We're hobbled by uncertainty

If we could predict the future, maybe we wouldn't be stuck between fight and flight.

We’re an anxious society, and that’s part of our political polarization. (Photo by Josh Rangel on Unsplash

There’s a reason that every local newspaper in America includes a horoscope column, even though scientists make it clear that they consider astrology to be, well, bunk. Not to get all woo-woo on you, but I figure horoscopes are popular because we all wish for more certainty in this tumultuous world — for a way to understand why things happen, and maybe even foresee what’s about to come. In these uncertain times, if a vague prediction applying to millions of very different people based on their date of birth is comforting, so be it. Can’t hurt, right?

Anyway, as a longtime newspaper editor, I can tell you from hard-won experience that you don’t mess with the horoscope column, any more than you would change the crossword puzzle or leave out the weather map or cancel Beetle Bailey. (As an editor, I committed three of those four felonies. Alas.) They’re what people in my old line of wo…