Detection, Protection, Deflection...Pre-, Peri-, Post-: A Pandemic Primer - Part 1

Diagnosticians, Prognostications, Obfuscations: who we are, how we do it.

Time, Place, Person: "I've had enough of this, I've had it up to here, I hear this _ _ _ _ all day long! This stuff about diagnosis, prognosis, and how the press and politicians are saying, doing things to confuse us...and here's this blogger guy coming along with more of this tripe about why it's important to be aware of how we make decisions about informal things on a daily basis, as well as how decisions are being made in hospitals and in Washington, D.C. regarding important stuff like our health and welfare...why now, aren't we almost free and clear, I thought we were done with all this diagnostic discussion...where was this blogger earlier in the pandemic when these concepts were more important?!" 

       Well, it did matter then and I was writing about it...such as in how anxiety operates on our behalf, more or less, sometimes too much, and others not enough (apropos in pre- as it will be post- pandemic)...to numerous calls for humility on behalf of us all as decision makers, predictors (aka diagnosticians, prognosticators)...to counterintuitive strategies for analyzing, explaining what appears to be obvious...Okay, but obfuscating?!!!! I promise, there's lots of good stuff here, in what's to follow shortly, as in "Look Martha, stuff we can actually use", a caption I used for my course syllabus "Educational Psychology", a required course for teacher's pursuing their master's degree, which was gratifyingly a comment I often received in my course evaluations-- so, I might as well capitalize on it, then and now -- which is the point of this THREE PART (at least!) series, which provokes looking back, at where we are at now, and into the next chapter of our circumstances, our individual and collective lives...

       So, consider this the "Foreword" section of a 'blog within a blog', a peri-pandemic prologue (clue here regarding one of the prefixes of interest). If you've been following this blog, you are already aware of my pandemic penchant for mini series, during which I cleanse your palate with some less formal, lighter stuff as interludes, intermissions, a habit I will employ here (in behavioral psychology we might refer to this as "intermittent reinforcement", a reinforcer which maintains a behavior after it is instigated). But first, as in any other good read, visualize the following to be on the back cover of the book you are perusing for possible purchase as the 'tickler', what provokes you to click on the Amazon ad for the book, or to slap down your library card...

"I'm False Positive, True Negative! "Look, Harold, he's a moron, an oxymoron! Look how he's trying to use these contradictory terms next to one another, as if he's trying to entice us with a particular type of juxtaposition he's gotten to us with before...trying to obfuscate, to make things unclear, render them unintelligible... well, this time I'm not falling for it, even though he's promised us our money back if we don't appreciate this blog, don't actually derive stuff we can use, at least some new usage of words we've encountered on a daily basis and never thought twice about them..." 

Whether you're now tempted or turned off, PLEASE look inside...