The TV was on a U.S. news show as I hopped on the treadmill for my daily bit of exercise at the local gym.  A story came on that was entitled:  ”Do you shoot first (that would be a gun) and ask questions later? The “journalist” (I’m choking on this description) was dramatic and officious in his telling of the story. You could see the false concern exude from every insincere pore on his face as he masterfully “worked” the audience.

Apparently, a woman was afraid as an intruder attempted to enter her home. And, she probably was justified in her fear. So, as she talked to 911, she took out a gun and shot the intruder dead, then feverently prayed to God to send him to heaven. And the good news for her is that she will never be questioned in court or held accountable for his murder due to protective state laws. The part that really gets to me is that the reporter then continued to ask stupid questions like, “Wouldn’t you do the same?” and “Isn’t this what our rights are all about?” He then provided a list of states in which you can protect and kill someone who is threatening your property or person and not experience any consequences. PERMISSION GIVEN!

The problem is that for many people, the media’s quick and quib sound-bite type of news is the single authority that they look to for their information and guidance. No discussion on the pros and cons of such a rash act. No discussion about alternatives or prevention (like locking your door). No deeper understanding of what is going on.  Rather than telling someone to “just shoot”, shouldn’t the media take responsibility to encourage people to THINK about the situation first, rather than jumping to what this reporter assumed was the right answer? After all, the reporter concluded,  ”The young man that was shot and killed had a drug charge against him”. Justification enough!

In my mind the media should assume the responsibility to properly present a story to make people think about the implications of the stories they present.  As news, it should not pass judgement or promote one side of issue or another (that would be editorialism not journalism).  When so many people rely on getting the truth from the news media and use it as their source of what is socially and culturally appropriate (makes you sad right?) and these people never engage in a full discussion on implications and consequences, or take the time to investigate further, the media (and whoever owns that media) can easily manipulate ignorant and trusting people to believe the issue is black and white -with no shades of gray.  Our news of the past decades had some integrity and grit, where investigative journalists took people to new levels of thinking and understanding.  Now, our news has a goal of entertaining not education.

With levels of literacy so low these days, the capacity of people to discern good from bad, truth from fantasy is limited. A vast majority of the media choose a less noble role to play by preying on and perpetuating the ignorance of people.

The media is not to take total blame, though they have a huge impact o creating culture. We allow this to happen when we neglect our personal responsibility to invest the time and effort to educate ourselves and cultivate our capacity to develop wisdom.

A colleague asked me if I believe humans evolved from apes or if a “supreme being” created humans in their current form. I was surprised by this question, as I assumed the evidence supporting evolution was pretty strong and obvious. From Darwin’s studies and publication of “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, it was clear that adaptation was a vital part of how species survive.  We often hear people misinterpret Darwin by believing that “survival of the fittest” means physical fitness or brute strength.  What Darwin was really talking about was “life fitness”.

Life fitness is the ability to accurately assess your situation and adjust or adapt your capacities to match the environment.  Whether it is the physical environment (life or death survival) or cultural environment (social and emotional survival), as humans, we need to be able to understand our position in any given situation.  To do this, we need to be able to see the world as it really is and not a world of “illusion”. It is quite uncomfortable for many of us to want to clearly see what is going on let alone strive for it.  We opt for “comfort” and “positivity” rather than striving for truth.  We deny or pretend it can’t really be as bad as it is, and choose to ignore humanity’s failures or remain willfully ignorant of them – genocide, fraud, corruption, infatuation with celebrities or heroes, schooling designed to control our thinking and lives.  The rise of “positive psychology” has been a response to our need to feel good. Television and media catering to the “mindless” has been a response to our laziness and need for “escaping responsibility”.  Both these tendencies cost us the ability to see the truth.  So until we face the truth, we have no capacity to adapt in wise ways.

I was for a long time a “product” of my schooling. I rolled off that production line as well as anybody could have.  The kind of schooling I received as I grew up, was a product of the beliefs and understandings of the existing culture.

Culture is the “environment” one grows in – at times nourishing and at times (many times) it causes us to overly prune and shape one’s direction and amount of growth to conform to the “pot” one lives in.  And I was what I consider “overly pruned”.  But here’s the sad part about my own early schooling, after my teachers(some of whom were very good) quit pruning me to fit properly into the prevailing culture of the time, I took over from them! In my ignorance, lacking the capacity to develop disciplined, independent thinking and a deep level of inquiry, I continued stumping my own growth and continually pruned myself to conform to what I thought I should become. 

I turned out to be no more than a manager and technician of beliefs and practices designed to perpetuate the status quo.  My questions were not rewarded and I experienced the wrath of my principal many times for introducing “off limit” topics.  My schooling had nothing to do with building capacity to think on my own or adapt to complex challenges. This was a system that pumps out people who may be able to solve a given math problem using equations and formulas, but have no idea how the formula was developed, lacking the ability to see beyond the surface – to what’s underneath. This was a system of schooling that teaches us that we are workers and consumers not citizens, because it has been overly influenced by the elite of the corporate and industrial world. This was a system that is based on pumping out widgets for a factory world that no longer exists.

In my later years, I have focused on de-constructing some of the learning I have experienced from my early “schooling” and taken advantage of life learning by travelling, stretching myself through extensive reading of diverse fields of study across cultures, time and fields of endeavour. I have taken responsibility for educating myself.  I have learned the value of deep inquiry and the value of challenging a culture of comfort, laziness, ignornance and reliance on others to make our decisions.  I have fallen in love with angry but truth-seeking prophets such as Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Howard Zinn and John Taylor Gatto,  I have sought out and found wise mentors who also seek truth and embrace reality (as messy as it is). I feel liberated and strong in this new kind of learning. I am hungry for more.