The Paradox

The world is changing and the pace of change is accelerating but for all that change, we have failed to make the world a better place. Instead we are building a bigger and bigger paradox, one that may eventually be too big for us to ever overcome.

We have more security all around us but are less safe and feel less secure. Violence is increasingly more random and less targeted.

We have more government but less satisfaction with how our nations are governed; increasingly higher taxes but more government debt and fewer government services.

We have more expensive and sophisticated educational opportunities but only teach students what, not how, to think.

We provide better clothes, more gadgets and expensive education  for our children because we love them but we spend less time with them. Instead, we fill their free time with play dates, organized sports, dance classes and other activities to replace the time we don't have for them.

We have more channels on television than ever before but less and less that is worth watching or remembering.

We have more opportunities to become informed but prefer simply to be entertained.

We have more mainstream news coverage but less actual news reporting. Truth is biased, controlled, edited, scripted, manipulated, massaged, distorted and often just ignored.

We have the ability to tweet, text, message, email and Skype to people all over the world but have less to say. We are in constant contact thanks to smart phones, iPads and laptops but feel more separation anxiety than ever.

We have converted the power of the Internet into a weak, mumbling, cluttered environment of gossip, spam, hucksterism, arrogance, racism, intolerance, self-aggrandizment and video games.

We have replaced real time with virtual time; real friends with virtual friends. We have the opportunity through the Internet to meet people around the world but inevitably present who we would like to be, rather than who we are, to them.

We defend traditional marriage even as we make it easier to walk away from one.

We have more ‘trends’ on social media but less critical thought in our lives; more information available to us but less objective analysis of what it means.

We can land a rover on Mars but cannot properly maintain our roads, sewers or other infrastructure. 

We can build an Olympic Village for the games in less than eight years but cannot replace dykes and housing in New Orleans in a decade or procure helicopters for the military in Canada in thirty years.

We have billions for election advertising but no money to overcome poverty, properly care for the elderly or combat child abuse.

Our cities are turning into gang war zones but delude ourselves into believing crime is decreasing even as we resist the need for tougher anti-crime measures or a rational discussion on the role of guns in our modern society.

We combat cigarette smoking with the fanaticism of zealots while promoting the operation of safe-injection and inhalation facilities for heroin and crack users.

We deplore the decline of spiritual and moral values in our societies but condemn faith in God and the teachings of the world’s major religions. We demand separation of church and state but expect our leaders to believe in God and to publicly practice their religion.

We have more information available to us but less ability or willingness to come to informed opinions.

We consider it greed for someone to want to keep the money they earned but not greedy to demand more of the money earned by others.

We promote free speech and freedom of expression while shouting down or preventing the voicing of opinions with which we disagree. We have the right to protest but reject it for the right to vandalize. We demand respect for our opinions and beliefs but show little of that same respect for the opinions and beliefs of those that offend us.

We have more technology than in all of recorded history but work longer hours to accomplish less.

We have more laws but less justice.

We have more material conveniences and products but less satisfaction with our lives.

We have more national wealth but even more poverty than ever before.

We are exposed through the Internet to more of the world than ever before but are less tolerant, more narrow-minded and polarized. Despite being connected globally, we have become provincial in our thinking, protectionist and xenophobic.

We are angry. We are frustrated and we are directionless. We cling to symbols we no longer honour enough to protect their true meaning. We are quick to condemn and slow to forgive. We are unhappy, insecure and anxious. 

We are governed by the cynical, the opportunists and fools and we blame each other for that rather than ourselves for continuing to support a system built on lies and half-truths. We have more politicians but less leadership; more political rhetoric but less strategic thinking or vision.

We spend more time talking than listening; more time arguing than uniting to overcome the challenges that confront us and  in the end, the great paradox is…..

….we don't understand why after all of this, nothing improves.

(This post was inspired by comments of the Dalai Lama and others, including Thomas Sowell, Ayn Rand, Carl Sagan and my three-year old grandson, each of whom have observed and commented in their own unique way about this road to perdition we now travel. My thanks to all of them for their insight which helped me clarify my own thoughts.)

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others