Our Un-Enlightenment

“…who thinks we’re taking ourselves too seriously.”

Sorry to start under false pretenses, but that line is not original by any means. It’s a line from the band Against Me! in their song “Don’t Lose Touch.”

I just happen to believe that it makes more sense than a lot of the news that we see with these days.

It seems that America’s overstated self-importance, from the government down to the individual level, has begun to cloud our minds from things that are truly important. Not to sound too Hippie, but international issues like the atrocities in Darfur and Russia’s attacks on Georgia  should never take a backseat to the cost of Cindy McCain’s earrings in terms of newsworthiness.

On what level does this make a bit of sense?

I don’t mean to imply that everyone should drop what they’re doing to try to help save the world- we all have problems of our own- but it’s embarrassing to think that there are so many Americans who would rather read about a potential First Lady’s outift than take the time to research a genocidal operation.

Being that this is my first blog post, I want to make clear that I would never claim to be free of these tendencies, because I know that simply isn’t true. But the past few years have shown me that, rather than becoming more involved in the world around us, citizens of the United States seem to cower behind our own pettiness to insulate ourselves from the problems of the outside world.

I intend to keep tabs on this nonsense as long as I post here.