Too Easy?

In a recent exchange with some of my college classmates, one asked when it was that we "lost respect for the truth."  I think I would add "honesty" to that.  As part of the exchange another suggested that truth is too hard, that "facts are too messy and confusing.  One would have to stop and consider implications as well ambiguities before drawing conclusion[s] or taking action.  [It's] so much easier to go with feelings."

In a large sense I think he's right.  We've created a society in which "easier" is better.  I'm not particularly a Luddite or a technophobe.  OK, I don't own a cell phone and don't have or use all those gadgets on my car.  But I use my computer, shop online, employ my GPS watch(es) while running, etc.  Look what we've done, though.

We can start our cars in the AM from the kitchen, while I machine programmed overnight makes the coffee for us.  (No, I don't drink coffee.)  We have snow- and leaf-blowers and huge tractors to mow our lawns.  Students don't have to go to the library any longer; they can "look it up" on their phones.  They can take classes while at home and still in their pajamas.  In fact, the radio commercials urge students to come to this or to that college and earn their four-year degrees in "half the time" or even a year.  Clerks and cashiers don't need to count money; the machines do that for them.  (I actually favor this as sometime the change I receive is more than what my fast food meal cost--and don't try arguing with the cashier.  They won't accept that a mistake has been made and the drive-through line must not be kept waiting.)  Not only don't we have to get up to change the channels on our boob tubes, now we don't even have to push buttons on the remotes.  We just talk......and poof magic!, the channels change.  I could go on and on, but......

I'm not opposed to all of this.  As I noted, some of it is good.  Surely I prefer modern washing machines to the types we had "back when I was a kid."  Yes, lots is good.

But I wonder if we've made life far too easy.  People don't realize the good feelings, the satisfaction of actually achieving something, of doing things, of living life.  If something gets too hard, do we just quit?  Are the mundane trials and tribulations of daily life now so easy we find other far more trivial things about which to worry?

Thinking is not easy; it's hard work.  And, no, feelings are not thinking/thoughts.  It's somewhat easy to feel something.  It's much harder to think about things, to "consider implications and ambiguities."  And I must confess, I fall victim to this, too.

A recent radio host played some late night TV show host who said, "I grew up in a cult, too.  It's called the Catholic Church."  It drew lots of laughs.  The radio host then asked the obviously rhetorical question, "What if the television host had said, 'I grew up in a cult, too.  It's called Islam.'"  I doubt there would have been any laughs.  But the radio show host surmised that would have been the end of the television host.  "He'd have been fired.  He'd have been an outcast in Hollywood."  I have no reason to believe otherwise.  So, why is it OK to joke about the Catholic Church in such a manner, but not to similarly pillory Islam?  Such is our times.

Speaking of "civility," I saw a photo in the newspaper of an MSU student who was protesting the MSU board of trustees over the heinous sexual abuse scandal--and it is a scandal, from the perverted monster to those who covered it up.  Resignations are not enough.  But, this student, in protesting, sat himself down in the middle of the table in the conference room, the table around which the trustees were sitting.  Was this student making a statement, maybe showing how "cool" he was?  Did being so uncivil, so rude show how much this student cared?   Perhaps in light of the overall affair this was trivial, but the student should have been escorted out until he could behave like an adult, a responsible adult.  Is this what students today are taught?

I really believe Bill Clinton's Presidency was a turning point in our society/culture.  Lying and other reprehensible behavior became almost de rigueur, acceptable if not even fashionable.  I know it makes me sound like an old fogy, but......  I think morals matter.  I never bought the excuses made for Clinton.  That "the economy is good" was one of them.  And it was good, having improved a great deal.  So then, did we make a pact with the devil?  We sold decency and morality down the drain for a good economy.  I think we did and I also think much of the incivilty we experience today stems from that.  Oh, we were on that road, no doubt, and had been for a while.  But Clinton make it OK to do rotten things.

I wonder if we are doing the same with Don Trump.  Are we selling our moral souls to the devil in return for more jobs, a high Dow Jones, lower taxes, etc.?  (I'm not saying that we can't have lower taxes without selling our souls.)  But many people seem to excuse Trump (and I am not a supporter of his, not at all; I think character matters and he has none) because of the turn-around of the economy.  I perhaps thought we couldn't get any less civil than we'd become, but I was wrong.  We are becoming more so, far more so.

As I asked, by accepting the Clintons, Trump, and others, are we selling our souls to the devil in return for material happiness/success?  Maybe that's a question our religious leaders should be addressing......