Salamander
Fire Walking

I first became aware of the "Theorem of Situational Shielding" while learning to drive. One of the corollaries to this theorem is “Car Glass is Opaque When Looking From the Outside In”. A short sit in slow traffic on any given day will demonstrate the concept. The woman belting out “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” in the car next to you. The guy thoroughly cleaning out his nasal passages in the car behind you. The genderless idiot now ahead of you who daringly cut his wheel in the “Death Blossom” maneuver of precision driving so he can be ahead of just one more car. It’s all done because the drivers involved believe that the power of Situational Shielding provides anonymity behind the wheel. They sit behind a one-way glass mirror of their own imagination, and so cannot be seen by anyone else.

The Theorem of Situational Shielding has other corollaries as well. The woman walking down the sidewalk who grabs the back of her jeans and yanks down that which is riding up into her crotch is a believer in “No One Sees It if It Lasts Less Than or Equal to Two Seconds”. The guy who cuts ahead of the line waiting to ask the Home Depot clerk in aisle 9 where something is believes that “It’s OK if They Don’t Call You Out On It.” That, by the way, is the same corollary parents of young children depend upon when their progeny run amok in dining establishments.

The one corollary of the Theorem of Situational Shielding that we’re seeing a lot of these days is the “Words Have No Fixed Meaning” corollary. This is sometimes restated as “I Can Get Out of Saying Something by Claiming I Meant Something Else”. This is the “why apologize when you can claim to be misunderstood” approach we see fairly frequently in the news these days. I was going to apply this to specific examples in politics, but I think I’ll cut my losses at this point. Feel free to apply the concept of “Words Have No Fixed Meaning” to any specific political situation you feel appropriate. I already have.