ONE of the abiding characteristics of life is that we live in a world where we seek certainty despite the fact that uncertainty prevails.
Many of us like to think that “science” and technology can now provide finality in questions of knowledge where, in fact, we often find that our advances merely produced new unsolved problems or reveal just how little we really understand about things.
We invest in our understandings of technology an almost super human capacity which is often reinforced in our minds by the constant flow of television movies and dramas that suggest that in our technology we have the capacity to monitor everything and solve every problem.
I recall that one of my favourite movie styles often has a hero battling against corrupt opponents in government or business or large faceless criminal syndicates which have access to all manner of sophisticated devices against which resistance appears useless.
Satellites that can track individuals in real time and follow us to work and home, surveillance abilities that seem unbelievably precise, organisational capacities where the workers in such organisations appear never to get tired or take a break and are always efficient and able to exercise complete surveillance and control through unbelievably sophisticated technology.
We might recall ourselves asking our partners or friends as we watch this kind of movie: ‘They can’t really do that can they?” If we think back to when we hear about technological advances and the impact that popular culture has on the way we view the capacities of organisations and technology, many of us find that we may have a rather inflated view of what is possible through our modern-day devices and organisations.
Reality is, however, more prosaic, uncertain and contingent. Our technology cannot solve every issue, people do make elementary mistakes and everyone needs to go to sleep and rest.
The truth in many cases where things go wrong is sometimes unclear or uncertain. Becoming certain can take time. Often the cause of a particular problem can be a simple mistake, some unforseen accident or a combination of events that we simply cannot predict.
Yet if we believe in the all-encompassing power of government agencies and their access to all manner of unspeakably efficient technology run by incomprehensibly competent, obedient and servile minions, then any error, or unexplained occurrence must, as a matter of course, be the result of conspiracy or some dark nefarious plan. It simply can’t be that an accident or unresolved event occurs due to reasons that we honestly cannot fathom.
After all, don’t they have satellites that follow everything and everyone 24/7? Aren’t our government and business bureaucracies staffed by people who never sleep, who never spill the coffee and are always on the ball on 1,000 issues at exactly the same time? After all we have seen all this and more on television, and at the movies.
It is our ability to adapt to and recognise the limits of our knowledge and capabilities that in many respects marks us as mature and well-balanced.
The idea that as soon as something goes wrong, there must be some dark hand involved is the stuff of movies. It is not real life or at least not as often as one would think if we simply followed a diet of popular culture and conspiratorial websites.
In real life, accidents can happen. In real life, we sometimes cannot fathom for some time the cause of these accidents and mishaps. In real life, we often have to take our time, analyse, research and consider the causes of events and this may not satisfy our need for 24/7 immediate “results”.
In our world mistakes happen, unforseen events occur and the truth cannot be found in reference to the fantasies of conspiracy mongers but rather in the painstaking work of investigators who piece together evidence in a disciplined and patient fashion.
None of what is written above means that our technological advances are not impressive or that our organisations and governments should not be held to high levels of professional responsibility and accountability.
None of what is written should be taken to imply that we cannot improve and constantly seek ways to make sure the accidents and other misfortunes are avoided.
Furthermore none of what is written should be misinterpreted to suggest that fantasy movies and the conspiracy movie genre are not entertaining or gripping to watch and enjoy on TV or the cinema!
However, all of what is written above does suggest that tragedies can happen despite our best efforts, the cause of these can sometimes be hard to fathom, technology and our organisational capacities have their limits, and no one is perfect, and no system is perfect either.
Let’s leave conspiracies to the movies and focus instead on the tough and difficult task of understanding the truth.
As Mark Twain points out to us, truth sometimes can be stranger than fiction and takes a long time to get to.