Ignoring the Covid-19 pandemic for a moment, this year is continuing to be one of entropy, moving from order to chaos. There is really no other way to describe things.
A return to the good old days—like way back in 2019—would be to return to a life that is more boring. Motivational speakers and their minions tend to say things like “life without challenges is a boring life” and “challenges are what make life interesting.”
Video game/science fiction writer R. A. Salvatore said, “Sane is boring.” Artist Andy Warhol once wrote: “I like boring things.” What we are witnessing is not boring and, in many places around the world, is not sane either.
The issue of racism in the United States and in parts of Europe is a valid concern. Protests against memorials paying tribute to military figures that fought against the freedom of slaves in the US Civil War might make sense. Defacing a monument recognizing the first all-volunteer black regiment of the Union Army during the Civil War is inexcusable.
Actor Robert Downey Jr. playing a “black-face” character in the 2008 film Tropic Thunder is apparently now racist. African-American actors Shawn Wayans and brother Marlon Wayans playing “white-faced” rich socialites in the film White Chicks is a “handful of shameless giggles.”
Too much of the discussion about critical issues even here in the Philippines is like watching a child at Jollibee throwing a tantrum because the restaurant is out of ice cream. When information is distorted or told as a half-truth, it treats the listener as a fool and actually delays any reasonable problem solving. Let’s hope that is not the purpose.
Paul Rosenberg is an author that some on the political spectrum would consider a bit of a “nut-job.” He wrote the first protocols for law in cyberspace and has warned in his books about government over-reach and control in the tradition of Ayn Rand.
However, he makes a strong point when he recently wrote, “To put it succinctly, America, since about 1920, shifted from a ‘needs’ culture to a ‘wants’ culture. And, since the US was the world’s primary generator of images, the rest of the world tended to follow.”
The average African—Northern and Sub-Saharan—is too poor under governments that are too corrupt and constantly fighting religious warlords to have progressed along this line. While there are many “Crazy Rich Asians,” the average person does not measure their self-worth by the number of credit cards in their wallet. Maybe we should thank the teachings of Buddha and Confucius.
But in the West it has been a crazy time for the immediate gratification of “wants.” The 2008 debt crisis rested on banks and governments encouraging and feeding this: “I want a house…no, two houses and I want them NOW.”
Rosenberg writes of the current pandemic environment, “Now, with “need” returning, that particular flavor of crazy may end. This is still uncertain, mind you, but the longer the pain continues, the more likely it becomes.” He follows with these thoughts. “Parents are learning that they like being a bigger part of their children’s lives. Faith in public institutions has broken. Mindless consumerism has, perhaps, broken.”
Everyone has probably been going through a period of reflection. That is good. But acting on the self-examination is needed. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote in 1969: “You can’t always get what you want/But if you try sometime you find/You get what you need.” We need to try harder.
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