The more I learn, the less I know

I intended to respond to the column written in this newspaper last week by another columnist in regards to the "character" of customers who patronize Old Sarge's as opposed to customers at The Looking Glass and the Coppermill. But several others beat me to the punch and said it better than I could have; namely David McConnell, Jordan Bass, Kirt Matson, and Gloria Masoner.

That column, however, made me wonder about a general incivility that has crept into the social fabric of our society that didn't use to be there, at least not to the degree it is today.

I wonder about what happened to fact finding instead of rumor mongering. I wonder about so-called friends who would rather see their friends fail than succeed. I wonder about people who make promises they don't intend to keep and say things they don't mean. I wonder about the Social Contract and what happened to it. I wonder about people who stake out ideological extremes and refuse to budge an inch regardless of the evidence. I wonder if we're progressing or regressing as a society.

I know we've always had people who pass along gossip, rumor, and innuendo as the truth. I know we've always had people who are so blinded by their partisan perspectives that anything that runs contrary to those perspectives must have its roots in Satan or Communism or both. I know we've always had people who believe the only way they can make it up the ladder is to demean, diminish, or disenfranchise those that are in their way.

But it just seems worse today than ever before. Million-dollar deals used to be sealed with a handshake. Now it takes a several page credit report, a long list of references, and absolute proof you don't need the money before you can get it. Our word used to be our bond, now our word and a buck and a half might buy us a cup of coffee. We used to pay more attention to our head and our heart than we did the naysayers and pessimists of the world but today it's just the opposite.

There used to be a certain humility to living in the world. We used to be proud to have the privilege of being Americans and we showed that pride by being decent, caring, and supportive human beings. Today, it's hard to be heard unless you're louder than everyone else. Not smarter, or more insightful, or more perceptive; just louder. There used to be a place in peoples hearts for those who were genuine and sensitive to the needs of others but today that's seen as a weakness. Good guys used to get the girls, now the bad boys do.

Today our ideas and attitudes about the world we share with each other is nothing more than twigs blowing in the wind. We turn our backs on our hearts and our souls because someone else says we should. We change our minds on a whim. A word or even a suggestion by someone we hardly even know can change our minds about a person or a relationship we should know better than anyone else ever could.

In the past, we understood other peoples' loss because we had suffered loss. We understood other peoples' hurt, because we had suffered hurt. We understood other peoples' despair because we, too, had suffered despair.

But today that shared connection between people seems more frayed and frazzled than ever before.

Peace is seen as weakness, war is seen as strength, even if the reasons for the war were faulty on their face. People yell today instead of communicate and fight rather than talk.

It seems we've lost our way and, as is usually the case, we're the last ones to know. Globally and individually, we respond the same way. Even when the rest of the world is abandoning us as the nation of promise and hope and light, we remain stubbornly steadfast in our belief that we're always right.

And when we get angry, our anger is almost always displaced because we constantly and consistently blame others when we should be looking inside ourselves.

Because the world can't be right until we're right, it can't be decent until we're decent, it can't be good until we're good and it can't promise hope until we have hope.

It's never too late to change the course of our society, our community and ourselves. The only requirement is the desire to do so.