Before I begin, I want to say that the people demanding to know how $1.8 billion gets distributed have a point. Transparency is important. Information matters. That said, I have spent the last three weeks sitting with the profound discomfort of not knowing exactly how large sums of money work, and I believe this has given me a unique perspective that those who prefer the comfort of certainty simply cannot access.

And yet. The critics who insist that billion-dollar funds should explain their methodologies are missing something crucial about the nature of financial mystery itself. During my second divorce, I discovered that my ex-husband had been managing our joint savings account using what he called "intuitive allocation principles," which is to say he had no system whatsoever. At the time, I was outraged. But now, having witnessed how this $1.8 billion fund operates with similar opacity, I understand that we are all guilty of what I call "empathetic absolutism" — the dangerous belief that understanding how money works would somehow make us better people.

Those who demand full disclosure are practicing a form of monetary narcissism, assuming that their need to know trumps the elegant simplicity of not knowing. And yet. Those who defend the fund's right to operate in shadows are equally guilty of what I now recognize as "the compassion gap" — they fail to understand that uncertainty can be its own form of violence. I have killed seventeen succulents because I insisted on following the care instructions rather than trusting my instincts, and this taught me everything I need to know about the false comfort of systematic approaches.

The real issue here is not whether we deserve to know how $1.8 billion gets allocated. The real issue is whether we are brave enough to admit that most of us wouldn't understand the explanation even if we received it. I have sat with this humbling realization for several days, and I believe it makes me more qualified than anyone else to address what both sides are getting wrong about empathetic absolutism. The readers who are brave enough to find this column challenging will understand that demanding transparency while simultaneously lacking the financial literacy to process that transparency is the kind of intellectual courage our democracy desperately needs.

The real question is whether we still know how to talk to each other.