You would think, in the year 2026, with the internet no further away than a finger-click on our phones – which pretty much everyone owns, except it seems, my brother – we would be smarter. After all, you can research anything at any time, no matter where you are.
Alas, this is not the case.
If anything, it seems that the dumbing down of America has reached its epoch. This trajectory began in earnest decades ago, when people first started believing that “we the people,” meant everyone. Beginning in the 1960s, when the civil rights movement finally made some inroads as legal protections were enacted that determined people of color were, in fact, entitled to equal rights under the law; in the 1970s when the women’s liberation movement gained a foothold with women finally being able to get credit in their own name (1974), fighting and winning the right to autonomy over their own bodies (legalized abortion, 1973), and then continuing their fight to break the glass ceiling that has kept their pay lower than there male counterparts (a fight still going on today), and then, finally, in the late 1970s and early 80s when the LGBTQ+ community laid claim to their right to live in the world of equal rights for all. The dumbing down occurred when the White Christian Nationalist patriarchy realized this escalation of rights being afforded to Blacks, immigrants, women, and gay and trans folk put those undesirable others on equal footing with them. So they fought back by creating monsters to hate. And those monsters look suspiciously like Blacks, immigrants (especially those of color), women, and the LGBTQ+ community.
We now find ourselves in the muddiest of waters, where one specific group – white, male, heterosexual, Christian nationalists, with a contingent of billionaires funding them – claims superiority over other groups and will do anything – say anything – to ensure that their rightful place on the top of the pyramid of rights is not threatened.
Does that sound right to you? Or fair?
No, not to me either. And yet, here we are. People now openly, blatantly, attack others. Mostly they attack verbally, but sometimes physically as well, as in the recent lynchings taking place in the south, or ICE agents, in masks, assaulting people on our streets, in some cases using lethal force, but mostly just kidnapping people and sending them to concentration camps without due process, all while flashing their superiority cards. They think they are better – more worthy – then those they disappear off our streets.
I’ve heard the nonsense being spewed firsthand from people I thought were more educated and sensible, and sincerely wish there was a way to re-educate those who have fully imbibed the Kool-Aid of this morally and ethically compromised corrupt cult. But reason and facts are no longer credible weapons. How can you make a point when your opponent’s only argument is, “Oh, you just hate Trump,” or “Oh, that’s just fake news.” People have been asked why they support Trump and they respond by saying it’s because of all the great things he’s done. But when asked to name some of those things, or even just one, they fumble around and come up with nothing. The use of logic, reason, facts, research, or science is ineffective because they simply negate what you have to say without offering a defense of their position. Don’t they have the same internet search engines available as I? The same libraries? The same resources?
Do you remember the Ghost of Christmas Present from A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens? At the end of his time with Scrooge, he opens his robes to reveal two emaciated children clinging to him, and says, “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, but most of all beware of this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.” Dickens was effectively making a point about the social issues of the time, where ignorance represented neglecting education, leading to poverty and destruction, and Want was representative of the unmet needs of large swaths of society. He wrote that in 1843. Things haven’t changed much, have they?
Honestly? I don’t have a clue on how to combat ignorance. The interesting thing today is that a number of educated people seem to have fallen into the category of the ignorant. Which proves the theory that education, or even intelligence, does not equal wisdom. But perhaps ignorance is bliss – to be totally unaware of how you are being manipulated to do this regime’s bidding. What I see, however, are not blissful people. They are people who live in a world of fear. Hate is simply fear being expressed through anger. They suffer from the fear that others – the monsters they have been told walk among us – will take away something of theirs. What they don’t see, or perhaps refuse to see, is that their rights are being trampled and eroded as well by the regime they so ardently follow. Once you take away due process and claim the rules of law and order only apply to certain people, it won’t take long for those changes to affect any who don’t toe the line. Search history – we’ve seen this slippery slope before. Those under the influence of this regime are suffering and yet are unable to connect the dots as to why. Their lives could be filled with joy, contentment, compassion, and love. I pity them for allowing their unwarranted fear to dictate their lives. “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” (Star Wars, Yoda)
I do, however, try to remain hopeful since roughly 70% of the voting population can see that the dark, dismal road we’ve been traveling on may be coming to an end. The other 30% will keep trucking along, not realizing they are headed over a cliff, their racism and bigotries fueling their lives. Perhaps reality will set in at some point, but true believers are rarely swayed. The masses understand that all we have is our humanity, and that humanity is what drives us to be loving and kind and compassionate, and, most of all, hopeful.
And I’ll take that any day of the week over ignorance, whether blissful or not.
~jwb~
