Obfuscatory – intended to confuse, confound, or mislead

Endarkenment – the opposite of enlightenment

There is a huge difference between stupidity and ignorance. The inability to learn or know something (stupidity) is not the same as simply not knowing about something or choosing not to know. Ovid coined a Latin phrase that offers us a third, very pertinent option today: “video meliora proboque deteriora sequor,” meaning: “I see and approve of the better, but I follow the worse.” How compelling an idea that we know what is right and true and good, but choose instead to believe that which is wrong, false, and harmful. What’s up with that? And what happens when those who see clearly and know what is right choose to mislead, confuse, and confound those who are ignorant but not stupid?

Language and communication have always been tricky at best. A mentor of mine once framed preaching this way, “You think purple, say blue, people hear green, and see red!” So often, we believe our communications are clear, simple, factual, persuasive, and accurate, but we find later that we were misunderstood. However, some folks choose to use language as a weapon rather than a tool, and their intention is to make sure no one is confident about facts, but are certain nonetheless. Language and communication can be used for harm through propaganda, lying, slandering, insulting, gossiping, and outright verbal assault. But there are subtler dangers as well.

Take for instance our current use of the term “economics.” Economics is one of those words that everyone thinks they understand, and a concept malleable enough that it can be manipulated in a variety of obfuscatory ways. In our current climate, “economics” is being used to endarken our understanding of fiscal manipulation. A very subtle, yet significant difference between finance and economics is this: finance is about maximizing profits while minimizing losses and monetary costs. Economics is about maximizing benefits while minimizing monetary, social, and psychological costs. Finance focuses on the ability of the individual or organization to make the most money possible. Economics focuses on the common good, believing that benefiting the many is the best way to benefit all.

A simple example is a community with thirty people working and living together. Economics will support the concept that providing adequate resources to everyone will create the healthiest, most productive, and most sustainable system. If everyone is healthy, no one will get sick. If everyone is fed and clothed and housed, there will be no adverse impact on productivity and everyone’s needs will be met. But if a financial profit motive is introduced, a shift in energy from cooperation and collaboration to competition will emerge. Those afraid of getting sick will access and protect the resources they need to defend against the germs of those who have less. The “quality” of food, clothing, shelter will begin to matter more, and those with a fiscal drive will want the best, often to the detriment or advantage of others. Christians will have no problem seeing this differentiation from the teachings of Jesus and Paul, and the history of the early movement challenging the Roman Empire.

But what does that have to do with today? Basically, this: we have a corporate “economy” built not on economics, but on finance, and our elected governmental leadership is successful or adept at business, not politics (or science, or religion, or ethics, or diplomacy, or administration, or research). Yet, our leadership insists on using the term “economics” as obfuscatory endarkenment of the true motivation and design. Examples? Sure.

The dismantling of regulatory agencies, commissions, and committees cut fiscal costs, but at what impact on benefits? Clean air, clean water, sustainable agriculture, sustainable energy, limited negative impacts on ecosystems benefit everyone, but they come with some fairly steep price tags. Economists will argue that the shared benefits far outweigh the individual costs and the impact on short-term profits. Dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency will certainly save money for those doing the greatest damage to the larger systems, but at what actual costs? Cutting benefits to millions of veterans, the sick, the poor, and students will most certainly put more money in the pockets of the already rich, but will undercut safety, security, strength, and sustainability to billions. Ignoring the long-term damage to our world in order to maximize short-term profit guarantees that the rich will ignore the very best science on climate change and environmental catastrophe. Cutting the Federal Emergency Management Agency will allow millions of dollars to be diverted into projects that will generate more money for billionaires and a military machine, but will leave individuals, communities, states, and regions vulnerable and at dire risk. Tariffs, so controversial, are the poster child of obfuscatory endarkenment – they can only damage the economy (the greatest benefit for the most people for the least cost) while providing financial oligarchs an almost unlimited variety of manipulations and machinations to make tons of money. By disguising financial gains decisions as “economics,” we make it next to impossible for U.S. citizens to fully grasp what is going on. As Orwell predicted in 1984, “Ignorance is Strength” (for some).

Fiscal conservatives focus on tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Progressives focus on the future. It is much easier to wrap our heads around next week than next century. Maximizing profit and making money stretch do do what we want it to is something everyone deals with every day. Potential disaster in the unknown and unknowable future can be both frustrating and exhausting.

But we need to stop supporting rich-get-richer explanations of our world. Recovering and reclaiming a commitment to economics – that which benefits the many for the good of all – is essential. And a healthy economics requires commitment to five E’s – education, employment, environment, ecumenism, and equity. If you see ANY suggestions to cut funding, resources, support, and development, pay attention to serious red flags. Making sure that all people have access to quality education – at every “economic” level – is an essential foundation to build upon. Making sure that employment that provides a living wage guarantees the highest levels of engagement and community building. The environment includes where everyone lives, and anything we can do to make sure people can thrive rather than just survive is an economic benefit. We are all in this together. Ecumenism means we stop building artificial diving walls between countries and nations and grasp the reality that we will all succeed or fail together, and that global collaboration is key to survival. And basic equity. There is no reason for people to starve. There is no reason for all not to be clothed and sheltered. There is no reason for anyone to lack adequate health care, legal support, due process, mental health access, or to suffer abject poverty. Oh, and siblings born on other shores are not enemies; they are family. Of all the self-defeating and wrong-headed financially driven decisions obfuscatorily endarkened as “economics,” none is so ill-advised, short-sighted, laughable, or wrong as our current policies and practices addressing immigration. Not only are we sacrificing benefits, but we are increasing costs, suffering mounting losses, and undercutting profits for decades to come. Misrepresenting greed as economics is not ignorant, it is downright stupid.