In the morning news, I heard a member of the Justice Department of the State of Michigan explain the difference in perception and fact as it pertains to the Trumpian effort to overturn the recent vote in that state.  To paraphrase, “Perception is how a matter feels to you, fact is how a matter is taken by a consensually validated reality that you are part of.”  She argued that, yes, Republicans “feel” that there were voting irregularities there…and in many other states…but close scrutiny by these states, including Republican judges, has determined this is not the case. 

Before reasoning begins to take place with a child, he lives in the realm of feeling. And, as W. H. Auden told us, “Feeling knows no discretion but its own.” Auden realized that if feeling was not balanced with reasoning, if the two human faculties did not work in tandem, we would find ourselves making choices based wholly on an unacknowledged (i.e. “unconscious”) feeling state

This brought to my mind the research of clinical psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, who found that feeling is more important than reason on matters like voting.  We vote, primarily, on the basis of how we feel not on the basis of sound reason.  But, “what is good for the goose is good for the gander” so this observation has to be relevant to any voting persuasion…and to the rest of life.  None of us are “objective” even if we passionately and boisterously offer up some bromide like, “God is leading me.”  We are complicated little critters, scurrying about on the granite skirts of our little planet and the humility of this cosmic “fate” is so frightening that we often prefer to take our grasp of reality as absolute and assign others to that vast category of “wrong.” This just is not so!!!  I know.  Because, I..being extraordinary and special, AM RIGHT!!!  (Hey, just kidding!)