Social Decay?
So the other day, I was sitting there dealing poker minding my own business, when I got this crazy idea. I looked at the broad spectrum of players on my table and thought, what a great time to do a little social experiment. We had the young man in his twenties with his face buried in a device, there was the farmer in his fifties who has worked for everything he’s got, a washed up drunk who has been a gambler all his whole life and probably on every government hand out he can get, and a few retired white females in the 50-60 range. This will be fun!
I sat there patiently waiting for the perfect time to inject some thought into the conversation. One of the ladies at the table asked the young man how he learned to play stud eight or better. He replied with a nice little story of how he came to play, and then I stepped in. I said “you know we are living in different times now. You can learn anything you want with the intranet. We have moved out of the industrial era and into the technology and information eras. With that comes societal decay.” From there the conversation started out calm and we started to exchange some ideas. The young man actually said some pretty smart things like “Its only societal decay because the majority of people are filling their heads with crap and misinformation.” I was a little shocked and pleased at his reply. So when the conversation shifted to the state of which our country is in, things heated up. The farmer busted out with “If we would just get back to the constitution things would be better.” This enraged the gambler, he replied with “You rednecks are the problem! The constitution was written when they used muskets for Christ sake! I’m tired of hearing about how bad Obama is, the Republicans are even worse! He went on for like 2 minutes about how bad Republicans are. Funny thing is, nobody said they were Republican! The two men started yelling back and forth to the point the gambler picked up his chips and left. During the conversation a new player sat down then left when he heard what the topic of discussion was.
What you have to consider here is all of this took place in about 8 minutes. It shows exactly where we stand as a country right now. Out of the eight people there, half stayed out of it, three were aware that things are not right, and one was a diehard democrat that really made no sense at all. The amount of time for things to get out of control amazed me! You could almost say society is like a time bomb right now. So let’s try applying this to a worst case scenario. Let’s say there is a bank run tomorrow. Does this sound like a society that will remain calm and help each other? I think not!
From where I stand we are in trouble folks! I fear we all can sense something is not right, but the answers tend to elude us. The number of people aware of what’s going on is very low. Those who are curious stay quiet and are afraid to ask questions. Most just don’t care yet, and by the time they do, it will be too late anyway. I often wonder if our society has ever been this divided before? Has it always been this way or are we witnessing our social decay?
Wood
Check out “The Pulse of the Nation” for more insight.
