What Do We Know?

What Do We Know?

When I was little, one of the more exciting experiences known to happen in school was the fire drill.  We never knew when the alarm would sound;  in a morning English class, an afternoon Biology lab - or, hope upon hope, in the middle of a particularly difficult Math test.  Much like Gabriel’s trumpet, without warning it would blast forth from some unseen source, eliciting responses from every soul within earshot.  Up we would spring from our desks and out of the door we would file, one by one, as docile and obedient as a row of baby ducks.  We’d proceed out to the playground where we’d form orderly lines, presumably safe from whatever harm was afoot.  Occasionally we would participate in what our elders dubbed “Duck and Cover” drills.  These were necessitated by the what was universally perceived as the increasing threat of nuclear war.  It was determined by the experts that by merely crouching underneath our desks with our heads touching our knees we would be totally safe from a nuclear attack.  Unfathomable, I know, but we ducked and covered anyway.  So much for the elevated intelligence of human beings.  

The ads I’ve shown here are real ones, and from not that long ago.  Hilarious now, but perfectly sensible at the time.  And it’s sobering, even as we pat ourselves on the back for our culture’s great strides in knowledge, to note that only this week a well-known televangelist here in the States encouraged one of his flock to “pray over” clothes they  purchase at Goodwill stores, just in case a garment could possess demons in the warp and weft of the fabric.
 (You can read his full exhortation here.)  
One can only wonder how backward we will seem to future generations.  When the polar ice caps and the great bears who live there are only memories, will our heirs shake their heads at those amongst who today insist on refuting the science of global warming and its causes?  Will we one day discover that it wasn’t such a brilliant idea to inject
even a modicum of botulism into our foreheads in order to
paralyze wrinkles that are insignificant anyway? 

I suppose I’ve always been naturally skeptical.  I look at advertisements with a jaundiced eye and whether they flow from the lectern, the podium, or the pulpit, I’ve found it’s always beneficial to question the words I hear. I've learned it's always advisable to do my own investigation, to turn over the stones in the pathway myself in a continuing quest for the truth.

It’s disconcerting to think back on assumptions I’ve made that turned out to be entirely wrong, but little by little I move forward, step by step the light shines a bit brighter.  Someone wiser than I once said when we know better, we do better.  Such an affirming quote.  In the humbling light of history it has to be the height of hubris to think we have it all figured out.  But just as I now know that the ingestion of lard is not a guarantee of happiness or health and that DDT and babies do not make a good mix, I also know that my clothing cannot be a harbor for demons.  So I guess I'm moving forward.