Reason #1 the World Looks Worse Than It Really Is (written by David Wong): We Want the World to Be Bad Because It Gives Us an Excuse to Withdraw from It Heres the bottom line. The most common objection to Things arent so bad! is Oh, so Im supposed to just sit back and smile? You think Martin Luther King Jr. would have changed the world if he hadnt gotten angry at the state of things? Its like people think that if they stop being cynical or stop interacting with the world through a layer of detached irony that theyre selling out or giving consent to the worlds evils. And I think this is another bullshit lie we tell ourselves. MLK was able to do what he did because he was optimistic. Not optimistic in the sense that he thought if he just stayed home and played pool all day that things would work themselves out, but optimistic in the sense that he thought we could correct injustice if we pushed hard enough -- that people would come around. Optimism is believing that going out in the world and doing things is worthwhile. Its the cynics who stay home and do nothing. This is why the most cynical hipsters among us are also the most unemployed. Im talking about myself here -- I spent the hiring boom of the Clinton years working a series of terrible office jobs because that hiring boom was going to people with certifications in Cisco networking, not journalism majors. And during those bad years I wanted very much to see headlines telling me how awful the job market was. What else could explain employers refusing to hire someone with no unique skills who would have performed the job with a combination of reluctance and detached irony? Cynicism became a blank check for failure. The same young people who take to Reddit to scream about how corrupt the current leaders are also dont bother to vote for different ones. Whats the point of leaving the house on election day, they say, the whole system is rigged! Convenient, considering you didnt feel like leaving the house anyway. Whats the point of giving money to the homeless? Theyll probably just spend it on crack! Convenient, considering it also lets you keep the money. Why bother starting a business, Ill just get crushed by the corporate giants! Convenient, in that it also saves you a few decades of 16-hour work days and three ulcers. Why try to make friends, all of the people my age are shallow, brainless jerks! Convenient, in that this lets you just stay home and watch a Breaking Bad marathon instead, which just happens to be what you wanted to do anyway. This is why Ive grown to find cynicism so frustrating -- cynicism doesnt cause inaction. The desire for inaction causes cynicism. And so you fight to defend your cynicism tooth and nail. Thats right -- theres a reason many of you felt a gut-level negative reaction to talk of mankinds golden age earlier -- you have quite a bit invested in the idea that the world is rotten. So ask yourself: If the Star Trek utopia ever came to pass, would you be up there on that starship having adventures? Or would you be at home, thinking the whole Federation thing was bullshit? Because to a kid living 200 years ago, this world is the Star Trek fantasy come to life. All of the information in the world is available to you via the same machine youre using to read this. Why arent you a genius yet? What are you doing with this power? You have a long list of reasons/excuses, and thats your business. But its not because the world is in terrible shape. It isnt, no matter how much we may want it to be. Read more: cracked/blog/7-reasons-news-looks-worse-than-it-really-is_p2/#ixzz3DWXMXS8d
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 23:25:42 +0000
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