Traveling Journal: Harding University (Part 3)

On the drive back home, when it was my turn to drive and control the radio, I made the whole car fall asleep to the soothing sounds of Malcolm Gladwell’s voice on his Revisionist History podcast.

Melanie listens to things like the Wicked soundtrack and Mama Mia, and I listen to podcasts about the history of libraries and the different understandings of the word “Justification” through the ages. I am sure she thinks sometimes, “What is wrong with this guy!” Haha.

Anyway, I was listening to a podcast about gun violence in America. It has been an interest of mine for some time. As Gladwell was being interviewed he brought up this concept of “urgency vs. visibility,” and it intrigued me.

He said that in regard to gun violence and a host of other problems plaguing our culture, he said that we get sidetracked trying to fix the wrong problems. He said we are looking at the sensational when we need to be looking at the ordinary.

In regard to gun violence, for instance, he said that most of the attention in the gun control argument has centered around the use of assault rifles, which in actuality most fatalities are caused by hand guns.

The reason people focus in on the assault rifles is because of the urgency of the cause. For example, let’s say, God forbid, that there is a mass shooting. The politicians know that they have a small window to be able to make legislative change so they find a weapon to rally support against without looking at the data and what the research shows. They run after the urgent instead of the visible.

Now, this post is not about gun control, gun rights, the 2nd amendment or assault rifles. This post is about that concept of the urgent vs. the visible.

How many times have I jumped to conclusions or jumped into action because I felt the urgency of the matter?

How many times have I said, “I need to lose weight,” so I go through the house and throw away all my junk food, without stopping to think what the root cause of my eating addiction is?

How many times have I told myself, “I just got to do something about that. Even it is the wrong thing, at least I will be doing something” without looking to what actually might be helpful in that situation?

Are you picking up what I’m putting down?

In a culture where “what bleeds leads” and where we only ask the question “can we?" instead of “should we?” Let’s be people who do not succumb to the “tyranny of the urgent,” but rather think before we act.

In Neil Postman’s 1995 book “The End of Education” he said…

“The question is not, Does or doesn't public schooling create a public? The question is, What kind of public does it create? A conglomerate of self-indulgent consumers? Angry, soulless, directionless masses? Indifferent, confused citizens? Or a public imbued with confidence, a sense of purpose, a respect for learning, and tolerance? The answer to this question has nothing whatever to do with computers, with testing, with teacher accountability, with class size, and with the other details of managing schools. The right answer depends on two things and two things alone: the existence of shared narratives and the capacity of such narratives to provide an inspired reason for schooling.”

Even though he wrote this 30 years ago this quote illustrates the difference between urgency and visibility.

In our current conversation about education I only hear people running after what they deem as urgent: more money, more resources, more help, less oversight, less micromanaging, less pressure, etc.

Now, are those questions that we shouldn’t consider? I am not saying that.

What I am saying is that we get so caught up in the urgent to the point where no one is asking (and if they are they are getting drowned out) the deeper questions of “What kind of public does our public schools create?”

We are so busy point fingers, playing the victim, and speaking over each other to get our way that we are not stopping long enough to look at the situation from a holistic perspective.

I know this a pretty abstract post and for that I apologize but what I want to encourage you to do is this…

Identify an issue in your life or an issue that you are passionate about and try to ask the deeper questions. Try to walk around that issue and not be distracted with “the sky is falling” urgency of the matter, but rather look at it from an empirical standpoint. Ask yourself, “Am I asking the right questions? What are the deeper issues going on?”

If this post made sense and was helpful…awesome.

If it was not…you can join my wife in saying, “What is wrong with this guy” and click delete. Haha.

Be blessed and be a blessing,

Paul