Is it the whole world, or just me? I don’t know, but I certainly feel that
there has been a sea change in people’s attitude towards each other; they’ve
taken a huge step back from their once undeniable allegiance to authority;
they’ve relinquished many of their long-held beliefs; and, they’ve abandoned
some standards of behavior that were always perceived to be immutable, if not
inviolable.
What, exactly,
has caused such revolutionary trends? Is there anything dire happening here
that should deeply concern us? After all, isn’t change, for better or worse, an
inevitable part of our existence? These are important questions, but what with
everyone busy Tweeting, Blogging, Posing, and Posting who really has the time
to ask, never mind provide some feasible answers? Won't somebody out there take
a stab at it? Anyone?
To deny the
dangerous possibility that, as a civilization, we are spiraling into the great
abyss appears to be as short-sighted and as self-defeating as refusing to
accept the facts of the rapidly shrinking ice-caps and the rising tides and
temperatures of our planetary home—but hasn’t mankind always had a penchant
for flirting with disaster?
I suppose that as
long as we see ourselves merely as observers of “others”—those multitudes who
have been adversely affected by war, stupidity, cupidity, pestilence, and other
“natural causes,”—rather than willing participants and forgers of our destiny,
dire straits won’t be taken, much
less dealt with, seriously. At least, not until they’re really felt in our
pockebooks. If by then, of course, it’s not too late to reverse our engines, or
at least alter our course.
Only a fool can
doubt that both climate changes that we are currently
undergoing are the result of human misbehavior; a misbehavior that if examined
with even a cursory glance at history would indicate mankind’s culpability;
unfortunately, however, in that slight glance one also must recognize the
earth-shattering realization that nothing that can be done, will be done to
correct our heading.
It’s ironic that
the founder of our Marine Corps and the author of the Declaration of
Independence, Thomas Jefferson, was also the pundit who remarked that he’d
sooner trust a newspaper editor than a government administrator, and who noted
that the price of freedom was eternal vigilance. Ironic, I think, because we’ve
become too damn independent for our own good, too eager to trust uncorroborated
reports, gossip, and innuendo; while discounting provable facts, and finally—at
the cost of our very lives—we've become all but enslaved by a compulsion to
make a fast buck.
E Unum
Pluribus and no longer In Nobodaddy Do We Trust.
