by
Hayden Wayne
The atmosphere of the earth as a whole has incrementally become more toxic and heated to the now present state of approaching irretrievable and the almost certain destruction of mankind; if the warming oceans ultimately begin to release methane.
The over population, in the billions, of the earth’s underclass seems to have created a new corporate model for slave labor, where in a few generations, an educated working middle class will become extinct. And, it’s the middle class that is the underpinning of a healthy democracy.
As if a conspiracy, the destruction of our education system has slowly created a growing naďve society to simply flat out ignorant. What once was available for consumption as an unalienable Right in order to pursue Liberty and Happiness is slowly disappearing. The very access to the tools of education in order to intellectually expand and thus evoke not only curiosity, but the recognition when these very Rights are being taken away, is simply vanishing.
It seems corporations are smugly aiding and abetting this decline for the projected profits when exploiting an inexhaustible lower and underclass to run their factories. Offering these poor souls a fraction of what would sustain a worker so to remain a contributing member of the middle class, would seem a quantum leap forward.
The middle and upper classes know too much. The sooner they become ignorant and not aware of what is taken away as unalienable Rights, the sooner they will disappear, save for the few corporate ceo’s who have to hide themselves away from public access. As this is being written, the ability to recognize the loss of these Rights, is being replaced by apathy and indifference.
Quality “in hand” intellectual product is vanishing for download access. Too soon access will be determined upon profitability. Digital pales, as compared to analogue. AIFF audio downloads will never match the higher quality of a CD, let alone the previously used vinyl to CD, for that matter. The same is happening with visual DVDs. And, what is more alarming, the younger generations, not educated to the difference in quality, don’t know their product is inferior, or even care.
Because access is predicated upon profitability, other than for those publicly funded, classical and jazz radio stations have all but been silenced. If someone only has access to what is programmed, that is all the individual will know exists. Ultimately, if the other disciplines present themselves, the individual will not know how to listen and most likely not be able to sit still long enough to give these other disciplines their due.
Thus, when access to knowledge is limited, we will only know what is presented to us. We will eventually not be aware to ask about what we don’t know.
Try to get service. How too often are we condescendingly greeted with hostile indignation? More startling, in addition to this attitude, I often find myself more knowledgeable than the employee I’m addressing for product information.
You can be in the midst of conversation and someone will interrupt because of impulse. Simply put, what happened to human skills?
People can text message, but they can’t talk. All around us people are isolating themselves with earphones to their i-tunes machines. Wouldn’t one think after being alone in their respective apartments, they would want to absorb some of the life around them? Is it really a surprise how more and more people cry out how lonely they are?
The devolution continues. E pluribus Unum is eroding away to individual isolation. In such a scenario, a society will have greater difficulty not only discerning what is fact, but have no arena to argue. It will lose its ability to question, only accepting the information given it.
The majority of this country has certainly proven itself to being culturally illiterate. Far too many in the world are spiritually illiterate. How much longer before total illiteracy?
4/16/09