Insanity!

Albert Einstein is often cited as the source of the phrase, “Insanity Is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.”

Einstein never said this, probably. A website that researches and authenticates quotations — Quote Investigator — suggests several more likely sources. But it doesn’t matter who said it. What matters is that this truism is not even true.

Doing the same thing over and over again very often leads to different results. Athletes and musicians spend hours practicing their skills — doing the same musical scale or athletic maneuver — over and over again. And they expect different results. They expect to get good at something they once did badly. Kids in school do the same thing. They memorize the multiplication tables or the periodic table or an assigned poem by reading them over and over again. And they, too, expect to learn what they did not know before.

Practicing to develop skills or memorize knowledge is one instance when doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results makes sense. It is not the only example.

If you turn up a red card from the top of a shuffled deck of cards, you would not be insane to expect the next card to be black. The first card off the top of a fair deck has a 50% chance to be black. But if the first card is red, the next one has 26 chances out of 51, or a 50.98% probability, of being black. If the second card is also red, the odds of the third one being black rises to 26/50 or 52%. In this instance, the laws of probability demand that you expect a different result the longer you keep doing the same thing.

There are, of course, instances in the scientific and physical realms where consistent actions yield consistent results. Bread baked without yeast or other rising agent doesn’t rise. Ever. Pure potassium bursts into flame when exposed to water. Every time. Unpressurized water boils at 212 degrees. Always. The star Polaris stands in the northern sky. All night long. But consistency like that only happens with simple, impersonal, natural objects.

Einstein didn’t say the thing about insanity and different results, but if he had said it he would have referred only to scientific and natural phenomena. Where people are concerned, doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is not insane. Human experience provides many cases where doing the same thing and expecting different results makes sense. What should be said is, “Insanity is doing different things and expecting the same results.”

Consider:

Eating wholesome food — mostly unprocessed vegetables — leads to good health. But eating heavily processed, chemical-infused food, especially in the proportions served at fast food places, leads to obesity, diabetes, and much worse. Millions of Americans eat the worst stuff, expecting the nutrition they’d get from real food. They would say they eat the typical American diet, just as they have all their life. But it is insane to expect good health from bad food.

Americans used to send representatives to Washington and to their state capitols expecting them to cooperate with others to get important work done. And they got good results. Washington passed a lot of effective legislation in the 60s and 70s. Today, legislatures — especially the Congress — are hyper-partisan. Members of both houses admit they put the good of their party ahead of the national interests. Leaders of both parties refuse to discuss bills sponsored by members of the other party. Members of Congress are openly antagonistic — even petulant and childish — toward members of the other party. Insanity is doing something very different and expecting the same results. Expecting the Congress to perform its duties as it did 50 years ago is insanity.

Elections run by fair and unbiased organizers who aim to empower citizens fairly and equally are one thing. Elections run by people who are themselves candidates for office, or who are members of political organizations with strong preferences about who should win, are something different. America has both kinds of elections — many are reasonably fair; some are rotten. But citizens vote in them indiscriminately and expect fair outcomes from both. That’s insane.

Citizens from all over America vote and send representatives to Congress, assuming their member will have a voice as strong as any other. But Congress – especially the House of Representatives – is an extremely hierarchical organization. Members with seniority get powerful chairmanships, prime office space and other privileges. Junior members, especially those from the minority party, get none of that. They are expected to sit quietly and vote as their party leaders  instruct them to. There are 435 seats in the House of Representatives, but fewer than 50 power positions. Being represented by a junior member is very different than being represented by a powerful senior member. Citizens should not expect the same quality of representation.

American government has a long tradition of fiscal responsibility. The states don’t spend more than they collect in taxes. The national government has historically been willing to overspend when a national crisis demanded it. And most of those past crises accomplished something great. The revolution won America its independence. The Civil War ended slavery. The world wars defeated fascism and global tyranny. All of those were worth dipping a little bit into the red. After each of those crises, the country roared back, better than before.

In the last 40 years or so, though, America’s national government has begun spending more than it has, year after year, for ordinary budget matters. Both major political parties support routine deficit spending. In April of 2020, Congress added $1.7 trillion to the national debt with one vote. Past spending for great purposes made America great. Current deficit spending is very different. Insanity is doing something very different and expecting the same results. It is insane to expect America’s future progress to equal its past.

America’s rising generation of young citizens has the choice to accept the current political practices and economic policies, or to demand the fairness, prosperity, upward mobility, and blessing of liberty that the Constitution promises.

If young citizens want to ensure America fulfills its promises and achieves its potential, they must reject the bad habits the nation has fallen into. Partisan antagonism, voter suppression, sealing the borders of the greatest immigrant nation in history, and deficit spending are not the habits and practices that made America great. And insanity is doing very different things, expecting the same results.