Listen to thisThere seem to be quite a number of pronunciations and proclamations going on these days since the start of the war in Iraq. A number of people are saying war is wrong, others saying war is justified if there is a threat. Everyone has an opinion. I have spent the better part of the last few weeks listening to people on both sides of the argument. It is not hard to spend time finding someone who is willing to express their opinion. Everywhere I turn there is someone saying something about the war in the newspaper, on television, on the phone-in radio shows, in the coffee shops, on the bus or in the halls at work. Lots of opinion by lots of people all of whom seems to believe that they have an absolute monopoly on the truth.
I have to tell you that I am almost uniformly unimpressed by what I am reading and hearing. Most of it is so simplistic that if it wasn’t such a deadly serious subject it would be laughable. But it isn’t laughable because it is a deadly serious topic. No matter what happens in Iraq people will die. People were being killed by a tyrant before the “Coalition" attacked and people are dying since the attack. The death of people should never be trivialized and yet it seems to me that much of what is happening is doing exactly that in this situation. This shouldn’t be the case.
I have strong views on this war and yet it is not that not everybody agrees with my opinion that bothers me. What bothers me is that people on both sides of the argument appear to be putting so little effect into coming to their conclusions. People don’t seem to be taking the time to gather enough information to make an informed decision. Many people don’t seem to be looking at anything past their initial gut response. The situation in Iraq, like much of life, is far too complex to understand without some serious examination of all parts of the issue. This takes time, serious examination of many components of the issue and plenty of dialogue with people with diverse knowledge and opinions. I believe that then and only then do we have the right to an informed opinion on this topic.
The parallel on this is what we, unfortunately, do too often with young people and their families. Rather than taking the time to gather information, to examine what is known, to listen to what is being said or not said, to understand the context and to think deeply about what we have learned and heard, we jump to action. Rather than doing a proper assessment we take a simplistic view of the situation and use it to justify our interventions. “He’s an abuser so we do this, this and this, she’s a sex trade worker so we know this, this and this”. This doesn’t work with out clients who are complex human beings. It sure the hell won’t work with anything as complex as war. So I want to sign off with a simple question: How can there, ethically, be any justified action for or against any issue without a thorough examination of what is happening? This is the same question whether we are formulating an opinion on a war or working with a client.
