Don’t Be Like Mold

Dogma makes all the difference.

We’re coming up on that time of year, again, when we can’t agree on whether we should be celebrating Columbus or not. Much of the controversy has been debated to death, but I don’t think we’ve quite internalized, as a culture, quite what a remarkably reckless and ill-informed idea it was to sail west to Asia.

There is a lot of outrage in my Facebook and Twitter feeds, in the comment sections I see, and in the op-eds and letters to the editor I sometimes read. Outrage at politicians and big corporations; at science-deniers and at bad science. Anger at Trump supporters and at the liberal P.C. elites, at beggars and rich people, hipsters and yuppies, millennials and boomers. Anger over fake news and the mainstream media’s bias. Fear and loathing directed at ISIS, Bashar al-Assad, Russia, Israel, Palestinians, Muslims, refugees, immigrants, etc. Before you get outraged again, please understand that you are being manipulated. Most…