Upon becoming politically 'awakened' (for lack of a better term) in my mid-twenties, I found myself beginning to care less and less about the trivial things of everyday life. Sure, I have hobbies as everyone else does, and normal daily responsibilities. I'm a working professional and I actually like my job, for now. But more and more, I find myself bored by and sometimes unwilling to engage in small talk. I fight these urges, because obviously one can't talk about "heavy" topics all day every day, but I am struck by how little people talk about matters of substance. I miss that which I found so easily in college--a life of the mind. Is that the cost of getting married and having children--trading in the life of the mind? If so, I'm not sure I want to be a patron. I digress.
I did a little experiment last week, just to change my perspective. I immerse myself in news and information every day. I crave policy debate. So, last week I tuned out from news and the political world in general for a few days to see what life must be like for so many Americans who don't read regularly or keep up with the goings-on at a federal, state, or local level. My observation? It was absolutely blissful! And at the same time, that fact in itself was bothersome to me, because this is exactly why the world is in its current state. Americans are easily lulled into complacency by the everyday responsibilities and entertainment of life, so we have no true idea of what's going on half a world away. And even for those who do, I have to wonder how much they really care. Because after all, if it's not directly your problem, how much responsibility are you going to take for it? We're also lulled into this complacency by the false sense of security we have as Americans. Our media is so full of propaganda that people don't recognize it as such anymore. It's become the norm. In my opinion, we as a nation think we're much more beloved in the world's eyes than we actually are. The fact is, we're beginning to be viewed as the oppressor--and of course this perspective was only reinforced throughout George W. Bush's child-like tenure.
Everything in American culture tells you that if you don't have money, you're worthless (which is contradictory to Biblical teachings). You are a non-contributor to society. It doesn't seem to matter whether you actually earned that money, just whether or not you have it. Even if you've worked and contributed your whole life and suddenly find yourself unemployed, that doesn't matter. Society has the collective memory of a gnat, and this is illustrated daily in the debate over national healthcare reform. If society didn't have the collective memory of a gnat, we wouldn't have spend 60 years hashing this out with still no real reform implemented. Here's hoping this time around will be different. I digress again.
So to sum up, Americans live in blissful ignorance except when it directly affects their wallets, and if they've fallen on hard times and have no wallet, it's "sorry about your luck, buddy." It's the land of the free, unless you don't have money. Democrats are constantly ridiculed for supposedly encouraging a welfare state by simply wanting to make sure that every citizen's basic needs are met, yet Republicans are supposedly the only ones fighting for the unborn? Does no one see the contradiction here? It's this paradox of American culture that confuses both Americans and the rest of the world. We go militarily into other countries to supposedly spread the cause of democracy, yet we also employ mercenaries for hire like Blackwater who have anti-Islamic, gun-smuggling, murderous agendas. Does no one see this contradiction?
Will Americans ever wake up and start paying attention? And what kind of future will we have in a world where parents don't teach their children why it's so important to know what's happening in other countries and what reasons our troops are really dying for? A world where mainstream America's main concerns seem to be shopping, TV, movies, video games, church, and more shopping? The future in that kind of world is kind of terrifying.
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