THE DECLINE OF OUR SOCIETY

There has been debate about what the downfall of our society has been caused by. I tend to blame the television and the fat brainless millions it subdues. Next on my list would be the automobile, that besides polluting: takes people away from their local communities. A most recent proposition would be the air conditioner.

While it seems obvious enough to me that television takes away peoples initiative to engage themselves in meaningful activities, or even the people surrounding them. In an average house, the only time people speak to each other is during commercials. Rather than going out and playing a sport, they watch it on television. Thus, my Theory of Nothing: Create--Participate--Spectate--Do Nothing. Originally, somebody had to create an activity and originate it. Backyard soccer is a good example of this. Later on everybody knows of this activity and they go to somebody else to organize it for them; a local league would be a good example. At some point, they may have had the best people from their area go and represent their community by playing other people in another community. At such events, people would spectate and support their communities; High School teams are the closest example that we have of this. And mark that they had a life outside of sports: school!! But, now we have these so called professional athletes that have no other life outside of sports, and millions of people Do Nothing but sit on their lazy behinds and watch sports from the comfort of their home. This is barely spectatorship, and to top it all off, the players are, more often than not, not even from wherever the team is from. What does this prove? Which community had the most money to buy the best players?

What value can this be to a community? All the "viewers" are doing is watching strangers play sports on a television while they are not interacting with any other people or very few, and the whole time they are brainwashed by commercials telling them what products they should buy to be good consumers that support the "sport."

Perhaps, I should rename this the, "View and Consume" theory. The more I think about it the surer I become that television is the one.

OK, now let’s consider the automobile. With a car you can live in a neighborhood and never interact with the people that you live around. You drive to work, come home, go inside and watch television, and then go to bed. I cannot ignore the fact that a car could be a utility vehicle. We need it in rural areas and deliveries, etc. The obvious retort would be to suggest we would be stranded without cars. We would never be able to get anywhere, but think of all the space we waste on parking areas and big roads. We could walk or ride bikes everywhere and let’s not forget about mass transit. Imagine walking to work everyday and seeing the same people all of the time. Eventually, you would get talking and get to know your neighbors.

Lastly, what about the air conditioner? Well imagine if we were around on a hot evening. The last place we would want to be is inside our hot homes. So we would go for a nice stroll into town and perhaps see our neighbors on the way, hangout, and get to talking. Next thing you know, we are all friends.

It seems to me that we as a society more than anything else just do not interact with each other enough. We have no social structures that lend themselves to healthy socialization. So, my challenge to you is to evaluate your daily life and think about how you can be the good neighbor and befriend our fellow Americans.