© 2017 Tom Skulldaney
Taking sides to champion our own political heroes is like hawking gangrene as the cure for psoriasis. The only side we should take is our own and stay tough on those we’ve allowed to lead us. They only go astray because we let them. For some reason they’ve come to believe we’ve elected them so they can be afforded a good living. A great living in most cases.
When the information age was dumped on us, I suspect there was great concern among those who had burrowed themselves into scurrilous public service. Information threatened our very ignorance. A requirement for their success. Imagine their delight when they discovered it wasn’t a threat at all. It was a tool.James Burke once said, “We now know more and more about less and less.” He was talking about scientific specialization where a researcher knows a great deal about one thing and not much about anything else. We’ll borrow his notion, twist it a bit and reapply it as, “We know less and less about more and more.”
That is a much more apt description of our struggle with ubiquitous information. But the tool is now weaponized. Instead of understanding and harnessing chaos, the best definition of true progress, it’s being intentionally fabricated for our amusement and their benefit.
They’re counting on us not having enough time to pick through everything to find something even the least bit worthwhile. Coming across those little gems of veracity hiding in the ever growing bag of rocks is much more difficult. But, for some strange reason we’ve chosen to throw the rocks at each other instead of kicking them aside and digging a little deeper to find the real culprits.
Here’s the paradox: Why does vitriol continually triumph over good sense? Everybody stays too busy throttling the wrong throats, that’s why. Well, I guess it can’t be a paradox if I just solved it. So, let’s just call it a simple question.
I have to stop here and apologize for the confusion. My wife just found me. She tugged our young son into the room I was hiding in and pointed at the poor lad’s swollen, distended belly. “He’s hungry, Goddamn it!” She’s been nagging me about finding a job.
In a shameless attempt to employ the preferred tactic of the very people I was in the midst of trying to skewer, I defended myself. “I am spreading elucidation.”
“You’re spreading something but that ain’t it.”