Pretense
Is Not Progress
In our messed-up self-absorbed online-entitled society, we hear the word
“fake” a lot. Red-hat-wearing MAGA cult
followers of President Trump love to use the word “fake news” for anything that
they don’t like. Social media is full of
fake profiles and fake personalities and Russian trolls that pretend to be
Americans so they can cause chaos and spread propaganda for Trump and the GOP.
Our lives are so full of prepared script from the media and social
networks and just ordinary conversation regurgitating the same script from
media and social networks. It’s a
never-ending cycle of reinforced ignorance and outright stupidity that is
simply mind-blowing. Worse yet, a good
percentage of them vote! And there’s
more of them than there are of the ones who do know better.
But there is nothing more fake in our world than pretentiousness. Especially when it is done to supposedly
“show” that something has changed for the better.
The liberal and progressive community have been doing it a lot recently
in the entertainment world. Following
the takedown of several sexual predators in positions of power, the
entertainment world has supposedly undergone a “change of heart” and
highlighted all sorts of women who say “time’s up”. (Including a certain
someone who couldn’t get it spelled right on her fake tattoo.)
Right, except this year’s Academy Awards committed a serious snub against
a critically-acclaimed female-directed female-led motion picture. So only one female director who was not Patti
Jenkins was up for contention for “Best Director”, and that lone female
director lost out to a movie directed by a man about a lonely woman that has
sex with a fish creature. And did you
notice that nobody said anything about the director and star of that certain
movie getting snubbed? Not one
word. Not one mention in this supposed
“time of change” that there wasn’t any where it mattered. Not exactly a sign of progress, is it?
But, hey, it’s not about actual results, right? It’s all about appearances! Wear that ribbon or wear a certain color but
don’t forget to make sure “who” the ladies “are wearing”. It’s all about making a “statement”, as if
that alone was going to solve everything.
Pretenses are all over the place.
We get in a huff if someone doesn’t wear a flag pin, or if they don’t
sing the National Anthem. It’s all about
pretense. It’s not about love of country
or respect for the troops. We treat our
veterans like crap when
they try to get the help they need.
Where is that “love of country” or “respect for the troops” then? All we’re showing “love” and “respect” for is
pretentiousness.
We’ve been inundated with tragedies involving guns and violence, and what
do we do? We offer “thoughts and
prayers”. Talk about the lamest,
cheapest, most inane thing to do!
Because that is what it is! We
are simply throwing our hands up in surrender and saying: “we can’t fix this
ourselves and we want a higher power to do that for us!” That is precisely what “thoughts and prayers”
are. They are not a show of compassion
or solidarity, but a show of surrender!
And, oh, do you the unwashed masses take that personally when you get
called on that! I’ve seen people I’ve
known for years get in a huff when I say that “thoughts and prayers” are
meaningless. How “dare” I call what they
do “meaningless” when that is the truth!
Unfortunately, the alternatives are not any better. Yes, march, protest, scream for change,
demand that change! Fight the National
Rifle Association and their legislative whores and somehow get a specific type
of weapon outlawed. Guess what will
happen then? The gun makers will simply
reconfigure that same weapon under a new name and it will be legal again. They’ve done it before and they will do it
again. Make a certain cheater device illegal,
and another one will take its place. Ban
it from being sold legitimately and it’ll be sold on the dark web. Or the instructions on how to make one will
suddenly be available for free online.
Change the age to buy guns, but that won’t stop the ones that steal the
guns or get them from their parents.
Think about it for a moment. How
many specific assault rifles were outlawed, only to have them reconfigured and
re-sold? How many school shootings were
done by kids who got their weapons from their parents? Putting up signs that say “Gun-Free Zone”
doesn’t stop shootings, even by hardened criminals. All it does is it adds another criminal
charge for prosecutors when they do charge criminals after the carnage is done,
if they are still alive to face charges.
Or how about the empty gestures that simply impose religion into schools? Like that prevented the
churches from being attacked! Or are you going to start posting empty
Facebook memes about how God’s not allowed in the churches too?
And then we have my biggest peeve… the “we want a third party” lie! Look, there have been third political parties. There have been third parties for centuries. There are third parties today. There will continue to be third parties. The problem is not the “lack” of
alternatives. The problem is that you –
the very people that call out for them – consciously refuse to actually vote
for them! You continue to buy into the
propaganda of the two dominant, co-dependent, mutual-enabling dysfunctional
political parties that they and only they can somehow “fix” things. And that’s entirely on each and every one of
you who don’t vote for the very other options you claim to want.
Let’s get brutally honest here… all of these are pretenses and empty
gestures. They are our way of lying to
ourselves and to other people that somehow we can “do something” when we really
aren’t.
I came across a rather interesting post in Facebook recently regarding a
planned “walk out” to demand action after the latest mass killings. The post suggests that rather than having a
“walk out”, that young people instead use the day to “walk up” to those that
have been the kind that people that would shoot up a school and talk to them
and get to know them.
That actually would be a good thing.
However, as someone who has long suffered from social problems, not to
mention someone who has studied psychology and sociology and crisis
intervention as part of my college degree, I also know that there are flaws
with that idea. First, spending just one
day reaching out to people who would need it is not enough. I know this from personal experience. One day, or two, or even a week is not enough
to counter systemic socialized isolation.
They can’t be “cured” with just one act of kindness. That’s just “charity”, and that is another
form of pretentiousness. And second,
well, that requires people to actually do something, and more than just for one
day. A one-day walkout is a cheap and
pointless show. Spending your time
walking up to people who could use a new friend requires effort and compassion
and it takes longer to show results.
Pretense is not progress, folks.
It is pompous and ultimately lazy and does nothing to truly solve the
problems we face. And we need to truly
address these issues rather than put up big displays that do nothing, because
they will not go away on their own, and we sure as hell cannot count on some
divine intervention to do the work for us.
That is the only way we can stop being “fake” to ourselves and others.
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