Back to Square One

As far as I can remember, I have looked at the world around me with eyes seeking out problems. I was, after all, a problem-solver, and, as every problem-solver knows, it is rather difficult to solve a problem before having identified it.

I therefore saw no alternative than to make identifying all the problems in the world my primary task, so that I might have the possibility to figure out what the applicable solutions might be.

It is not surprising then that I found problems. Many of them. Many of the problems were unknown to me until someone somewhere had written an article, posted a post, or published a YouTube video, making me aware of it.

As it turns out, I was not the only one chasing down problems. Turns out there were thousands upon thousands of people looking for problems – presumably for a similar reason as me.

We all seemed to want to locate these problems – upon having found a problem, we would then search for someone else who also thought that this was a problem. Then we would talk about it.

1. Such-and-such is a problem, don’t you think?
2. Yes, but let’s expound on the problem and dig as deep as we can into it and all it’s implications.
3. OK, now that we have done that, what can we do to resolve the problem?
4. Well, we need more people to recognize it as a problem, like we do.
5. Like. Share. Subscribe.

Of course, I am being somewhat lazy in this over-simplification, but I think there nevertheless remains a point here.

For years I have been party to a constant din of anti-ness – that is to say, a large collection of individuals who are anti-the-problems-they-have-identified.

For years I have balked to family, friends and strangers, in person and online, against those things I find to be wrong – crony capitalism, climate hysteria, Socialism, the big State, censorship, war, junk food, public education, wokeism, etc.

And yet, while it was so very clear to me what I was against, in those exceedingly rare and brief moments when I would wonder what I was for, all too often the reply would be that I was for a world where all those things, those problems, did not exist.

In other words, I wasn’t actually sure what I was promoting – other than the non-existence of things I did not like. The reality I wanted was therefore defined by the things I did not want.

How depressing.

I imagined myself asking my 13 year old son “What would you like to eat for dinner?”, only to hear him reply “Not mud.”. I’m not sure where gastronomy would be today if it were led by the tongue of all things distasteful and therefore to be avoided.

Is it really enough to know what you dislike? I suppose it depends what you are aiming for.

If the goal is to get by, then I suppose it might be enough to know what one does not like.

But what if the goal is to flourish, to prosper, to abound? Would not we then need to know what it looks like to flourish, why it’s worthwhile to prosper, and what steps are necessary to abound?

In recent weeks I have struggled immensely with the sense of being overwhelmed by problems – problems I had spent most of my life seeking out so that I might be of some use to humanity in doing my small part to solve them. I wager I am not alone in this struggle.

Perhaps it would be helpful to know to what end and purpose we are against those various things to begin with. Why be against something if I don’t even know, other than mostly theoretical generalizations, what I am for in it’s place!?

If I am against the “big State”, do I know what the alternative really is? No I don’t. I know of a lot of theory from a lot of people who have written and spoken about it. But I personally don’t actually know of any concrete, real life, examples of what a functional alternative to the “big State” looks like. So, then, am I not merely an anti-ist in this regard!?

Same with public education, junk food, mass-immigration, etc … What are the positive alternatives to all these things? What does that look like? Why is it worthwhile to strive for? What are the necessary steps to attain it?

“Square One” towards promoting the good is, then, the task of answering the question ‘What does the Good look like?’.