In "pop psych," one of the suggestions is to excuse the faults of one's parents, and the proposed basis for doing so is the knowledge, or assumption, that "they did the best they could." This, of course, is nonsense in that no one ever does the best they can. Not only can everyone always do better, but much of what people do is based on what they know or think they know at the time, what they decide to do, or, to be charitable, what they think they should do. Everyone makes decisions, and those decisions are not always right. They're not always the "best" decisions that could have been made. Those decisions are made on the bases of lots of variables.
So I never expect that anyone does the best they can. All I ask is that people intend to do the best they can. I forgive wrong guesses, or fair assumptions that don't turn out the way they were expected to turn out. I forgive efforts that could have been greater, but either other pressures, or what wasn't perceived at the time as a need for greater effort, resulted in an imperfect outcome. No problem. You wanted a good outcome, and you did what you reasonably thought would lead to one? It didn't work out? OK. Thanks for trying.
On the radio tonight, I heard a story about the attempts to control the coronavirus. The doctors/scientists/epidemiologists of the world are struggling with increasing outbreaks in some places, such as Brazil. The questions are about masks, distancing, and quarantine, strengthened by increasingly prevalent vaccination, and undercut by frustration, boredom, skepticism, resentment of being restricted, and a felt need to keep functioning of various kinds active. As one online article put it, "the virus...has kept the entire planet toggling between hope and dread for the past 14 months." And the people who are not either nuts or completely derailed by denial are doing the best they can to recommend measures that are mostly safe, but also respectful of people's needs to have means to survive, while they're presumably surviving a pandemic. The "right answer?" It sometimes depends whom you ask. And when you ask them.
But the big difference is still between people who are genuinely trying to do the best they can, and intend to, and people who aren't, and don't. The latter includes people who are stupid, and people who are too self-centered to care about anyone or anything else.
All of this got me thinking back over the past decade and a half, that I've witnessed, of BP decision-makers. I'm talking here mostly about the Commissions, but also about the managers. The latter make lots of decisions, but they make them on the basis of where the Commissions want to see the Village go, and how, and if, they want to see it evolve. At the very best, Commissions and managers work together to come to agreement as to what will best help the Village, and what is the best mechanism to get it to whatever is the better place. And there's that difference again.
Have the Commissions, and the managers, wanted the best for the Village, or haven't they? Did they, or didn't they, intend for positive developments and outcomes? If they have, and if they did, they might have made the right choices. They might have interpreted correctly. They might have guessed right. They probably got things to happen, and those things might (well) have been good for the Village.
If they didn't want the best for the Village, and their intention was not for positive developments and outcomes, it is more or less guaranteed that nothing good happened, and that anything that happened was bad. And again, what leads down this sad path is people who either aren't very intelligent, or people who are simply too preoccupied with themselves.
Next year in November, three terms are ending. They are the terms of Ginny O'Halpin, Dan Samaria, and Judi Hamelburg. I have not the slightest idea if any of these three will run again. If they do, think very carefully before you vote.
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