The Average Carter

I’ve often expressed my distaste for news media outlets and partisan politics, but it seems the old adage is true, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”   It makes me scrutinize the educational system in our country to the highest levels.  I mean, to see and hear adults blatantly lie, spread rumors, boast, and cheat just in politics and media (not including all of the other facets of life, blows my mind.  Grown, sometimes very aged, people acting like schoolyard children.  That trickles down to the general populace who then, in turn, regurgitate and imitate those people in powerful positions. A nation of the blind leading the blind.

Outside of the political spectrum we’re still a nation of followers.  There seem to be very few born leaders.  And those that are willing or able to step into that role are chastised and ridiculed when they accept that role.  But the followers follow, nonetheless.  There is no revolt, there is no social upheaval.  There may be protests and there may be some other form of speaking out.  But rarely is there action.  At least not here.  Because we follow.  We follow the trends, the styles, the words, and basically our crowds. God forbid that our thoughts actually vary from our crowd.

Whether or not you believe in biological evolution, you have to question the progress of social evolution.  It’s visible.  You can actually see that over the course of thousands of years.  As humans we’ve progressed from the nation-state, to the state, to the empire, to the republics or countries (I’m sure I missed a few).  The overall amount of knowledge and available information has increased exponentially over those years.  All you have to do is think papyrus scrolls to the new iPad if you don’t see that.  But for some reason, as humans, we don’t take advantage of our capacity for knowledge, our potential for growth, or the right to be different. We’re a social being and we stick with our crowds.

But it makes me wonder, are we really content with having an average IQ of 100?  Are we content with being fat, undereducated, and vain children well into adulthood?  At what point is there independent thought?  And why do we, as a society, feel the need to humiliate those that are smart, that do want more, and that can think for themselves?  Because they’re not part of the crowd?

I struggled with making that last sentence a question or a statement.  I’m not really sure if that’s the answer or if it’s something else entirely.  Maybe it’s a sense of self-importance.  It makes the humiliator feel more important and more of the crowd to do so, so why not?  Well then the followers jump on the band wagon.

Going back to the political arena, this IS partisan politics.  That’s how it works.  That’s how our society works.  We just sit back and watch the show play out now like a reality tv show.  But it’s not a show. People actually live these lives.  All of that stuff played out on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, etc…that’s reality.  As idiotic as it is, it’s reality and it plays down to our Lowest Common Denominator mentality when we see it on tv and in the papers.  It fits with our lives and makes us feel like our own lives aren’t that bad.  Well…these people lead our country and are in positions of power.  Still wanna be on the school yard with them?

Sorry for such a dark post on Friday, but it was a little pent up hostility for a few things.  Please feel free to comment if you’d like.  New post on Monday.  Have a good weekend.