Have You Got A Plan B?

A long time ago when I was but a tiny goddess one kid in the neighborhood got a scooter. Everyone gathered around, wanting to test it. Someone (my brother? my cousin? can't remember) got on it, started it and off he went, yelling all the time: "How do you turn this thing off?"

I always remember that when I read about grown-ups acting in the exact same way. George Bush goes to Iraq with no plan on how to get out of there! How do you turn this thing off, indeed.

Anyway, I believe that some humans, if not all, have this design flaw. The urge to jump into something brand new with great optimism and no backup plans. That we let this happen on the level of societies is a disgrace. Honest.

Political opposition and public debates and other similar arrangements should take care of that problem but they do not. The conservative opposition in the U.S. right now is not about asking careful questions about some backup plan but about charging ahead, fast and without any backup plans, into a world of gated communities and great general poverty. Or the mythical middle ages of theocracy.

This was the impetus for writing on the general topic today, and yes, I know that Plan B has a slightly different meaning for feminists.