“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.” Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Twain recognized that truth and making a living are often at odds with each other.
One of the most spiritually destructive things governments intentionally do is give people lush, useless jobs. The holder of such a job will tend to ignore any job-threatening truth. Why? “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.”
When we learn that a soccer ball impacting a child’s head will cause irreversible brain damage, we may tell the soccer coach. The coach will be enthusiastic only about our imminent departure. Why? “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.”
We are paying thousands of dollars a year more for power than we need to pay. One hundred American atomic power plants produce 20% of our power. A few hundred more atomic power plants would run our cars, heat our homes, and power all our homes, farms, offices, and factories. This is known by every person involved in using coal, gas, and oil to run huge, wasteful generators. When we point this out to them or to those receiving “campaign contributions” from them, we are ingored because: ” It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.”
All of us are made to pay thousands of dollars in property taxes to support failed public education. We can talk ourselves blue in the face explaining the waste and incompetence to public educators. They make no improvements, because: ” It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.”
Catholic Fundamentalists go beyond Mr. Twain’s terse description of a person turning from truth in order to obtain the proverbial “mess of pottage”. Where he saw an ironic joke, we see a lost soul who values the programmed part of The Program more than The Programmer.
Before we can help the wayward sinner, we must pray for the strength in our own lives to put The Programmer first.
