The Fact of My Ignorance

If you’re a reader of my blog then you probably already know that I’m a big fan of the concept of civil discourse,  both for practical and moral reasons.  And the decline in quality of our political dialogue stresses me more than pretty much anything else in the realm of politics right now.  I’m not just talking about recent events.  In many ways the anger, distrust, fear, misinformation, and outright hatred we’ve seen on display recently are just the natural result of several decades of steadily crumbling communities and increasingly isolated and individualistic lifestyles.  And quite frankly, new technological methods of communication that allow anybody with an internet connection to appear to be as credible as actual experts, that facilitate the specialization of news so that citizens can wrap themselves in a cocoon of their own perspective, and which enable people to say increasingly inflammatory things while hiding behind a veil of anonymity are just accelerating the degradation.

So can you imagine my delight to find that my church has chosen to speak out against this very problem.  The LDS church put out a press release a week or so go entitled “The Mormon Ethic of Civility” that I thought was well-written, insightful, and extremely relevant.  While it’s written by LDS leaders, it should be an interesting read for Non-LDS readers as well.  It can be found here on the original LDS newsroom website, but I’ve also posted the full text after the jump. Continue reading

Of all issues in politics, this one is probably most dear to me.  No I’m not talking about healthcare, though that may be a close second, I’m talking about maintaining and improving the quality of our political dialogue.  For those who don’t know, healthcare town hall meetings have been held over the last week all across the country, and small groups of radical protesters have shown up at many of them with the express goal of “shouting down” their elected leaders.

To be clear, I have absolutely no problem with somebody being against the current healthcare bills being developed in congress.  If they’ve researched the issues thoroughly and have cut through the mists of misinformation and still come out thinking its not the best idea for America then more power to them.  I would welcome those people at a healthcare town hall and I would encourage them to go and speak their mind, even forcefully if they feel its appropriate.  But that’s not what this is.  This is just mobs of people screaming slogans and platitudes.  It’s people who are clearly unfamiliar with the content of the healthcare bill chanting things like “read this bill” for half an hour while their elected leader tries in vain to explain to them that they actually have read each and every iteration of the bill.  This news article, after the jump, will give you a picture of what’s going on: Continue reading

Well while I’m on the topic of the future of Healthcare here’s another one for you.  The CEO of the CMA, Joe Dunn, came and spoke at the UCD School of Medicine several weeks ago and he gave a great speech.  And now, through the miracle of technology, that speech is available to all of you!  His speech was directed towards medical students but it really has relevance to anyone who wants to get something done in politics.  Its long but he’s a very engaging and entertaining speaker and the speech really gets better as it goes along so if you have the time its definitely worth watching it through.  You would be hard-pressed to find a better primer on how things get done in government.

Well with finals over and done with you can expect to get a lot more posts from me in the coming weeks!  And we start out today with some very exciting  news.  President Obama held a press conference today for what he called, “a watershed event in the long and elusive quest for health care reform.”  The American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association; PhRMA; AdvaMed; America’s Health Insurance Plans, the SEIU, and the Greater New York Hospital Association and the California Hospital Association announced a new cooperative effort to drastically reduce the rate of growth of healthcare costs beginning immediately.  They pledged to cut the rate of growth by 1.5%.  This may not seem like a lot but this means a cut from about 7% to 5.5%, bringing us much closer to the annual rate of income growth which tends to hover around 4-5% but which has at times grown to near 6%.  And that’s what really matters, that’s really our baseline here.  If healthcare costs can be reduced such that their growth is equal to the rate of income growth in the US then the future of healthcare suddenly gets a lot rosier.  And this commitment brings us much closer to that goal.

And this is also great news for America’s future financial security.  Many people don’t realize the huge impact that rising healthcare costs have on our country’s national budget.  The reasons why that is are a subject for another article but even a savings of 1.5% will mean much smaller deficits and less national debt.  One Obama aid put it this way: Continue reading

Socrates - humble intellectual extraordinaire

Well after years of talk I’ve decided to finally start a blog.  Not the public diary kind mind you (we have one of those here) but the kind where I can discuss politics, philosophy, religion and other of life’s more weighty matters.  Even those who know me well are probably unaware of the enormous percentage of my daily free time that’s devoted to researching these subjects.  It’s far more than I’d care to admit frankly.  But I’ve long been without a significant outlet for the information and ideas that are constantly swirling around in my head and I’m hoping that this blog will rectify that situation.  But more than just an online sounding board, I’m hoping that this blog can become a place for similarly-interested individuals to discuss these complex issues with dispassionate rationality and constructive debate.  Which brings me to my next topic.

So why the stupid name?  After much thought I’ve decided to name my blog for one of the principles that I hold most dear: Intellectual Humility.  This is a perspective, born of knowledge and honest self-reflection, that recognizes that what we know about the world and life pales in comparison to what we still have yet to understand.  Its a principle that Einstein talked about frequently, and Lao Tzu touched on, but which Socrates said most succinctly when he said, “I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance”.

Interestingly, this kind of intellectual humility tends to grow with increasing knowledge.  This principle has been clearly demonstrated to me since starting medical school, as I’ve already learned far more about many subjects than I knew there was to learn.  The subject of immunology is an instructive example…   Continue reading