This is going to be a long rant about the shallowness of not necessarily an American culture, but of a mindset deeply and fundamentally rooted in people as they engage in everyday activities around the world. As people live their daily lives, they are constantly engaged in activities that would mostly benefit them, and subsequently make them happy. I understand this. I accept it. In fact, I would even endorse the principle to leave everyone ultimately to their devices and call it a day. But that is not the point of this post.
It’s only when we start to unravel the underlying problems that are transparent in our society today that I start to worry for society. For a culture to seems to primarily only care about The Superbowl or what the latest Kardashian is up to, I am fundamentally upset. Though I could, and do make the argument that the mainstream media is particularly bias, it would be a starting point for some of these people to educate themselves on the issues predominant in our society today. Political apathy is rampant in all parts of the world today, but that’s understandable. Time after time, politicians say one thing, and do another, so it’s quite understandable for people to be completely rejecting of the entire political process. What I would ideally like though in a society as vast as ours is to go back to simple times, where people followed the news, where people knew what was not only going on locally in the world, but from a global perspective as well.
What I am getting at is when I try to talk to people not just about politics, but current events that are important and have an impact on virtually everyone, people tend to either give me the death stare or say “Oh, I don’t follow the news”. Perfectly fine in my book. It’s only when a second later they ask the question of “Oh, did you hear what happened to so-and-so”, or “Who are you rooting for in the Superbowl” that I tend to get upset. You’re allowed to care about the things you care about in a free society. I care about Glee, 24, Phil’s, and various other things subjected to me by the entertainment industry. Still, I wish the people who cared so much about what celebrities did on a everyday basics, or followed sports down to a tee where they can regurgitate so many facts about the sports industry would sit down on the computer one day and simply educate themselves. The news is a good place to start, and with the powers of the Internet, everything is virtually at disposable. No longer are we in a time where we have to accept everything the media conglomerates or the newspapers tell us. The future is in everyone’s hands, and if only they chose to grasp it. There’s going to be people reading this thinking “Who are you to tell us what to care about?”, and they’re absolutely right. It’s not my position to force anyone to educate themselves or even read the news. This is merely my opinion: if you care about celebrity gossip or sports, please take a minute out of your day to read the news. I beg you. I implore you. It will benefit you in making you more worldly, and it also might cause you to ultimately change your mindset of the world.
I was very happy with the SOPA protests going on online last week – but I have to admit most people only found out about them because it threatened their own livelihood (in the usage of the Internet). We live in an age where the president can now indefinitely detain any American citizen without due process (i.e. one of the provisions of The National Defense Authorization Act), and most people don’t even know about it. The erosion of our civil liberties, the ever expanding wars in the Middle East, the deficits we have caused by a horribly nontransparent Federal Reserve System – these are the pressing issues in our society today, and people SHOULD care. But they don’t. I personally think they should, and even if they don’t listen to me, I hope somebody out there will.
