As I begin this blog, I am an aging academic with a wonderful wife and two independent and successful adult daughters, all of whom I love soooo much . . . they made me say that.
I have spent most of my adult life in academia; initially as an undergraduate student at Wichita State University, then as a pharmacy student at University of Kansas, later as a graduate student at (The) Ohio State University, and for the past 30+ years as a university professor.
But my entire life has not been spent in the ivory towers of academia. I grew up in a small farming town in Western Kansas, the middle child of 7 (yes, Catholic) in a family that might have been generously considered lower middle class. In a small rural community at that time it was difficult to tell since people did not wear their class distinctions on their sleeves, for which I remain grateful.
Before leaving home at the age of 18, I had done every hot, hard, dangerous, dirty, soul-crushing job that a young man can do in rural America. It was those experiences that led me to academia and convinced me to stay. I know what real work is, and I decided early on that it was not a goal for me.
In between my stints in higher education, I had a brief career as a clinical pharmacist, practicing initially at Truman Medical Center in downtown Kansas City, MO. It was there I learned of the plight of inner-city minorities.
Following that experience, I served as a commissioned officer in the US Public Health Service. Specifically, I served in the Indian Health Service stationed on the Navajo Reservation of northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico. It was there I learned about the plight of Native Americans, which I had previously known – if that is the right term – only from watching western movies and TV shows. In short, I came from a very sheltered background from the standpoint of my awareness of social inequities and disparities.
Although brief, my clinical practice career was extraordinarily influential in determining the trajectory of my subsequent personal and professional life. Indeed, those experiences informed and inspired virtually every aspect of my subsequent life and I would not trade them for the world. It quickly became clear to me, however, that I was meant for something else, so I left pharmacy practice to pursue a career in academia, and there I have remained.
So, why a blog?
The purpose of this blog is to serve as a repository for my thoughts on topics that are either not relevant to, or appropriate for, the venues in which I typically publish professionally. This is an isle of misfit ideas and orphaned thoughts that have nowhere else to go.
I will primarily use the short essay format which I have found to be the most effective way to organize and express my thoughts. A quick shout out here to one of my favorite essayists, Renaissance philosopher, Michel Montaigne, for virtually creating the format.
I have titled this blog Provisional Truths because I intend to share what I believe to be probably true about the topics on which I write. I want to make it clear at the outset, however, that I do not claim my thoughts and opinions to be true in any objective sense. Indeed, I do not believe objective truth exists in the manner that most of us imagine.
Truth is not an intrinsic quality of an idea or statement. That is, truth is not a quality that statements have, but rather a quality that we – people – assign to them by our belief. In that way, each of us has our own truths, and what we commonly consider to be objective truth is simply a consensus of opinion among the majority at any particular time – a consensus that can and does routinely change. Truth is therefore nothing more than agreement. It is the tyranny of the majority with regard to ideas.
I say ‘probably true’ because I believe all ideas exist on a continuum of almost (but not quite) certainly true to almost (but not quite) certainly false. Thus, nothing is absolutely certain, but also nothing can be technically ruled out as absolutely impossible. All is probability, and it is the evidence, as interpreted by logic and reason, that determines that probability.
The opinions shared here are therefore my truths. I consider them to be provisional because I have committed myself to a life of reason, rationality, and evidence. As such, I am willing to reconsider and change my opinions about what I believe to be probably true or untrue as the evidence changes, regardless of what I wish were true or untrue. That alone sets me apart from 99% of the people on this planet and probably 99% of possible readers. To them I say, good riddance.