We Can Build Walls... Or We Can Broaden Our Perspectives

If you are a consumer of “news” in our society you have probably developed a certain emotional obliqueness to the repetition of adverse events coming at you constantly. Indeed you may have come to cultivate a lack of attachment to any and all the issues being exploited in order to grab your attention, just so you can maintain some modicum of balance in your perspective on life. This expressed indifference has become a defining feature of the attitude of many people in our world.

A significant number of people have come to the conclusion that their indifference is necessary in order to maintain their sanity in what many have come to regard as a crazy world. The conscious construction of this wall - this defense mechanism to keep the madness out - might seem necessary, but it is not our only option… nor is it the most viable one. Reality bites, but we can find creative ways to avoid being uncritical consumers of the menu of an unconscionable media culture.

To be sure, there are things happening in our world that hold grave concerns for the future. There are enduring wars and strife. There are political dramas that raise questions about the assumptions we have cultivated about what constitutes good governance. Challenges to the foundational values that have come to underpin our political systems and the way we expect our societies to operate abound. Beyond the hypocrisies that are a part of the day to day relationships between nations, we continue to be concerned about the gross demonstrations of immorality and amorality in international affairs.

Bad news is a fact of life, but, thankfully, it is not the only news. While the reasons for pessimism persist, the necessity for optimism beckons. We may not be living in the best of times, but it is not true that we are in the worst of times. The violence that causes many to retreat is a fact of life; but cultivating hope for a more peaceful and prosperous world is an ontological imperative we must not ignore.