Stardate 20010926.0923 (On Screen): People everywhere, to some extent, but Americans in particular are in love with cheap gestures. The idea is that you need to feel as if you're
doing something but you don't really want to do much. So you rationalize that by doing something small, if accompanied by millions of your fellows, that the result will be big anyway. Or by doing something small, you can inspire
someone else to do something big, and then you can take moral credit for what they did. That's why people fall for chain letters that say "If you forward this to others you can help the plight of women in Afghanistan" and similar crap. It's a small gesture and it might help, right? (
Well, no.) The main result actually turns out to assuage that person's conscience; now they've
done something, so they no longer have to feel guilty.
You know where I think a lot of this comes from? Political polls. People have gotten in the habit of having their opinions felt in Washington just by thinking them. If enough people think like me, the pollsters will pick up on it and communicate for me to Washington, even if they don't call me specifically. I can effect political change just by sitting on the couch watching TV and thinking to myself; I don't have to write letters or call my congressman; I don't have to get involved in demonstrations. Just by being, I am doing. Nothing more is required of me.
I really wish people would get over that. Big change costs big effort and big money; really big change costs physical pain. World-class change costs lives. It's always been that way and it always will be. Ants do not move mountains by each one carrying only one grain of sand away and then calling it a day -- and they sure as hell don't do it by standing in a circle touching antennas together and wishing really hard that the mountain would vanish. I went out driving yesterday and saw American flags and patriotic banners hung on bridges over roads and highways all over the place. While I have nothing against the flag, I can't see what good that does. We're not going to win this war by waving flags. No-one has ever won a war by waving flags. (discussion in progress)
