I should start this by saying that I don’t have any solution to the problem. However, I’m hoping to at least start a conversation among friends (and a broader audience if it happens) about how we go about fixing it.
Part of my 4th of July celebration involved me sitting down and reading the Declaration of Independence. I’m not going to say that reading it was the sole impetus for my line of thinking, but it certainly got me going this direction. The eloquence of Jefferson and knowing the subsequent actions that would form these United States got me thinking: it really seems that we have lost our ability to be actionably outraged.
Sure, you will see TV pundits honing their acting chops with something that looks like outrage, shouting at the cameras and staging these ridiculous tea parties. However, their spew does nothing more than fatten their wallets and maybe sell a few more of whatever products that advertise during their shows. But, I’m talking about real, honest to God, take to the streets, “we’re mad as hell, and we’re not gonna take it anymore” outrage. The kind you might have just seen in Iran or the kind the French seem to muster up over just about anything.
I’m sure that there are those that would tell me that I’m living in the past, but the last administration gave us any number of reasons to be outraged, but most people I know did nothing more than gripe over drinks or slap a bumper sticker on our car. However, our conversations were filled with actual anger over what was happening to our country. What happened? Why was our anger confined to 15 minutes and a cup of coffee?
I look through Sunday’s Herald-Leader and see the mess at KACo, the scandal at the airport, one politician or leader after another involved in marriage infidelity at best and corruption and bald faced lying at worst. We’ve somehow come to accept this as the norm and just “the way things are.” However, I, for one am tired of “it” being that way.
Is it just that our lives with ever demanding jobs, BlackBerrys that beep and Facebook pages that require updating take up too much of our time? Do we exhaust ourselves doing what “must be done” to the point that we don’t have time to be actionably outraged? Has the corporate machine ground us down to a population that is too exhausted to take action? Are we just apathetic? Maybe worst of all, do we feel like we can’t do anything about it?
Like I said, I don’t think i have the answer. However, I’d love to get some ideas, because I’m mad as hell and I’m not sure what to do about it.
