When Things Don't Work

When things don't work there's usually a reason. Something's broken; either it's worn out or it was a faulty design in the first place, or some combination of the two. I've experienced some of that around the house recently. Things seem to be breaking just lately at a greater than usual frequency. So far it's been no big deal. I've repaired or replaced (or had repaired or replaced) each broken thing: a flush valve on one of the toilets, the attic gable exhaust fan, an extension spring on the garage door, the float switches on the grinder pump, the flange on the fuel delivery module on my car (the result of a recall to prevent a dangerous break). That last was definitely and admittedly the result of poor engineering. Hopefully the new, re-engineered part will prevent a fuel leak.

Such repairs are usually very satisfying to me, especially when I can do them myself, as was the case with the toilet's flush valve and the attic fan. First, something is not working properly. You identify the problem and make the necessary repair. Voila, good as new, or sometimes even better. This got me thinking about the larger, more general issue of things that don't work. Sometimes, when I was still working in a government bureaucracy, one of my friends and I used to identify the problem by exclaiming, "we're surrounded by idiots." Of course, we weren't really surrounded by idiots. Often we were surrounded by some very intelligent, or reputedly intelligent, individuals. So why did they appear to be behaving like idiots? In most cases it was the result either of a lack of information or a failure to interpret available information in a way that seemed to us most beneficial to our particular view of the world.

This may seem a small matter, but it goes to the heart of many of our woes. There is apparently a surprisingly large number of people who are content to make decisions and take actions without first acquiring all of the necessary information. Sometimes this is the result of laziness, sometimes of mistakes in getting information, sometimes of willful disregard of the correct interpretation of necessary and available information. And sometimes it is simply the result of a willingness to settle for attractive bullshit instead of genuine information. Without correct and accurate information about a problem, no useful solution is likely. Sometimes just dumb luck or a fortunate guess will suffice, sort of like turning a switch off and on and hoping that will fix the problem, but this is not usually the best way to proceed when problems are serious and need genuine and lasting solutions. That's why we call in the experts when we want something fixed right. We assume that they either have the necessary information or know how and where to get it.

That is also why some problems that at first seem difficult will suddenly appear so easy, once we know what the actual problem is and what is necessary to make the correct repair. Most things aren't rocket science, and even when they are, with the correct information we have actually been able to send people to the moon and bring them back alive. All of this is simply to say that expertise does matter. Information is important. There are such things as facts, knowledge, skills, education, professional competence. Bullshit can sound really good, but it's not very reliable when you need to fix something that is broken and make it function correctly. Think about that the next time you watch a political rally or news conference or a congressional hearing. Amateurism is a great thing in many endeavors. It's no way to run a country. In most serious and important aspects of life, facts and genuine information are essential, and even then sometimes it's really hard to fix something that's broken and make it work again. You really do need to know something about what you're doing. And so I ask myself, what exactly is a politician's area of expertise? And sadly I keep coming to the same conclusion: bullshit.