Flash forward to 2017. D.A.R.E. has sustained. Every year, 36 million students participate, as programs are run in roughly 80% of school districts in the United States and in 54 countries globally. In terms of expansion, D.A.R.E. has achieved the growth even some Fortune 500 companies have tried and failed to grasp for years. Unlike these companies, which are forced to produce positive financial output to stay afloat, D.A.R.E.’s calculated value is in social good. The irony is that D.A.R.E. isn’t achieving its mission. In fact, the U.S. General Accounting Office, the U.S. Surgeon General, the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Department of Education have all discounted D.A.R.E. practices, citing them as ineffective and even counterproductive in their methodology. This is further shown by the fact that opiate overdose is now the leading cause of (non-natural) death. If this is the case, why have schools and law enforcement not restructured the way drugs are discussed with children?
This isn’t an article about D.A.R.E or even about failing drug policy. It’s about the hypocrisy that exists in the way that society tackles some of its most important social issues. This hypocrisy comes from the fact that if people actually cared about the end goal, be that ending drug addiction, lowering teen pregnancy or even increasing corporate profits, they would take certain proven measures to address these problems. The error lies in that we don’t care about the end goal; we (selfishly) care about seeing “our way” implemented. We ignore data-proven methods of attack and let our “feelings” drive our decision-making process. How can we knowingly ignore facts that are obvious, only to question them years later? It’s like people believing the Earth is flat, even though that was debunked centuries ago.
Kyrie Irving has become the laughing stock of the Twitter and Reddit universe because of his insistence that the Earth is flat. That notion wouldn’t have been so radical – over 2300 years ago. But science adapts, and despite how Kyrie Irving feels about the Earth’s geometric shape, the fact is that the Earth is round. In hindsight, the answer is obvious to us, but at the time, limitations on math and science prevented that discovery. So when the truth did emerge, beliefs changed. Why is it in a time where the mass of data leads to incredible understandings about social phenomena, we still ignore the obvious?
That’s easy to digest because, outside of Kyrie Irving and his short list of Flat-earth friends, the vast majority of people know the Earth to be round (or elliptical for you sticklers.) What about issues affecting current society? What are the greater implications if we analyze how this concept would influence policy on abortion, gun laws, terrorism or foreign aid?
Let’s take for instance the belief that there is no need for feminism, that women have reached an equilibrium with men. Why is it, then, that 85% of domestic violence victims are women? Or that 4,000 women die every year because of such violence? That’s not a feeling; that’s a fact.
Knowing this, though, doesn’t help us craft a solution to solve an issue. The real consequences of operating off of our “feeling” or unbacked intuitions come into play when we ignore facts that validate proven methods of getting results, like in the context of sex education, where strategy is replaced with moral expectations.
Sex education covers the wide array of topics that affect sexuality and sexual health. In practice, a healthy sexual environment is one free of unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, rape, and abortions. That is the end goal. Despite the numerous studies that disprove the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education (and detail the counterintuitive repercussions of such policies), it is still used in curriculum. We make abstinence a moral issue. If the end goal is to force a moral standard about society, goal achieved. If the end goal is to create the best sexual environment possible, there has to be compromise. Even if you have personal feelings about how people should or should not act, the priority should be on proven steps that achieve the end goal.
When we have feelings or intuitions that are supported by real, concrete data that feeling becomes a fact. When those feelings are proven wrong, it becomes a fallacy. To create real societal change, to be true in our pursuit of our big picture mission, we have to be adaptable with our perceived path and willing to sacrifice personal bias for the greater good.
Elise Ferrer is a senior majoring in management information systems and accounting. Her column runs biweekly.
