I'm reminded of Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny" which I read multiple times in youth. There was a couplet in it which I remember, notable because I don't remember much poetry.:
When in trouble or in doubt
Run in circles,
Scream and shout.
IIRC it was being applied to the USNavy, as their response to problems, perhaps by Lt. Keefer, but I may be wrong.
Anyhow it's a corollary of the Harshaw Rule--trouble and doubt occurs often when you're doing things for the first time, at least the first time within living memory. That's what we as a world and a nation are doing now with covid-19. It's new enough we have no assurance in what we're doing, so we get uptight and snap and fight.
Someone today noted that we have a huge number of different school systems, private, public, parochial, in different jurisdictions, all of which are using different approaches to handling schooling for the fall. Different because we don't know what are "best practices" for sure.
Lots of recriminations among the politicians about whose positions in the first quarter of the year were correct. I'm firm in my belief that the president screwed up, and continues to screw up the response. But, it's true enough we're all screwing up because we don't know now what we'll know in a year from now.
So I think people should chill, at least a bit, and put more emphasis on who's learned what and what process will be most enlightening and educational.
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