Florida Condo Squabble Over Repairs, Good Metaphor For US

The US in the title is for both the United States and 'us' as individuals.

 

Source

The headline of this Washington Post article republished in the Anchorage Daily News is probably a good reflection on the US democracy in general.  

Condo owners belong to associations and have to make group decisions about how to manage the condos.  Most stuff tends to get done by the board, but bigger issues have to get approved by the membership.  Things like making major repairs.  

I'm imagining the basic debates the owners had:

1. Technical Stuff:  How do we actually know how serious the problems with the structure are? How much repair do we really have to do to?  
2. Emotional Stuff:  How much is this going to cost me?  Am I really in danger?  Is someone trying to rip us off?

Engineering reports are fairly technical and most owners probably won't read them that carefully if at all.  And if they do read them, many don't have an engineering education they would need to judge the level of urgency of the required repairs.

And when they see the price tags - $80,000 to $300,000 per unit - they have to assess how that affects their life expectations and goals.  If that amount of money would seriously jeopardize their economic security, then they're much more likely to downplay the urgency.  

But we know, in this case, there are (as I write) 24 known dead and 124 missing.  Different owners are being affected differently, regardless of the positions they took on the repairs.  There's the dead and missing.  The other residents who now have had to evacuate their homes.  The owners who don't live there, just rent out their condos.  There are people who were visiting who knew nothing about the issue.  

The condo collapse is a very tangible (I'm resisting the term I'd normally use here - concrete) example of where we are in the US today on issue after issue - from COVID to guns to climate change.  

1.  We argue over the facts, over the science, over the likelihood of different scenarios.

2.  Our involvement is affected by our emotional involvement, our life dreams, our fears, and for the leaders, the level of their personal need for power.  How many people are Board members for the good of the condos or because it gives them power and some sort of standing, prestige?  Same question for our legislators.

3.  For US issues (and this is true around the world) we have a factor that probably didn't play a big role in the condo association - deliberate misinformation campaigns to stir doubt about everything, which lets the venal continue their actions in the confusion.

There were visible signs at the condo of the dangers - cracking, water seepage, concrete deterioration -  so that people could see something needed to be done.  The visible signs of climate change keep piling on, but we're like members of the condo association - squabbling rather than taking the obvious necessary actions we need to take. [A carbon fee and dividend is by far the most effective and viable way to prevent the most carbon release.  You can see more about that here. But Republicans (mainly) throw up roadblock after roadblock.]]

There are human variations that affect how people make decisions:

• Ability to deal with change 
• Ability to comprehend complex, abstract issues
• Comfort with risk and uncertainty
• Personal sense of power and ability to make a difference

Some of the items above are influenced by genetics, but also by the conditions we grew up with:

• Economic security and ability
• Educational opportunities and choices
• Amount of love we got from our families and communities

I'm sure you can all add to the lists.  

Step One to a better democracy:  people need to learn about themselves and where they are on these and other factors and what their relatively strengths  and weaknesses are.  

The obstacles for many people are not out there in the world, but lurking in our own sense of self.