Posted by Allan Vester on Apr 19, 2020

The current Covid 19 crisis has got me thinking about what I see as worrying forms of wisdom.

The first is wisdom when there is no consequence for being wrong. The second relates to the “bob either way” form of wisdom. The third is wisdom in hindsight.

Like many of you I follow the news on Covid-19 with great interest. A wide array including the NZ Herald, New Statesman, Project Syndicate, local TV channels, Radio NZ, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Fox, Sky News Australia and RT along with a variety of pod casts. A heady combination of sometimes factual reporting and often opinion that has me at various times, better informed, concerned and bewildered

 

Bewilderment stems from the observation that the media, most obvious but definitely not restricted to the USA, can arrive at such different conclusions from what seems to be a common body of information and be prepared to conveniently leave out any pieces of information that do not fit their desired narrative. The willingness to present as facts things which are unable to be tested or proven. The propensity to advance theories backed up little more that “sources close to…”. The confidence with which they present their solutions as simple choices irrespective of the complexity of the situation or their own limited expertise.

They do that on the basis of the first kind of wisdom. That is, knowing full well that they will never have to face any consequence for being wrong even if their bold assertions have led to poor decisions by others. As Hannah Arendt writes in The Origins of Totalitarianism, even if they are proven to be wrong their supporters would continue to admire them for their “superior tactical cleverness.”

The more cautious invoke the “bob each way’ form of wisdom and ensure they provide themselves with an out should their criticism of a direction that has been taken by Government or a response by health authorities and actual experts be shown to be demonstrably wrong. This most commonly involves including “when it is safe” [carefully avoiding saying when that might be] or “on the basis of the information I have” or invoking the response taken by another country carefully avoiding the question of just how different that country is in any of a host of ways.

We have yet to see much of the third form of wisdom but is most certainly coming. Wisdom in hindsight. The full wave of claim and counter claim that will undoubtably be part of a dissection of the path we took or the paths we didn’t take have mostly not yet surfaced. Those who have made statements will carefully select those parts of what they said to support the view they will now confidently state after the crisis has passed. Those who have not stated any position will be perfectly poised to state what they would have done had they been calling the shots.

There will be a temptation to ignore the speed at which the virus developed, the lack of knowledge about the virus, the lack of a vaccine or even any guarantee that a vaccine is possible, the lack of any proven treatments in an effort to prove that things “could have been done differently”. Some of the criticism that follows might well be justified but I hope we remember that its always easy to be wise after the event. Hindsight gives 20-20 vision and lets anyone conclude what should have been done.

Leo Tolstoy, in War and Peace wrote “ as thousand and millions of suggestions and supposition are now forgotten that were current at the period but have been shown by time to be unfounded and so have been consigned to oblivion.”

The challenge to all would be experts, most especially those with easy access to the media is to clearly state your views on what should or should not be done. Don’t leave yourself any wriggle room and should you in fact be proven to be wrong make the use of the media you used to promote your views to publicly admit your error. Remembering of course that the longer you take to state those views the closer you will be to being wise in hindsight.