The War on Science Gets Scarier

[chervilant]

In case you haven't seen the clip referenced in the comment below, it is currently posted on Crooks and Liars (September 19, 2007: The War on Science Gets Scarier, http://www.crooksandliars.com/). Please view the clip before you read my comment. If you can help me see the merit in continuing my advocacy for our increasingly disappointing species, please tell me quick.


276 Chervilant Says:
Jeff @ 73:

"the women on the view are actually typical american women, which is why american women watch it. so this should not be surprising at all."

Words are insufficient to describe my astonishment regarding this clip. Having read about a fourth of the comments (through the indefensible one quoted above), I can only conclude that the vast majority of our species is either functionally illiterate or slavishly devoted to whatever religious perspective helps them mitigate their fears and/or justify their hate. Oh, hell, probably both!

Apparently, ignorance IS bliss. I am currently pursuing an accelerated teacher’s certification, and had to take college algebra this past summer. When Bush commuted Scooter’s sentence, I asked all my classmates how they felt about it–-NOT ONE KNEW ABOUT IT. Worse, NO ONE was familiar with Scooter Libby’s role in outing Valerie Plame, nor had they followed his trial, the outcome, or Bush’s reprehensible commutation. “I don’t care about that shit,” one of them sniffed.

At a training session this past Saturday, I asked the members of my cohort if they knew what was transpiring in DC that day. NOT ONE KNEW ABOUT THE PROTEST!!! After a bit of nervous shuffling, one of the women at my table shifted the focus to her husband’s safe return from Afghanistan last April, and the entire group indulged in a patriotic “hooo-ahhh!” orgy over our military men and women.

Before next year is out, I will have relocated to a VERY rural location, where I can grow my own food and avoid human contact whenever possible.

BTW, FYI, Joseph Campbell and other theologians have identified two universals in our species’ spirituality: 1) virtually all of us express the belief that there is a Creator of this vast, awe-inspiring Universe; and 2) virtually all of us have a concept of a soul, with its requisite connectivity to said Creator. I believe everything else that has evolved (pun intended) into various religions is a product of our puny little bicameral, ego-driven minds.

[Mythsaje]

1. I hate to tell you this...

but my co-workers at Target seem to have a better grasp on this stuff than your classmates do. They might not know as much as I do about what's going on (except for a few exceptions) but they at least can grasp the repercussions of certain things when I bring them up. Even the 20 y.o. daughter of religious republicans understands how universal healthcare might be a good thing, or that the prison industrial complex might be a threat to America in the long run.


Hell, my thirteen year old son understands THAT much. He also thinks voter caging is a vile practice and that revealed religion is possibly the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the human race. The funny thing is that last year he didn't really have an opinion on religion, but he sure got one between that visit and the one this summer. I would have loved to have heard what his mother had to say to him on the subject. I'll have to ask her the next time I get the chance.

You can tell your classmates that Saje Williams said that they are apparently less informed and less aware of the state of the nation and the world than a slightly advanced 13 y.o.


:evilgrin:

[chervilant]

3. I admire

that you have the gonads to bring up "certain things." I've learned that such candor is quashed down here in The Lone Star State. Indeed, Avoidance Mode has become a fine art for most of the poor saps I encounter.

[Mythsaje]

5. Well, I DO live in the Pacific Northwest...

I suppose that does tend to make a difference. I'm fairly outspoken and growing more so all the time. Being something of a minor celebrity doesn't hurt either.

[nosmokes]

2. That woman is too stoopit to be alive. Really. She doesn't know if the world

is flat?

[chervilant]

6. Humanity's Mental, Intellectual, and Emotional

disconnect from reality (that I am addressing obliquely in this thread) is increasingly apparent to me. Thus, my query: is there ANY reason for me to continue my advocacy for humanity?

[H2O Man]

9. No.

No reason for that.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. Not really, except the whole "you're-one-of-us" thing.

I don't see any rational alternative to advocating for humanity, the environment and democrats.

[chervilant]

17. Well...

You got me there.

I was thinking along the lines of acquiring a modest amount of land in an isolated location, raising my own food (don't laugh, I've done it), and making art. Pretty durn selfish, huh?

[salin]

7. She says..."I've never thought about it..."

yikes! Education (science class, history class, etc. - the woman must have slept through middle school).

However the woman who said - that if the audience gave a collective gasp when the other lady said she didn't believe in evolution that they should note that four republican candidates for president said that they didn't believe in evolution and they should really gasp at that.

[charlie]

8. More than that...

She said she was too busy worrying about feeding her kids to think about it. Apparently, those kids have been a drain on her time since she was 5 years old. Whatta lame excuse.

[BootinUp]

11. lol.

She couldn't have been serious. I think she was trying to make a point that its not important enough to discuss.lol.

[xchrom]

4. i saw that clip and was stunned.

you don't want to believe that stuff could be true -- but there it is -- right before your lying eyes.

i stopped watching the view some time ago because i found it grating -- but this -- this was a national disgrace.

[Orsino]

12. The women on The View are rich, not typical...

...and promote exactly as much of the typical American woman's agenda as is profitable for their parent companies.

[chervilant]

13. Exactly...

And those of us who subsist on whatever income we're able to achieve in our vaunted "free market" economy aspire to be like them, no? Well, not this puppy!

I've found that if I question this, I get called a "commie pinko fag" and I'm invited to leave the USA, usually for some communist country destination.

How sad that these detractors cannot see what Marilyn French rather pedantically analyzed in 'BEYOND POWER': the descriptive terms may be different, but the economic behavior is precisely the same.

[BlooInBloo]

14. Direct link....

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/the-war-on-science-gets-scarier/

[BlooInBloo]

15. self-delete - wrong branch.

[BlooInBloo]

16. There's nothing Americans will fight harder for than their right to be stupid.

[MedleyMisty]

18. I don't believe in a creator

And am agnostic on the soul bit. I don't want to stop being me, but then I don't think any of us do and that's where the whole soul idea came from in the first place. But all that I am is in the firing of my neurons and my genes and all that, and when all that stops I'll probably stop too. Oh well - it's comforting because if there is nothing after death there won't be a me to know and it can't suck without someone experiencing the sucking.

I'd heard somewhere that it was the Golden Rule thing that was universal.

Anyway, yeah, most Americans are terribly ignorant. The educational system and the culture is designed to keep us that way. I struggle all the time with blaming people for their ignorance when it's not really their fault. We all tend to think that other people think the same way we do, and so I assume that they are consciously and autonomously choosing to be ignorant just like I choose to learn. And in a small way they are when they say, "I don't care about that." or "School is stupid." or "Only nerds read and write." or whatever. But there's so much behind that small decision that isn't their fault.

I've got to go do work stuff now. Talk to ya'll later.

[dysfunctional press]

19. i don't believe in a creator or a soul.

it's the people that DO believe that cause most of the problems.