We're the world's best marketers. That's the genius, and also the weakness, of our talent as a people. We use words with great skill, but without thinking too deeply about their consequences. In fact, we often use them precisely to prevent ourselves from thinking too deeply. We now avidly market everything from tobacco to assisted suicide, using words like candy to entice approval, or like heavy artillery to drive critics back into their trenches.
Words can sell anything.
They can also justify anything. The result, unfortunately, is that fewer and fewer of us have confidence in the honesty of our public debates. We're becoming a nation of skeptics. About the only thing which remains irrefutable is experience. So let me begin with the story of a colleague.