CommentsMARK, MY WORDS - “The good old days.” I suppose it means something different to everyone depending on political point of view, cultural background or any number of other things that make us who we are.
But it is at least, a phrase that most people understand enough to reasonably converse with others, sharing and disseminating information-like the concept of time for example.
We form a thought, remember what was, and hope for what will be as the proverbial train moves forward and we enjoy the view from one station to the next. We go to work, pick up the kids, meet friends for lunch and participate in a three-dimensional shared calendar transitioning from birth to death as we share experiences throughout the journey. But what if we each decided to design or define our own system? What unnecessary chaos would ensue as we all tried to live together and communicate with each other? I fear reality would be a very simultaneously crowded and lonely place.
Humanity may already be on that path albeit unknowingly, marching unaware towards our next evolutionary sea change ushered in by either fate or nefarious design. We are sculpting a creature from scraps of our lesser selves that disregards the past and the invaluable wisdom it brings to the present. Either way, will arrive at the same destination: a place where shared truth is relegated to history and reality is reduced to, and constructed with, ones and zeros.
We are in the throes of a species wide, self-made narcissistic delusion sustained by cowardly and uniformed social media addicts. Truth has been degraded to a construct that can be manipulated to affirm opinion or provide comfort to those who insist they deserve it. But the cost of indulging this trend will be the loss of the most basic scientific process, logical reason or even a shared reality that functions, if nothing else, as a courtesy to others.
Sometimes progress and truth are better served by staying the course against the feverish juggernaut of industry or ill-gotten public opinion. From outside the cozy groupthink bubble where most people now prefer to reside, progress and truth appear to be viewed as some sort of rouge social experiment intent on tearing down the pillars of a functional shared reality and replacing it with a subjective pacifier we now refer to as “my truth.” It is your truth as much as it is your universe- a concept that must, for the most part, be shared, conceited to, and understood by all its participants.
The meaning of “progressive” has been hijacked by spoiled “child-gods” reinventing reality based on their ever-changing whims while demanding that we all participate while those on the far right have pieced together philosophies that are cherry picked and redacted to a level of absurdity and dysfunction. We are living in an unwritten Orwell novel where political extremism has become re- branded as reasonable. A pendulum only works if it is allowed to complete its swing from left to right. If it sticks at one side or the other, it is considered by the reasonable to be broken.
While roving hordes of “Wokites and Trumpettes” populating the “halls of idiocrasy” we call social media are working their way up the threat assessment ladder, truth is becoming unrecognizable.
Waging a war on common sense may not seem as great a threat as a war fought with bullets and missiles, but death by violence or stupidity is still death. Truth has become a manufactured “concept of convenience” to be redefined and weaponized at will by anyone with an ax to grind or itch to scratch.
We communicate these ridiculous ideas by the millions through a language of modern hieroglyphics in the form of memes, GIFs and emojis and call it progress.
In our current state of political theater noir, there is no room for measured or thoughtful problem solving. Advocating for, or resisting change earns one an obstructionist or progressive merit badge that must be proudly always displayed across all mediums where overzealous Luddites and angry progressives do their best to ignore the possibility that their opinions may both be just a little short sighted. Is there no longer a place in the world for moderate ideas that include instead of divide? Compromise instead of conquer? Because without moderation, we will find ourselves in a perpetual state of a haphazardly conceived philosophical war in which, you guessed it, we all lose.
Beware those who narrowly define progress to the exclusion of recognizing the value of tradition in any of it’s forms. Beware those who believe truth is merely an adjective to describe an emotion or a desire. Like it or not, it was past generations with all their flaws, that built the country, that built the infrastructure, that allows progressive and innovative ideas to be shared with millions at the click of a button. But remember, quantity does not equal quality no matter how many times the sentiment is shared.
In a world where truth has lost its luster and progress is defined by the deepest pockets or the narrowest minds, linear time may indeed become a thing of the past.
(Mark Dutton, a lifelong musician, music producer, writer. I was arguing politics with my parents since I was a pre-teen. Majored in psychology and left college in my 3rd year on a 30 year magic bus trip around the world playing and writing music with some of the best in the biz. I am very grateful.)
