Second and Third Order Consequences

If you take a moment to browse the Bookshelf page on this site, you’ll note the opening section includes a reference to the Thomas Sowell Reader. Dr. Sowell stands as one of those influencing figures in my life whose words continue to come back to me time and time again.

A prior Marine himself, Dr. Sowell leveraged his GI Bill benefits to pursue higher education in the field of economics. Born a black man in the South, Dr. Sowell’s life – what he references as his personal odyssey – saw him move to New York City as a youngster, enlist in the Marine Corps, enter college as a Marxist, and ultimately become evolve into a leading voice in the libertarian community.

Whether you agree with his ultimate stance on individual policies, I’m willing to bet you’ll find Sowell’s work both approachable and thoughtful. For me, consistent themes in his writings have become a nearly sub-conscious reminders as I work in the advocacy field. Specifically, his regular call to account, as best we can, for second and third order consequences (you know, the unintended kind) when pursuing policy agendas reverberates in my mind quite regularly.

The rubber met the road on that concept for me Sunday night as I was catching up on headlines from the Easter weekend. Like many of you, I find myself disconnecting from the news cycle on the weekends. I find that to be the most effective way of protecting my own sense of peace on those precious days when I can invest fully in my time with my daughter. As important as that disconnect is, I’ve also gotten in the habit of beginning to re-connect on Sunday night. After she’s asleep, I commit to a few minutes browsing headlines across various news sites – making sure I find as balanced a view on the news of the day as I can.

Sunday night, my search landed me on this story, which led me down a bit of a rabbit hole. And I’m wondering, are you there with me?

Why did it stick with me? Well, I’ve been talking more with folks lately about their frustrations over ongoing COVID restrictions. As a disclaimer, I follow CDC and state guidelines pretty thoroughly. Living in an urban/suburban community, those restrictions have just become a part of daily life; not ideal, just omnipresent. But even in my own local community, the tone seems to be changing.

Folks who were committed to strict adherence are showing signs of frustration; largely frustration with the appearance that the goalposts keep getting moved. Success against COVID seems dismayingly unattainable when, even if vaccinated, folks feel they will have to continue missing out on the social interactions, traditions and family celebrations that are so critical to each of us. Further, we’re critically deprived of those casual interactions with strangers; the opportunities to share common experiences without the simmering tension so prevalent in the background of our lives for twelve months now.

As the article points out, coupling that simmering tension with the economic strains, personal sacrifice of those who’ve lost loved ones, a summer of social issue protests, subsequent calls for drastic changes to policing, and a heated political contest it’s just not that unbelievable that major cities have seen a spike in violent crime – or that it’s continuing.

We’re at a critical point on the j-curve of recovering from COVID. For twelve months, we’ve been sliding further down the curve. Now, just before the prospect of herd immunities and a return to normalcy, we’re seeing data confirming the effects of challenging policy decisions across the board. From my perspective the ultimate unintended consequence of the numerous and often changing protocols has been a diminution of our humanity in dealing with others. We’re still on edge – ready to fly off the handle at a moment’s notice. And because we’ve been living within our own echo chambers for twelve months, untempered by the social effect of engaging with different people in normal ways, I’m not surprised by the statistics.

Let me be clear, as I’ve said in other posts, there’s no winning formula to fight something like this. Elected officials have to balance too many variables for a one-size-fits-all solution to be borne out across the country. Even in homogenous, less populated countries those broad based policies haven’t yielded reliably desirable results. But the unintended consequence in evolving emergency regulations is that folks never quite know where they stand. In the midst of that particular brand of uncertainty, is it really hard to believe that some would choose violence and crime in moments of distress?

Now is the time to lean in. Now, as folks return to work in larger numbers, as we face the prospect of adding social calendars back into our lives in broader ways, and as we face the daily challenges of road rage, spilled coffee and rude strangers, we have to commit to daily choices that err on the side of patience and peace. We have to own the consequences of our own actions – even those negatively impacted by short term policy strategies in challenging times.