Honesty.
That’s a tough one. I mean we all speak of honesty as a pillar of virtue by which to judge the actions and words of others … and sometimes ourselves, but in reality people don’t like honesty. People don’t like to hear the truth.
So we find ways of telling them what they want to hear in the least dishonest way to put it. Often times we outright lie because socially it’s just a lot easier than getting into a heated battle over differing perspectives.
But the art of open, civil conversation is nearly lost in today’s society. At least in American society. Civility itself is becoming an endangered species.
Why?
Maybe it’s because the powers that be have done such an efficient job of divide-and-conquering us that we group together in fear, choosing opposing camps whose viewpoints have already been defined. We buy into the prescribed talking points and defend them against any notion that differs as if from invading, evil ideologies.
No one wants to hear anyone else’s opinion. There are plenty of people out there preaching the prescribed opinions of the right or of the left. Everyone would rather just listen to people who already agree with them, or at least with the opinions they have agreed to adopt in order to align themselves with a group … out of fear. The fear of being independent. The fear of going it alone in a world of warring factions.
So in lieu of honesty we bullshit each other. We bullshit the members of the group we want to become aligned with for the sake of fitting in. We pretend to accept or reject the same beliefs, despite having a perspective of our own.
We bullshit those in the opposing group. We pretend that there is in no way any part of what they believe in that we don’t find offensive and incomprehensible.
Worst of all, we bullshit ourselves. We bullshit ourselves into believing that by choosing the correct group and supporting them no matter what stance they take we are somehow helping humanity move forward, as opposed to further degrading our ability to work together to find solutions.
We pretend the propaganda we’re being fed by our side is revelation, while everything the other side is fed is propaganda.
We convince ourselves that the other side has an evil agenda fueled by self interest and that our side is driven by pure altruism.
All the while, nothing gets better. Everything gets worse and both sides point their fingers at the other.
Why does it not get better? Because it was never designed to get better. Not for us.
The conditions worsen every day for the average person, but for a handful of people the conditions are perfect. That handful of people doesn’t even have to worry about the rest of us figuring out what we’re doing, or what they’re doing, because we’re too caught up in the battle with each other.
Those people own everything that we think is there to serve us. They own all the politicians, they own all the media and they own all the banks. The only agenda that exists is the one that serves them.
Where is there room for honesty in a world like that? Where would honesty come from? Where would it go? Who would it reach when no one wants to hear it?
