You have nothing to be ashamed of. Most of us DON'T understand what is really going on, deep beneath the surface. Even the combatants may not fully realize what they're doing, who they're fighting for or against, and what is really happening. Maybe nobody does.

Those issues are usually settled by historians many generations later, when everyone who actually struggled is safely dead and can't object. Who has the right to fight and kill, the settler whose wife and daughters were scalped and raped by the Indians, or the Red men who saw their land and livelihood and very lives taken from them by palefaces who broke their treaties and lied every time they spoke? The filters we view history through come up with very different answers depending on the mesh size we select.

This is one of the things I've always stressed in political and historical assessments here on the Zone. The answers are NOT simple, NOT black and white. History has its own mad rhythms, and the participants have, at best, a highly subjective view of what is going on.

I watched a Military Channel history of the First World War on Superbowl Sunday, and I could not figure out why millions of people had to die. There was no reason for it, no purpose. None of their goals were ever accomplished, none of their reasons to fight ever really addressed. It all made about as much sense as an avalanche.

A lot was accomplished, but all of it was unforeseen and unanticipated. But the people back then certainly didn't feel that way about it. They saw it differently. They thought they had good reasons to fight. And to die. Now we can see what a huge, pointless tragedy it really was.

We've had arguments right here on the Zone "why" the Civil War was really fought, which both Yanks and Rebs in 1865 would have been baffled at overhearing (not to mention rolling in the aisles with laughter). And we continue to argue why Korea and Vietnam and Iraq and were fought, not realizing that a century from now people will laugh at our excuses, regardless of which side we were on.

Yes, we all do have cognitive biases, and it is hard to escape them. But realizing that, and realizing you will never completely be able to, is the first step in freeing yourself from them. But don't think one day you will find yourself in the Club of Truth. There ain't no such thing.

You do need a sense of morality, and you do need ideological filters to help you assess the data which bombards us, otherwise we would be overwhelmed by a waterfall of undifferentiated information. What we see is highly affected by what we already believe, even in science, which is probably our most objective way to view reality, but which is really loaded with assumptions and preconceptions our pride refuses to recognize. Scientists realize this, or at least, the good ones do. You can measure things with precision, but explaining them is all in your mind. Knowing this is the only way to even begin to approach the truth.

So don't feel upset if you're confused, if people you respect and accept tell you conflicting and inconsistent stories. Be suspicious of certainty and intellectual arrogance. If you are indeed guilty of analysis and paralysis, it just proves you are making progress. It's the guys who know it all who are blowing smoke out their ass.

Thinking you can figure it all out by just counting on your fingers
will teach you nothing except what you already know.