First Things First

I’ll believe it when I see it. Been hearing that forever, considerably more now than before. Wanting proof is understandable, no one wants the wool pulled over their eyes. Nothing wrong with healthy skepticism. Trust but verify, as Ronald Reagan famously said.

Yes, verify, by all means. Document the dotting of every i, the crossing of every t. But when all the scrutiny, the evidence gathering, the fact checking is done and still doesn’t yield trust, that’s a danger zone where skepticism morphs into cynicism. A skeptic questions; a cynic assumes the worst. There is an abundance of cynics nowadays.

When tension between verification and trust reaches a breaking point, one casualty is clarity of vision, another is imagination, a third is faith.

I wrote last week about focusing on a hazard so intently that our field of vision narrows. All we see is the menace we wish to avoid or escape, leaving us unable to see what lies beyond the obstacle.

After hearing “I’ll believe it when I see it” for the umpteenth time over just the last couple of weeks, I went looking for insight on the subject and stumbled upon an episode of Trevor Noah’s podcast from back in December. At about the 20-minute mark of his conversation with Zohran Mamdani, the decline of imagination in this terribly cynical age of ours comes up. I’ll let them do the explaining.

Something Noah said about faith is especially striking: “One of the things that faith requires of you is the ability to believe that this current state that you are in is not the end. There is a possibility that something can be greater.”

Then he says this:

“Even though you cannot see it, you believe that it can happen.”

This idea is an endangered species in today’s America.

My thoughts stray to my late father. The loss of his own father to colon cancer at a young age resulted in Dad being granted a military draft deferment exempting him from service so he could support his mother and three sisters. Seeing Hitler on the move, his army seemingly invincible, European countries falling like dominoes, Dad decided not to exercise his deferment and joined the fight.

He did not go off to fight the Nazis knowing the allied forces would win, he fought them because they were Nazis. The war was not going well, prospects for victory were dim. Even though he couldn’t see how Hitler could be taken down, he must have believed it could happen. He had faith, risked his life for it.

Today we have rich and powerful men who’ve committed unspeakable crimes and consider themselves above the law. They’ve yet to face accountability for their atrocities. We have rogue government forces invading and occupying and terrorizing and traumatizing communities, running roughshod over civil liberties and constitutional rights. Democracy is under siege.

Cynicism does not shield us from these threats. It doesn’t bring heartless, soulless pedophiles and their accomplices one step closer to justice. Accountability must be tirelessly sought, not because it is certain justice will be done, but because they are criminals. This regime’s authoritarian designs must be resisted, not because any of us is sure democracy can be saved, but because it is worth saving.

First things first. Believe, then see.