This originally appeared on my political blog at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2021/09/examples-of-means-affecting-end.html.
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Something I have learned to be wary of is making the unwise and often downright stupid assumption that the end justifies the means. The current problems with anti-vaxxer/anti-pandemic containment conspiracy fantasists is, in my opinion, an example of that.
Working in reverse:
- the current problem and repugnant people are "anti-" largely because they do not trust "authority"/expertise/"the government";
- as far as politics ("the government") goes, that lack of trust has been created by problems that became widely apparent back with "Watergate"
in the USA, but are perpetuated by all "back room"/"grey" people who
advocate for doing whatever is necessary to gain power, thinking they
can "fix it up" later.
You can't - the current problems show how much such attitudes lead to later problems, and the suspicion of voters over things like "small target" campaigning shows how much voter have changed in response to "being treated like mushrooms"; - experts also have that problem. We - I am an engineer in my day job, so feel obliged to include myself -
have the appalling habit of too often thinking we just have to make a
pronouncement, and don't have to explain or justify it. That isn't
helped by the rabid financial cut-throatedness of consulting in the
neoliberal era, but it is even less helped by experts in one field
thinking they don't need experts in other areas (such as communication).
We have also been let down by failures such as thalidomide, DDT, the West Gate bridge collapse, Chernobyl, the under-design of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the active resistance to implementing car safety measures and addressing the climate crisis, and so on.
Experts have done an enormous amount of good as well - the COVID vaccines and other medical advances are testament to that - but intellectual arrogance (and sometimes human flaws such bigotry) crops up and is used by experts to shoot expertise in the foot from time to time, to the lasting damage of all in the community.
The end does NOT justify the means.
