America: It is time to Grow up

We are dealing with multiple crises at a time and rather than taking a serious posture of figuring how to best navigate these difficulties we are resorting to blaming, name-calling, and hoping for a Hollywood ending where the hero saves everyone and everything ends happily ever.

I have cited the book Amusing Ourselves to death by Neil Postman as a great resource for helping us to understand why we are in the space we are today.  Postman said that the death of culture will be a society that sees everything as a source of entertainment.

If it isn’t obvious to you yet, we’re already past that point.  It appears that many Americans have decided to create a fantasy land with heroes and villains in order to dissociate from the painful truths that surround us.

“There is nothing wrong with entertainment. As some psychiatrist once put it, we all build castles in the air. The problems come when we try to live in them.”
For the last 15 years or so it feels as if Americans have been trying to live in castles in the sky.  We’re no longer electing Presidents.  We’re now electing Messiah/Heroes who will save us from the Red or Blue Villains and these Messiah/Heroes will fix all of our problems and the bad guys will die.

Pandemics and War are hard

I am currently reading former Secretary of State Condoleeza’s memoir of her time in Washington D.C.  She goes into great detail about the challenges of the conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  From the beginning, the conflict in Afghanistan was riddled with problems.  As she wrote, Afghanistan is where “Great Powers go to Die”.  The Soviets were unsuccessful in fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s because it is a nation with many complicated tribal conflicts and difficult terrain.

War is hard and there are never any fairy tale endings.  Soldiers are injured and killed along with civilians that may include women and children.  After reading memoirs by Secretary Rice and General James Mattis, I have a much greater appreciation for the difficult decisions leaders are placed in to minimize the loss of life while advancing goals.  None of it is easy and knowing whatever choice is made may end up with the loss of life of your own soldiers is a terrible decision to have to make.

Expecting a President to wave a magic wand and say “Conflict over.  Go forth in peace” is unrealistic and childish. We can debate the merits of conflicts all day and night but once the decision is made to engage, then we have to accept what may happen.  That is the adult way of handling conflict.

The same is true of a once in a 100-year pandemic.  To make statements like, “If everyone just wore a mask and stayed home for two weeks, then the pandemic would be over” is a fantasy and has no basis in reality. This is a highly contagious respiratory virus and to believe that it is feasible for everyone to stay home is unrealistic.  The other side to that is that  “There’s no such thing as Covid and it’s all made up,”

Why are we incapable of seeing the world as mature adults.

Americans lack maturity and…lack purpose

When we are children we see the world in very simple terms.  Problems are Black and White.  They usually boil down to “fair” and “no fair” because we’re incapable of processing issues any further than that.  Children aren’t able to discuss the nuance of complex issues because they lack the development to do so.  They throw tantrums and scream because they don’t possess the language to express themselves.  Toddlers have to be taught not to bop people on the head if he wants to play with a toy.

The American Adult in 2021 seems to be following a similar pattern. We’ve watched as Americans go into restaurants and beat up restaurant workers who by law have to ask diners for proof of vaccinations.  This is not how adults are supposed to behave.

Americans cannot discuss the nuance of conflicts and complex issues as adults because we lack the development to see things outside of binary Red or Blue choices.

There are numerous reasons why but I truly believe a major root cause is that Americans are bored, lonely, self-absorbed, lack purpose, and meaning in their lives so people look to something to fill the void of meaninglessness.  Getting up every morning to tirelessly crusade on Facebook about the hot button issue of the day gives purpose to many that they are defending a righteous cause.

Life is unfair here on my Boat…

“He’s telling me how unfair the world is… while he’s sitting on his boat,” – Tom Nichols, Our own worst Enemy author (Source TVO: The Agenda)

According to Tom Nichols, a bored middle-aged and middle class who is fed a steady diet of propaganda about how they are downtrodden and aggrieved people in the world.  Political entrepreneurs goad the middle class into believing they are victimized. Being self-absorbed and self-focused will always lead us to find people to blame our problems on.

Like the man Tom is describing the most passionately outraged people on both sides of the aisle tend to be middle-aged, middle-class people who want to start the revolution mainly because it will give them something to do.  This isn’t just limited to the United States as Nichols points out.

As Nichols says people who make money off of this nonsense (political entrepreneurs)  use their platforms to constantly rile up their audiences.

Where do we go from here?

I believe that it will take a real crisis and hardship for Americans to wake up and realize that it’s time to grow up.  It’s time to stop allowing the political entrepreneurs and the corporate media to stop riling us up. The only way we’re going to get through tough times is together and we need to learn to solve problems collectively. This would include coming to the table even with people we disagree with.

Let’s handle these serious issues like mature adults.

Grow up America.