Passion leads to ruin.

Too many policies are pursed on the basis of exaggeration and overstatement, call that sensationalism.

I keep going on about the dangers of passion.


Here I am again on what seems like a favorite subject: the dangers of passion at the expense of detachment, reason, evidence, argument, and the like.
It seems the passion of some members of the United Nations Office on AIDS has led to some gross exaggerations to secure funding. Since funds are limited everywhere except in classrooms, those are monies not spend on clean water, and the like. Practical remedies rather than conferences on AIDS. (The reference to classrooms is to those teachers who convince students that scarcity is a capitalist plot.)
My source is a piece by Phillip Stevens of the International Policy Network. http://www.policynetwork.net/health/media/lobbyists-risk-un-aids-syndrome
It was reprinted in the Australian newspaper on 10 December 2009. While I am skeptical of the ideological slant of the Australian, the account is similar to others I have witnessed. The cause is so important that facts cannot stand in its way.
At the least this example illustrates the dangers of passion.

One thought on “Passion leads to ruin.”

  1. Michael,
    I fear that your passion for this topic has blinded you to your own failure to think, analytically and rationally, about the true meaning of passion as opposed to poseurism, impulsiveness and prejudice. Wasn’t George McGovern a commendably passionate man? And Jimmy Carter, and Pete Seeger, and Martin Luther King and Mohandes Gandhi?
    Ron C

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