Drowning in Disconnected Silence

Madame,

It is indeed “a sad forgery and misrepresentation.”  America’s image to the rest of the world, let alone to itself, keeps getting more and more perverted, to our collective detriment.

Our atomization as society means in some respects we don’t have A society, per se, but at best a collection of sub-societies, and at worst seas of individuals with occasional common preferences. These sub-societies often exist in a kind of uncaring/unconcerned toleration, but only occasional “acceptance,” and some are hostile to each other or even to all others.

Far, FAR too many of us can readily retreat into comforting and deceiving echo chambers of sycophants and unthinking fellow “believers” (about whatever it is—politics, religion, social relations, subjugation of nature, etc.).  If we were instead connected, we would have to stand before fellow citizens and have the blinders removed.

Abuse becomes common in disconnection.   Simultaneous catalyst, consequence, and byproduct, abuse manifests itself (and surges) via arrogance, by the brutalized becoming the brutalizing (the odds of the oldest Duggar boy having himself been abused at some point is probably better than even), by impunity, by sub-cultural toleration and defense, by denial.

And so we get a culture where a 12 year old boy with an obviously toy gun is massacred by police in less than 2 seconds—and no consequences.  Where the same police force sprays 125 bullets into a car where 2 unarmed people die inside—indeed, where one cop stands on the hood of the car to empty his weapon—and all are acquitted.   And then, in colossal and cruel gall, those same officers sue the department for…discrimination.   

This is a system that believes itself immune to consequences, that need not concern itself with what any “public” might think. 

Such disconnection.

It’s 50 years later and “The Sound of Silence” still rings with poignancy at how we don’t connect with each other.

It’s not that we haven’t made progress in some things; we certainly have.    It’s that so much of our progress has been stained or wiped away by the regressions or intensifications of our drawbacks and failings.  We have, in Black Widow’s words, too much “red on our ledger.”

And it’s dragging us down.  I have much more to say on this subject, but will pause for now!