Opinion | We Need to Stop Asking This Question

There’s a question that folks always ask on podcasts and in panels and in these kinds of conversations, and it sounds so thoughtful and chin stroking. And it’s “How did we get here?” And I’m so sick of “How did we get here?” because it purports to be this kind of big dot-connecting moment. But really, “How did we get here?” just depends on your own personal beliefs about the world. And you can just go back and pick whatever moment makes sense to prove the point that you actually have. “How did we get here?” is not about dispassionately assessing the past. It’s about subjectively dissecting the present. I think the real question is not “How did we get here?” but “What is ‘here’?“ Like, where are we? What is actually happening? Once we have a consensus, even a basic agreement on the present, then let’s go back and talk about the dots.