A fact is something known or proved to be true. By itself, a fact is unemotional. It is neither good nor bad. It simply is – something based on a preponderance of evidence from careful study, systematic observation, or collective experience.
On average, humans are living longer than they did one hundred years ago. Medical discoveries and advances in waste water management have largely contributed to our lengthened life expectancy. Fewer children die or are permanently disabled in a world with equitable access to, and use of, vaccines. These are all facts because they are clearly measurable and documented. They should be beyond dispute.
Unfortunately, in a world increasingly plagued by the relativism of extreme individualism, in the cacophony of media-fueled commentary manipulated by those who would seek to destabilize social trust through deliberate confusion or woefully inaccurate opinion, a growing number of people have come to disbelieve in facts and objective reality. This trend does not make facts any less true. Facts remain. The trend does, however, make facts the subject of disheartening debate and misguided understanding. It threatens the foundation of the fundamental social contract we call representative democracy. It makes certain facts sad to some who would prefer that these truths were different, a subset of whom in turn invest harmful energy in ignoring and even trampling the tremendous effort that it took to establish these facts – and the improvements in human social life often associated with them.
Here is a representative sample of 8 “sad” facts:
- Since early 2020, the new coronavirus has killed more than 650,000 Americans and over 4.5 million people worldwide. Most of these people would have lived had they not been infected by the new coronavirus. We have lost these people – our family, friends, and global community members – because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Simple protections, if used consistently, decrease the chance of becoming infected with the COVID-19 virus. These measures do not eliminate the chance. But they decrease it, just like a surgeon who wears a mask in an operating room, or a nurse who wears a mask while caring for hospitalized patient with influenza pneumonia, decreases the chance of spreading or acquiring an infection.
- The COVID-19 vaccines work. They are not perfect. Their immunity may fade in some recipients. And a small percentage of people experience side effects, some of which are serious. But these vaccines save far more lives than they cause temporary side effects. They do not change a person’s DNA or alter a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant. They have saved countless lives.
- A person with a public megaphone is not necessarily an expert. A megaphone can be a pen, a microphone, or a TV camera. People with such megaphones sometimes share misinformation. Some of these people do this on purpose.
- Many human beings today are afraid – of infections, of mistreatment, of inequality, of weather pattern changes, of what the future will bring. “Fear”, as it is famously said in the novel Dune, “is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.” Fear can make someone forget that there are facts, that some people know facts and can be trusted, that some other people distort or subvert facts for their own gain. Fear makes any living being subject to erratic and sometimes destabilizing decision-making.
- Freedom does not mean I can do what I want, when I want, and how I want. When one person’s choices place other people at risk, a representative democracy can and should place limits on that person’s choices. The U.S. Supreme Court has long acknowledged this core principle, including a ruling at the turn of the 20th century upholding a fine for one Massachusetts man’s refusal to get the smallpox vaccine. Since that time, smallpox has been eradicated. Vaccines eradicated smallpox.
- My personal belief in God, Buddha, Allah, or any supreme being is no shield for my moral and social duty to others. In the United States, I am free to have and express my religious and spiritual beliefs; I am not free to impose those beliefs on others, even indirectly, such as when I behave in a way that places others at risk. My individual liberty is not absolute. It is not threatened when I remain in a country that mandates certain vaccines and I am personally protected by the decision of others to receive those vaccines – yet I myself choose not to be vaccinated. The reverse, in fact, is true. A government comprised of elected representatives can pointedly remind me of my constitutional and ethical duty to my fellow citizens to be vaccinated. I can be held accountable to live by the terms of the social contract in which I otherwise derive great benefit.
- We are a country of citizens – not taxpayers. There is a cost, a commitment, associated with the benefits that we derive as citizens of the United States of America. As a child, I was inspired by these words from John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country”. I remain inspired by those words, and am humbled by the additional words that President Kennedy used to conclude his sole presidential inaugural address: “With good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”
The human enterprise is messy. We must continuously nurture our common purpose and compassionately negotiate our response to the dynamic circumstances of our world. Challenges, such as pandemics, remind us of our frailties, our vulnerabilities. The future is uncertain. But we stand ready to greet that future, together, when we have the courage to stand firm upon a foundation of fact, of truth. We ask for blessing. We seek and pray for spiritual help. Here on earth, however, God’s work must truly be our own.
Well said, Mark!