In truth – The criticality of attribution

If I told you I was going to tell you something important, something of extreme value to your welfare and/or that of your family, added that it was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and that you could take it at face value, no questions asked, yada, yada, would you believe me? Would you trust me? Trust what I’m saying is the gospel?

Maybe. If you did, at its basic level, I think it would be based upon a couple of things.

Fun facts.

Fact one. Carl Jung, who I’m sure you know, spent decades studying how the mind works, said it only takes two words to “instantly” reveal who a person is. “Two tiny words slipping into normal conversation that expose what someone really wants from you. They sound normal, but they are psychological slips,” he went on. The words: “But” and “just.” (I’ll let you look that up on your own.)

So, it might depend upon how many “buts” and “justs” you find in my “something important, of extreme value …”

Fact two. Some experts – sciencedirect.com, psychologytoday.com and so on – say it takes from six months to two years to really know someone. To know them deep. Faults, imperfections, gifts, et cetera.

I’ve been here almost two years, so you might conclude that you’ve known me long enough to believe me. Then again, you might be on the fence. It might be hit or miss.

Well then, what if I told you there was a better way? Better than the first two options. (You already know this. I’m just reminding you that you already know this.) Some people are getting bent out of shape about one column in particular we’re running – it’ll be clear in a moment which I’m talking about – when they’re already bulletproof, an impenetrable fortress and really have no reason to let it affect them like it is.

Let’s work it out this way, and again, I’m talking about “something important, something of extreme value to your welfare …” Not necessarily the frivolous stuff. It doesn’t matter so much. Typically, not much damage comes from it.

For a good number of weeks, we’ve been running Stacey Abrams’s column. I, maybe you, have been reading it. In the process, I have been blown away by the things she bills as “something important, something of extreme value …” (Even though we, and other newspapers across the Trust, are putting it on the “opinion” page, she’s not really presenting it as “editorial” material, as her school of thought, in her judgment, et cetera. She’s pushing it as fact.)

Case in point. In her Jan. 14 paper she says: Rents are skyrocketing; new homes are a “rare sight”; groceries cost more and those families who need a little help “aren’t getting it”; power companies are “demanding” more from ratepayers; utility bills are “shockingly high”; the cost of childcare requires an “ever larger” share of the paycheck; wages across the state and across the board haven’t kept pace with the cost of living; theirs is a refusal by those in power to expand Medicaid; hospitals have been “shuttered”; doctors have fled; drug prices continue to “surge”; healthcare premiums continue to surge – doubling, tripling with “hundreds of thousands (who) will have to forgo coverage.”

And that was just the first few paragraphs!

I was exhausted and felt a little like Chicken Little afterward. “The sky is falling. The sky is falling.” I ask you. In that laundry list, what was the one thing that was obviously missing? The one thing that would have made the difference between whether or not I could trust it as truth, “at face value, no questions asked …” or not?

Attribution!

Attribution is the answer, the better way I mentioned. (See, told you you knew it.) The litmus test. Attribution is where fact and fiction go their separate ways. In this column, and I’ve noted it in others, there was not one ounce of attribution. Not one piece of evidence. Not one source. Not one subject matter expert. Not one piece of data to back up any of it. Some of it may be true. Some of it may be false. Or all of it may be true – she would certainly have us believe it is. Or all of it may be false.

Fun facts continued.

I don’t have the time – or desire – to dissect her column – or any other Democrat or Republican, politician, preacher, philanthropist, plumber, publisher, et cetera, looking for the “buts” and the “justs” to draw my conclusions. Nor have I known her – I, like you, have known “of” her for some time now – for six months or two years. Nor, nothing against her or anybody else’s character, do I have the desire to, either.

That just leaves attribution to win me over.

It’s going to make the difference if I believe what she’s telling me – and again, anybody else who’s making the same pitch – is truly something important, something of extreme value or if it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.