Published Wednesday, June 30, 2010 1:56 PM
Updated Wednesday, June 30, 2010 1:56 PM
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, Confucius, or was it Mark Twain, said, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
And yet, here I go removing all doubt again.
Oh well; that’s what they pay me to do.
The cynic in me says there’s probably not an original thought left on this planet. I can’t say that’s true for sure, since I’ve only been around 46 of the several billion years spaceship earth’s been at cruising altitude. Also, they say -- whomever ‘they’ is -- that if you scratch a cynic long enough you’ll find a burned out idealist.
But some things make me wonder.
For starters, let’s talk politics. Here in the over-sized padded cell we call the Palmetto State, it’s been a nasty dirty ride at all levels, from the county trough to the state house sty and beyond. And yet, I’m not nearly as disgusted with the stars of these little soap operas as I am with the audience – that is, we the people.
The late great George Carlin summed it up for me years ago – and I daresay his take on it probably is more apropos now than ever before.
Said Carlin: “Now, there’s one thing you might have noticed I don’t complain about: Politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here -- like, the public...”
What can I say to that except, “Amen, George, amen -- and boy, I sure do miss you.”
Is it that my generation and the increasingly sorrier ones after it are wallowing too much in the banalities of the lotus-eaters’ fantasy? Has self-perpetuated drama replaced the mundane life’s plan? Are our egos so inflated that we – as the late great George Fitch once put it – have mistaken our heads for planets and regard everything we say as volcanic disturbances? Are we so starved for entertainment that we will -- to bastardize some great quote from elsewhere -- twitter as Rome burns?
Where did this echo chamber mentality come from, anyway?
Wow. Pass the Prozac, please.
No, scratch that. Help me back on my horse.
Strangely enough, the idealist still lives. And boy, do we have some work to do.