A Consumer Society

 From the very beginning of writing this blog, March 26th 2023, my how time has flown, I have invited people to partake in discussion on this platform on the things that I write. I would really like you to tell me what you agree with, disagree with, are indifferent to, etc. Let us have an adult discussion about this.

And, every once in a great while, someone will put a very short and anonymous blurb at the bottom. Usually a yay you type of thing. And every once in a while a thoughtful, and very gratefully received by me, anonymous little piece about something in what I wrote and how it landed for them.

And I write a reply. And that is the end of it. And being anonymous I cannot get in touch in any other way to ask more about it.

So why the title you ask? Well here is my answer.

I was thinking about this last night and it came to me that we, as a society, have been so conditioned by all the different forms of media to just passively take things in. We have become so used to being placid in our consumption of everything, and most especially ideas, that we no longer know how to interact with things anymore. Especially not ideas.

We either accept them or reject them. We do not interact with them.

I believe that a large part of why we are in the mess that we are presently in, both as a Society/Nation and the whole world, is because of Consuming without engaging with of information. And with the internet and social media it gets even worse. Because now we can stay inside a little information bubble that agrees with our internal biases so that we no longer need to engage with them. We and they are right and there is no need to actually think about it. Right?

Now I get it, that is a hell of a reach just from thinking about why people do not engage with my blog. From the outside this could look awful self centered. I get that.

Yet I say that this is merely the tipping point observation for this.

Everyone talks about how much yelling there is in the world today. How so many people seem locked into their own viewpoint and seem to be unable to engage with ideas from outside of their own bubble. That engaging an idea that one does not already agree with can seem painfully impossible.

And that, my friends, is because we have been conditioned to Consume Ideas instead of Question them, Debate them, and look at apposing points of view.

Now, to be clear, I also posit that we all have ideas and points of view where we can be open. Some people have more openness than others. Yet I think everyone has at least a few places where they can be open.

And we all have places where we are locked in, that is it, there is no other way to see it. And these places are always in the places where we are Heavily and Emotionally Invested in "This Is the Only Way". And we can all get into some awful beliefs and ways of being when We Are Right about those things that really matter to us.

Because then we become the people who can see the Dehumanizing of Others as an acceptable course.

We become the people who can see Rights not really applying to this class of people because they do not fit into our definition of what it means to be Human.

We become people who can see others killed on camera and Celebrate that.

We become Monsters and Fanatics.

Because we cannot see and interact with the idea that says that maybe what we believe to be so is not really so.

Because we Live in a Consumer Society.

And we only Consume.

I am scared Kinfolk.

Peace  ✌🙏