to see unifying patterns is the sign of a healthy well-developed personality. Quality of life and its improvement must be the unifying pattern connecting the actions of those to whom we have entrusted the decisions of governing. People often do not realize that their decision agendas are usually un- conscious. Thus, the first step of the process is making it conscious. Each of us responds, not to the world, but to our image of the world. This mind-set includes attitudes about every situation in our lives and every person we come across. In many cases, these mind-sets have been built up, slowly, from childhood and may not have much to do with actual reality. A bigot, for instance, has a derogatory mind-set about a certain ethnic group of people. The mind-set is so powerful that it can actually influence people to ignore reality. Bigots have been known to "forget," for example, that someone they knew was of the offending race or culture, and let a slur slip out. "Sorry; I didn't mean YOU."
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