Things I Believe #3

Things I believe #3

          I believe we're becoming, nay, have become, a nation of vampires. I don't mean the nice Bram Stoker Dracula kind who just kill for food. They just suck out their victim's blood, but these modern day models feed on their victim's  emotions , as well.

         There's a great German word, so good that we have no single word English language analogy. The word is "Schadenfreude."  It translates as, "Pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune."  The immediacy of  24 hour news and social media have become, I believe, the vectors of this virus which infects so many. Like vampirism, it only works if someone else is damaged; but unlike vampirism, the damage doesn't confer immortality. Also unlike vampirism, the invention of medieval ignorance , refined by 19th century fiction, Schadenfreude is real and in front of us every day.

          Tiger Woods has an unexpected drug reaction, not driving, but found asleep in his car, the initial report reads "DUI." The haters immediately smile, gloat briefly and begin typing. The list of immediate allegations, assumptions, etc,  is long and vile. There is a palpable disappointment when his blood alcohol is revealed to have been .000 at the time.

         Frequently we rationalize our own schadenfreude as simply (insert misfortunate person here) "getting what's coming to them." To be sure,  there are individuals whose bad behavior makes them prime targets of such a  reaction, and it's difficult not to smile and mutter "karma is a bitch," but it becomes troublesome when we choose an entire class of persons, by race, nationality, religion, gender preference etc, and delight in any ill which befalls a member of said group. 

          A recent news article details the sad story of an Australian tourist in San Francisco who died after a fall on concrete steps as a result of a bar fight which started elsewhere, finished with his falling on the stairs. The spate of negativity directed toward, not the persons involved, but at the city itself was almost unbelievable, as the vampires drew energy from the death of a tourist and vented it toward that "hotbed of liberalism." Guns figure prominently, gangs, liberal laws, gays, etc, and the list went on. San Francisco was blasted as  liberal haven of all things evil.

           As it turns out the initial actual police report states that there were no weapons involved and whatever conflict  there had been had started earlier as both sides were drinking. Conspicuous by its absence in the Far right diatribes, was any mention of alcohol, or that the Aussie, who may have been drinking a bit (ya think) may well have been a willing participant and maybe at least partially to blame for the tragedy which ensued.    

         In the United States (and, I am sure elsewhere) this seems to be compounded by several crippling syndromes. The first is troubling because it is only effective at the extremes, This is either the willingness to believe anything derogatory without the least scintilla of corroborative fact, or its inverse, the refusal to believe data driven categorical truth if it's personally unpleasant or antithetical to one's political persuasion.

          Another thing I believe is that a person who has no ability to rationally evaluate all sides of any argument is incapable of expressing a relevant and/or considered opinion. Having said that, I support the recent firing of Kathy Griffin simply because what she did was in execrable taste, and if I were a media entity, I would have terminated our relationship for that reason. This isn't about free speech. Ms. Griffin, who lost her funny about five years ago, used her right to free speech and her employer responded, as was their right, in ending their relationship because they pay the bills and she had become a liability. Notice the glee from the Far Right which was,  unsurprisingly, not glee but outrage when Dock Dynasty's inbred clan was also terminated, albeit too briefly.

         Now, having established that, let's talk about the outrage expressed by persons of both sides of the political spectrum, but, more specifically the Far Right  who apparently wanted her arrested as well as fired. Where were these ultra conservatives when Ted Nugent spoke of shooting President Obama? where was the outrage when, over 8 years slurs abounded re: Michelle Obama, her husband and their daughters?  The silence from most on the  right was deafening. This one sided bias, I maintain is one critical difference between Social Liberals and Conservatives.

          It manifests in numerous ways. Most who believe that global warming is real and should be of concern, do so because they have considered that the opinions of more than 90% of the world's climatologists are more persuasive than the 10% or so who maintain that it isn't "real," but rather invented by China, as #45 opined during the 2016 campaign.  Critical thinking, if available,  applies here. Many have considered both sides and made up their own mind. This is too often not the case in the other extreme.

          The collapse of Delaware sized ice floes from the Ross shelf are apparently unpersuasive, but the natterings of persons who have only opinions, not facts, like Rick Santorum and others with interests in the energy industry are absolute truths. Religion also plays a significant role here, because most if not all evangelical Christians are also climate change deniers.   I believe this comes from some deep seated realization that if man can change his world, for the better or the worse, perhaps this whole "creation story" thing is really a "creation myth" which is how Christians, Muslims and Jews refer to all other religions' origin fables.

          The pathetic corollary here is that these "true believers" also tend to be ridiculously easy marks for charlatans selling God and themselves by the pound on TV. It is appalling to me that we are bombarded with news stories of persons who have been elected to the US Congress who pontificate  pronouncements that "God will ....(fill in miracle here)" which are really meant to be statements more on the order of "look at how reverent I am."

         A similar sentiment is that expressed when someone recovers from serious illness and thanks the sky magus as if the efforts of the medical personnel involved were of little consequence. These people apparently have never considered that if their God actually listened and interfered in human's lives and cared deeply about her most devout believers, there would be the descendents of about 6 million more Jewish people alive today.