The Sky Is Falling
July 1st, 2005 by Adam
Some days I feel like Chicken Little.
As an unceasing skeptic and critic of popular culture, I find myself constantly engaged in a cycle of disbelief, virulent anger, and forgiveness with the American people. Yet some things are beyond forgiveness. I can forgive belief in faulty causes and the outright lies of public officials. I can forgive partisan hackery and the numbing singularity of patriotic drumming. I can forgive people more worried about their next paltry tax rebate than domestic policy, foreign policy and energy policy combined. I can even forgive the American public’s culpability for the five million albums the Baja Men have sold. I can forgive a lot, but I CAN NOT forgive this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4100320.stm
You must remember the inane news story about the doe-eyed bride-to-be from Georgia who disappeared, only to resurface in New Mexico claiming she had been kidnapped. You must remember because somehow this was front page news all over the nation: more important than international treaties, genocides, political activism and our ongoing war effort. She quickly recanted and admitted to running away—in the process costing $43,000 of public funds and hundreds of man hours searching for her. So what does America do—give her the collective finger and forget she ever existed? Hit her upside the head with a brick and send her back to Georgia to die in redneck ignominy?
Oh, no… someone is paying this stupid cunt $500,000 to write a book about her life story, assuredly to be parlayed into a shitty made-for-TV movie.
So this is how America repays the dumbest segment of society—with lucrative book deals and front page headlines—not mandatory sterilization. This woman is not heroic or spectacular. She has done nothing worthy of praise. For being a complete fucking idiot and breaking the law she is being rewarded with half a million dollars. And that’s not the worst part– the worst part is that the American public will eat this shit up. This “book” (the word tumbles out like vomit in this context) with all its wonderful literary merit will sell MILLIONS of copies and receive far more attention than any book published this year with any sort of political, social, historical or philosophical merit. The sad truth is the American public wants easy-to-digest human stories no matter how insipid or poorly written. Scholarly and artistic works are shunned while The DaVinci Code remains a nationwide bestseller.
Go ahead, tell me I’m wrong. Andrea Dworkin died—did anyone notice? Li-Young Lee is putting out a new collection of poetry this year—does anyone care? I didn’t think so. When I finish this piece I’m off to find something stupid to do which will land me a book deal so I no longer have to scream into the ass crack of the internet to be heard.
But it’s true that we have a problem in this society. Fantasy and reality; lies and truth; good ideas and obscenely bad ones—apparently we have lost the ability to differentiate. Maybe this stupidity exists everywhere, but for today I have only this:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8313299/?gti=6657
The boy scout lost in the wilderness of northern Utah—missing for four days, hungry and cold but found alive and otherwise unscathed. I was relieved to hear that. I was NOT relieved to learn that he had been hiding from his would-be rescuers for most of that time because “mom and dad told me never talk to strangers”. This little dumbfuck was afraid that someone would “steal him” if he showed himself. The parents had a tearful reunion and said they were proud of him. If that were my son, I would have kicked his emaciated ass for being so stupid. The problem is this: we as a society have inundated children with irrational fears about abduction. Not only that, we have taught them that fear should govern their behavior. Yes, kidnappings happen every day. Yes, it is something children need to be aware of. No, it’s not a fear that should override common sense. Who the fuck goes wondering the Utah wilderness looking for lost children to abduct?
Hey kid— YOU WERE LOST IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE!!!! YOU WERE OUT OF FOOD AND WATER!!! DEATH WAS COMING, AND YOU WERE MORE WORRIED ABOUT BEING KIDNAPPED THAN FUCKING DYING???
Self-preservation is the strongest of human impulses, and when after-school specials and the pithy morality lessons of parents interfere with that impulse, we have a problem. In all his 11 years no one ever said “If you’re ever in trouble, a stranger might help” or “Trust your instincts and do what you need to survive, even if it means breaking a rule or two”? In his darker moments of fear and panic he couldn’t bring himself to trust one single other human being?
We need to re-evaluate the singularity of the message we send children which paints the world as black and white; us and them; good and evil. Smart kids are doing stupid things. Stupid people are getting rewarded for their stupidity. And I’m sitting here in the middle of a god damn cornfield, the only person able to see what’s going on.
Someone call Henny Penny.
Adam
