The Nothing Option

Like everyone else, I’ve been getting swept up in the most recent doomsday political rhetoric. Like everyone else, I’ve seen the vitriolic posts and media coverage from all sides. Like everyone else, I am concerned about what is going to happen next, and what it means to me and those I care about. Like everyone else, I wonder what I should be doing about it.

But unlike everyone else, I have taken a deep historical view of what is happening and what my role ought to be at this moment. As an historian, I have seen similar events play out across time, and through the long lens of history, know now what those involved did not know then. Specifically, that they were pawns in a much larger game – but vital pawns. When the Germans sent Vladimir Lenin in a box car back to Mother Russia, it was with the intent he would whip the crowds into a revolutionary frenzy. I could cite several other examples such as Ho Chi Minh declaring Vietnam independence to a rabid crowd from a hotel balcony. These movements fed off of emotions of people just like us, who, swept up in the moment created an us vs. them mindset between people who previously lived in relative harmony as friends, business partners, and while not always in agreement, found civilized ways to work though problems.

Perhaps this is one of those moments, where polarizing people into hateful camps with information and inflammatory rhetoric is simply the act of people with goals that may or may not match our own. They can’t accomplish these goals on their own, so they must achieve what the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said was “composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force;” the key word here being blind.

With this in mind, I suggest we don’t have to pick sides, or even pay attention to the flamethrowers, no matter how rhetorically talented they are, which political party they belong to, or how many Twitter or Instagram followers they have.

For those of us operating in high risk industries, the real threat posed by this moment in history is distraction, which in our line of work can be lethal.

I recall sage advice from an old flight instructor who was trying to tell me the real danger in an inflight emergency was acting too quickly. He said when things get crazy, don’t just do something, sit there. And so for the moment at least, I choose to sit. I will not become anyone’s blind natural force. I will not allow my mind or heart to wander. I will stay focused on doing what I do as well as I can. As I ponder this time and circumstance though the long lens, I’ve decided that maybe the best thing we can do right now is nothing.