Baird, this post reminds me of my MSW journey addressing the classic nature v. nurture debate.

True - nuance plays a key ingredient in attempts to arrive at distinctions deemed good or bad. Nuance requires an ongoing desire to upgrade skills to include discernment, empathy and critical thinking.

Add into the mix exponentially increasing information overload (thanks internet for the never-ending bings, chirps, chimes of ongoing feed updates) laced with slow-drying cement-like biases creating oceanic chasms. Is it any wonder a bias toward simplicity shows up as votes for authoritarian oligarchs.

Conservative thinking: "Just tell me what to do so I don't have to think about what to do. If I do what I'm told to do - I'm good - right? When I follow orders, I'm good. Right? Simple! Right? Simple is good. Right?"

One of the more simplistic thoughts I allow myself to entertain is the notion that our species is wired / biased toward good. How so? We're still here.

How long we'll be here is predicated on a collective sense of good or bad.

/rambling