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The Problem with Retroactivity and Institutions that Fall into Corruption
Disclaimer:
First, this is a post about feelings and emotions in people. It is not a post about logic and reason. I know many people want to argue logic and reason, but this is about emotional reactions. I will not respond to any comments that boil down to “That’s not logical.” I know that and acknowledge it upfront. That is not what this post is about.
Second, I am going to use examples that you may disagree with. I am not going to argue about them, nor am I going to post links to prove my point. Either you agree with my take or you don’t. That is fine. But, I am not going to defend how I feel about any of these examples. They have proved their corruption to me beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Now on with the post:
I have noticed within myself something I have named “Retroactivity.” Retroactivity is my tendency to view the entire history of an organization or institution based on today’s level of corruption. What I mean by that is no matter what the institution might have done in the past, how it acts today colors all of that. To use an example from today, let’s look at the FBI. The FBI is corrupt to the core. It is now the thugs for the Biden administration, and they were thugs for Obama. There are no redeeming qualities about the FBI today. They cannot stop any real crime, they lie to courts and plan to steal money. I have no faith in any FBI agent at all. Because of that, I feel the FBI has never been any good, and it has never been worthwhile. Any good it might have done has been washed about by its sins now. Any agent who served has no honor to them; that honor is stripped away by the actions of the FBI now. It is, and always has been, a corrupt organization populated by evil men and women out to bully and hurt others.
To take another example, let’s look at unions. Some people say that unions once had a place. I disagree. Unions are a clear evil that protects some jobs at the expense of others. They destroy companies and are responsible for places like Detroit. As such, they have never been worthwhile. They are evil and always have been.
Now, while I am on a roll, the Catholic Church was a haven for gay men to prey on teens. We know it to be true. The Church did nothing for a generation and worked to cover it up. Frankly, I don’t think it has even come close to doing enough to take care of those damaged, nor to punish the wicked. Instead, it acted like any other organization, corrupt, vile, and bane. I always sort of supported it, but when that happened, I saw that the Catholic Church is no different than any other institution. It lost any right or claim to be a force for good.
Now, I understand these are feelings not thoughts. Not reason. I can come up with good things done by all three. However, I cannot ignore the response I have. These institutions are permanently damaged, as is any other one that falls into corruption. The good they may have done in the past is tainted forever. Any good they might do now is washed away by the pouring corruption of today.
I don’t think these feelings are unique to me. I think other people share them. In my bones, I feel the lost respect for institutions will never be restored. I can use the Catholic Church again as an example. Protestants, disgusted by the corruption of the Catholic Church left in protest. They are never coming back. Those other Churches are not merging with the Catholic Church. The Reformation was because of the massive corruption of the Catholic Church, corruption it still will not fully own.
The people that corrupt institutions destroy them forever. I think too many people feel as I feel. Oh, we might fight it, but the feelings are real. For me, I will have to work on my own feelings and thoughts. But each time something new comes out, it is a setback. Retroactivity is real for me, and I tire of fighting it.
Published in General
I delayed responding to this post for a nunber of reasons. First some of your emotional feelings I react to emotionally as well (negatively). Second, I wasnt sure that I could articulate something that added to the post. Lastly, I didn’t want to violate the rules you set forth.
Emotionally I find that I agree with you on some of your issues. As an example, I feel that we would be better off as a nation of the bureaucrats were all fired and barred from ever working in govt again. I want a ten year limit placed on all bureaucrats that caps their term of service to the govt. I feel this way because I am tired of seeing the bureaucracy run the country to the benefit of the left (well to the statist),and the detriment to the right. I try then to suggest plans that soothe my emotional response not because I think they will be adopted, but because it may shock others into realizing that who wins the midterms means a lot less than who the millions who actually run the govt do with their power. I try to use logic to solve an emotional problem.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been a Programmer and then a Consultant for my entire career. I see problems everywhere and then I see possible solutions. It drives me nuts to see obvious issues that just never get addressed. It’s like Cassandra. Does no one else see the obvious solution to the problem!? Perhaps, hut I think it’s more that I don’t have all the data to make a proper design. Well, except for the interminable check lines at grocery stores. Those solutions are easy.
My nature forces me to find solutions to problems. I see the corruption in the FBI and I want to dismantle it. But, I also want to replace it with something that performs many of the same functions but has less of a chance to be as corrupt. I know none of them will come to pass (like breaking the FBI into two agencies, one for counter intelligence and one for law enforcement) and even if they did, they would likely become corrupt because it’s the nature of bureaucracies and humans.
I also understand your feeling that some actions can spoil an entire organization such that it can be seen as irredeemable. Your comments abiut the Catholic Church pain me because as evil as the molestation issues were and are, they are infinitesimal compared to the good of the Church overall. Some of that is my emotional response, but that also makes me wonder if my ideas that the bureaucracy is irredeemable or that the FBI is as well might be more emotion than logic and, perhaps, we could reform them because while aspects are rotten, then while is still viable.
Something to ponder and that’s why I chose to respond.
In your experience, what are the pre-requisites for improvement?
Bryan,
I really want to endorse the first two paragraphs of your post. People are entitled to their feelings. Feelings are our gift from God. They protect us when we have a feeling that something is wrong.
One of the most powerful tools I have ever found is the “When you ___, I felt mad/glad/sad/afraid/shame/lonely” with the response, “I hear that when I ___, you felt ____, and about that I feel ____.”
For example, “When you were late, I felt sad, lonely and shame.” “I hear that when I was late, you felt sad, lonely and shame, and about that I feel sad.”
I don’t totally agree with your examples, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I honor your feelings, and I do.
Gary
Agree with your take on things.
Except that Rand Paul is I believe a Libertarian, like his dad.
And also I take exception to this: Jimmy Dore would be mashed to pulp on a sidewalk like the crickets that the Left wants us to eat should any of the Insider Leftists ever come face to face with him. He may identify as a Dem, but he is not a modern day Dem. He doesn’t lick up whatever group think mantra that the Dem Party hands out each week, and sooner rather than later, someone in The Party will make him pay for the “error” of his ways.
Well, first we have to agree on what is wrong. For example, the rigging of the 2020 election is seen by many as a “good thing” ™ because it got rid of Trump. But, there is/was a reason that we want unrigged elections.
Once we have some agreement on what is wrong, then it’s time to propose solutions. For me, proposed solutions should address the problem at hand and not cause other problems that are worse. Example here, what about gun violence in the US. No one “likes” it, but the optimal solution (confiscation of all firearms in the US) causes other problems that are worse (it’s unconstitutional for one, it will lead to a rise in crime, etc.).
This is why national solutions are usually a bad thing. Finding a single solution that works for everyone in the US is difficult and we either end up hurting one group or another. The solution is Federalism, but that isn’t regarded too highly because people want to see an issue solved not divided up into 50 issues.
Bryan, do you think that Jesus had anything to say about the type of feelings that you express in this post?
The Lord’s Prayer may be one place to look.
I, too, sometimes have the type of feelings that you express.
This is where we get into trouble caused by people who believe in “universal” human rights, or who say that “our rights are god-given and can’t be granted by the government.” If you believe rights are universal, how can you allow 50 different sets of rights, or 50 different sets of infringements upon those rights? Yes, you can argue that “some rights” are universal and others are not, but we’ve probably all seen how such discussions go.
The best I can come up with—and struggle to hold onto myself—is found in the reminder that human beings are a sinful, fallen lot. We just are. So of course everything we turn our hands and minds to ends up a corrupt, Machiavellian mess. Of course there was a Holocaust, a 911, slavery, mayhem, murder and whatever Hunter got up to over the weekend. What else would any rational person expect?
If we begin here—in a state of radical pessimism—the astonishing thing is that human beings ever do anything other than sin. That is, that we are ever other than selfish, manipulative, scheming, conniving ids -on-steroids.
You know that Greek myth about Pandora’s box? Zeus takes all the general and particular crappiness inherent in being human, and shuts it up in a box. (Actually, as my artist-husband reminds me, in a jar.) His curious daughter Pandora takes the lid off, and out it all pours…disgusting, vile, embarassing, recognizable…and at the bottom there is hope.
Contrary to the children’s book version of this story, the inclusion of “hope” wasn’t an expression of Zeus’ tender-heartedness. Hope is what keeps us in the game we otherwise would rationally refuse to play. Hope is a thing with feathers…and sharp, cruel teeth.
Forget hope. I recommend abysmally low expectations…and, occasionally, flabbergasted gratitude.
If the Catholic Church guilt-tripped people into funding the lavish lifestyles of pedophiles, well, that’s just normal human crappiness. But that the Catholic Church also provided really extraordinary support for learning, art, music, literature, that it built and staffed hospitals and universities, provided real refuges for women, and true charity for the poor… all of that is, very simply, a miracle. Nothing known about human nature should lead us to predict it. But there it is: Astounding. Flabbergasting.
I know a man who began life as a three pound baby born literally into the gutter in India. Abandoned by his mother (of course! what else?) he was plucked up by a passing stranger and deposited at one of Mother Theresa’s refuges for the despised and unwanted. The nuns there somehow managed to keep him alive and, six months later, now weighing perhaps ten or fifteen pounds, the tiny boy was adopted by, of all things, a Maine State Trooper and his family. He grew up in Maine, and is now a Sheriff’s deputy, married (I officiated at the wedding), and a dad himself.
None of that should’ve happened. Not the passing stranger, not the nuns, not the trooper. But it did. So maybe I’ll stick around and keep playing the game for another day.
Perhaps another way to look at rights is that different localities and states may take different routes to secure rights. After all, to the Founders, that was the proper role of gov’t, to secure the rights of the people. All rights are balancing acts. My right to pursue happiness may infringe on your right to property (or life), and thus they come into conflict. For some places, say large cities, they may feel that more restrictions on firearms are appropriate, and I am, nominally, OK with that, as long as they don’t try and enforce those same restrictions on rural areas. It is one thing that I like about Dodd, it moves this to each State to decide. Yes, this means that in Texas where I live, all abortion is illegal currently, but in California, all abortions are legal, and that is OK. Over time I suspect that CA will more towards more restrictions, and TX towards less, but that will be a slow process that is driven by elections and their consequences.
One thing about the TX law is that there were many who voted for it because it didn’t mean anything. It only took effect in some nebulous future where Roe was overturned and it wouldn’t hurt them with their base or the swing voters. Now, those voters are going to care much more about abortion politics in Texas, and, as a result, the legislators will more closely reflect the feeling of the electorate.