Today is the final day of the penultimate week of the second decade of the twenty-first century. As I approach my fifty-third birthday, I am hard-pressed to remember a time in which we the people of these United States have needed Christmas Eve as much as we need it right now. The need for it is not a religious thing. I am not a religious man. The Lord and I have an understanding. He stays out of my day-to-day. I return the favor.
It is, however, a spiritual thing. Here, in these United States, at a fundamental level, our collective spirit of what it means to be an American has been broken. In this century of extraordinary technological advancement, have we actually made the world better for ourselves? For our children? For our grandchildren? Respectfully, we have not.
In a world of "instant everything" and being able to direct Alexa to cue up our "Netflix and chill" on any of our several personal devices, we have unquestionably created a world of greater convenience than that in which we were raised, the one in which our parents were raised, or the one in which our grandparents were raised. At what cost, however, to the quality of our day-to-day? Convenience and quality are not synonyms. It is troubling, to me at least, the extent to which they have become mutually exclusive.
We embrace technology and the advances it has brought us, including the advances we never knew we needed such as the ability to order shoes or play Angry Birds using our smartphone while going to the bathroom. At the same time, we have consciously and aggressively embraced ignorance. Worse yet, we have embraced it to the point of weaponizing it. Ah, the irony, which I have little doubt is lost on those to whose behavior it speaks most pointedly.
When did we the people of these United States become a people who flaunt our unwillingness to be challenged by anyone with an opposing point of view? Or by anyone who might want to simply educate us - even just a little bit? Was it when we elected a President of the United States who wears his "I don't read" mantra as if it is a badge of honor? I know not. Perhaps. On the other hand, perhaps his election was not its beginning but its culmination.
I know simply that our weaponization of ignorance has permeated our politics at every level. Political opponents are no longer rivals or even adversaries. Now, they are enemy combatants. As such, they are not entitled to certain rights, such as engaging in fact-based, law-based, substantive debate on issues of importance. Debate has been replaced by the rapid repetition of attacks, insults, and lies, aimed at reinforcing in the minds and hearts of supporters the idea that everything said by everyone on the other side of the issue is not only a lie but a lie aimed at taking an inalienable right away from them, or worse yet, manipulating them into surrendering it voluntarily.
We have time to correct our course - right up to the point when we run out of it altogether. Course correction is not a Democrat thing. Course correction is not a Republican thing. It is an American thing.
I submit that it is a necessary thing. Why not use today, Christmas Eve, the one day a year when we are the people we always hoped we would be, to begin it. There is no time like the present, right?
Especially on Christmas Eve.
