Stupidity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome. Or so Einstein supposedly said, only he didn’t: that’s just a myth. What is not a myth is that using a feel-good emotional thermometer to decide on any policy will always have a two-fold result. The first is that, as intended, a warm glow results. The second is systemic failure. Always. This pattern in Ireland is so endemic and addictive that it is taken for granted, and generally, causes little anger.
So it really doesn’t matter where the failure occurs: in our health services, in our unarmed neutralism, in our spendthrift foreign-aid programme, in our lunatic immigration policies or in the half a century or so of bringing peace to the Lebanon – yes, nearly there, Lord, nearly there, halleluja! The outcome of these luxury beliefs is seldom judged in terms of success or failure, but in how it made us feel. Was the entire process psychologically and emotionally uplifting? Did we get a dopamine hit from it? That’s all that counts, regardless of the outcome in the real world.
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