I've opined here before that the acceleration of history is leaving many of us in difficulty processing what is happening to us. In my conversations in the real world and cyberspace, I've lately been noticing in myself and others a distinct decline in the quality of these interchanges. Since I can't (at least while sober) bring myself to even participate in many current threads, I decided to wade in with one of my own, in typical fashion. Communication is supposed to be a growth medium for understanding. I am finding myself confronting greater promotion of ignorance and divisiveness, and it is making me sick. Here at sciforums, I have noticed in the hangover from the spectacular bloodletting in Iraq, that the conversations are certainly not becoming elevated. In my professional life, I too often yield to the temptation to acquiesce to conversations that orbit with simplifications and distortions of reality around a thinly concealed centroid of supremacism. Such experiences leave me feeling humiliated and confined in a life of simulated freedom and enlightenment. In this microcosm and in life generally, I keep fretting that silence and passivity in the face of arrogant ignorance, or ignorant arrogance, is what so often tips the scales fatefully, in the most crucial moments in history, toward cataclysm. I believe that as people gain more universal access to information, a growing majority are gaining insight into megatrends: Like a seemingly most-progressive and most-powerful nation attempting to reduce unconventional international retaliations, and the proliferation of effective weapons, through "pre-emptive" warfare- Like a purportedly open "melting-pot" society that is becoming institutionally and socially suspicious of Arabs, Muslims, or individuals resembling the most simplistic stereotypes of these vastly varied groups- Like any of millions of conversations, where someone is afraid of expressing doubts about America's new personality, for fear of professional or social ostracism- or worse. If you can think clearly during these confusing but critical times, please resist the urge to be silent. If you understand that often through nationalism and fear, people, and yes even Americans, can become primitive and even depraved collectively, then resist the urge to be comfortably numb. Opinions are being controlled at so many levels. I know so many who recognize and wish to avoid a looming cycle of assymetrical wars and retaliations, and who recognize and wish to avoid increased repression by our governments and peers. If you have something to say, don't keep silent for advancement or security. We're all in very big trouble on the present course. With apologies to Dylan Thomas: Do not go gentle into that good night Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
