The Intersection of Distrust and Ignorance
AKA Getting Caught In The Bus Lane
I said it offhand. “America lies at the intersection of distrust and ignorance.”
A few weeks later I was accused of driving in a bus lane.
There is a connection. I’ll explain.
Who do you trust?
Your spouse? Your Family? Your Neighbors? Your government? Which parts?
As the distance from home increases do you trust less? Do you trust those in your house? On your street? In you town?
Do your trust and love dissipate as you move from your center? It seems logical and evident. We value those close to us.
But even close to home distrust can be at home. The saying is, “you can’t fight city hall." It would stand to reason the state capitol or the Feds are more formidable foes.
I’m in this fight now. It’s small, but it reminded me of the saying, “the devil is in the details.” In this case I take that to mean that the details, small parts, of any event or procedure or system reveal the flaws and failures of the larger whole. The details reveal the evil.
My encounter came in the form of a ticket. A ticket for driving in the bus lane. A ticket generated by a camera. The issue? In the photo on the ticket my car is not in a bus lane.
Bus lanes in New York City are painted a shade of red that seems already tarnished by the city. It is not vibrant. It is easy to see. “BUS ONLY” isn’t subtle either.
You can appeal online and I did. It took a few days. The ticket was upheld. The judge ruled the evidence clearly shows, “…Respondent's vehicle travel through the intersection in the bus lane… Summons sustained.”
You can appeal a verdict, online. Before that I did some research. I learned you can travel in the bus lane for 200 feet in order to make a turn. You can stop in a curbside bus lane, “for the time it takes for a passenger standing at the curb to enter or a passenger to exit…” I also read this, “four out of five drivers do not contest their tickets or pay immediately, according to the DOT.”
There it is, follow the easy money.
My trust evaporated. I instantly thought, “I’m being taken for a ride.” They are hoping I just give up and drop $50 bucks. It’s a common tactic. Insurance companies do it. Deny claims systematically. People give up on getting their money and that’s good for the bottomline.
I’ve spent an hour of my life dealing with this. It had annoyed me. It made me feel powerless. I considered just paying the $50. It also made me think about the bigger picture and how Covid has assaulted our trust.
The pandemic has further revealed that little works as it should or as promised. The politicians we vote for are, apparently, at best aloof and at worst malicious. These leaders govern over a modern life that is painfully disorienting.
Far too many of us see little or no return on our substantial investment. The worst of us are rewarded. The system we have in place is grinding people down and destroying the planet as we propel into what - techno feudalism.
The advancements in our life are endless things to stream, scroll or buy. Much of it junk we don’t need. All of it wrapped up and presented by a media increasingly eager to make us scared and angry and jealous all day and night. This reality largely comes courtesy a few dozen souls, we didn’t vote for, who made and vastly expanded their fortunes while many of us suffered.
This balance of power, or imbalance of power, is everywhere. We are all drawn in by the hijinks of the crew that seems to be saying, “enjoy life on earth suckas.” Amused by notions of a metaverse from a man buying the actual Hawaii in 100 acre chunks.
The pandemic has fueled a powerful and dangerous combination of distrust and ignorance. I took the Covid vaccine, happily. But headlines like these make me wonder, “ Nearly One Third Of Healthcare Workers In U.S. Hospitals Are Still Not Vaccinated Against Covid-19, CDC Study Finds, As Vaccine Mandate Looms” or “Why are so many NYPD officers fighting vaccination?”
I don’t wonder about the research they’ve done. I wonder about the details they see as part of the system. A nurse or police officer is a vital piece in the healthcare or justice machine or system. I took this hesitancy as an indication. An indication that many of those who best know healthcare, who best know law enforcement don’t trust the system. They have seen the waste, abuse, and incompetence up close. They have seen the devil in the details and they are wary.
Are they wrong not to trust? Consider the attitude of New York City’s first responders while remembering what their ranks were told about the air at Ground Zero. On September 13, 2001, EPA head Christine Todd Whitman said, 'We have not seen any reason — any readings that have indicated any health hazard.”
Years later we see headlines like, “Insider: EPA Lied About WTC Air.” The article offers this, “A scientist for the Environmental Protection Agency is charging that the agency lied when it claimed the air at ground zero was safe…”
How long and hard did 9/11 first responders, their families, and supporters need to fight to get help from their government? Years. I don’t find it hard to see how some among them might hear “the air is safe” and “the vaccine is safe” the same way.
This isn’t new. From the Tuskegee Experiment to DDT is safe as long as you wash it down with Thalidomide we have seen trust, at a minimum, violated. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me generationally - shame on who? A shame on us all, I guess.
In this case ignorance is borne of distrust. You might parade out the most impressive doctor or scientist to explain a new drug, but why do I trust them this time.
This 2020 survey of 3,523 healthcare workers within the Yale Medicine and Yale New Haven Health system found, “1 in 6 health care personnel expressed reluctance to get vaccinated, primarily due to concerns about the lack of information regarding the vaccine’s effectiveness and safety.”
“Lack of information.” Said another way, they don’t trust the information they have been given so far. How many times will you be fooled before your trust evaporates? Consider generational distrust. It certainly dilutes the impact and trust in news. For all the headlines like this, “You Are 200 Times More Likely to Die from Taking Aspirin Than From Covid Vaccine: Report” there are events in the past that warn you to be skeptical.
The drug is safe, the air is clean, the water is ok to drink, your car was in a bus lane. The arithmetic of all this within your life and the lives of those you trust isn’t hard to see. We live it everyday. It erodes our trust. Replenishment of that trust is hard to achieve. The devil is in the details of our lives.
The age of information is an era of distrust. The abundance of information has us drunk of skepticism. This age hasn’t filled us all with knowledge or made us happier. We are flooded with evidence that all is not as we thought. We are bombarded by information and unequipped to process it all. Our heads spin caught in a loop - you aren’t ignorant because you distrust - you aren’t distrustful because you are ignorant. But as our trust withers our ignorance grows.