Escapist Nation: The Cultural Bias Against Reality

My lifelong sense of the oddness of the cultural bias against reality is becoming a more serious sense of concern. In a world that is increasingly complex, intermingled, populated, and subject to of destruction, I am not sure how much longer we can keep our heads in the sand -- and maintain a cultural preference for doing so -- without massive negative consequences. And it is perhaps more prevalent (and certainly more dangerous) in my own nation than in most parts of the world, which concerns me even more.

When I was a child, I found the idea that storytelling was called "fiction" and the relating of facts was called "nonfiction" to be very, very odd. The default mode of communication, this seemed to indicate, was non-fact. That seemed awfully backward to me. The idea that reality was viewed as non-something was mind-boggling. At the time, I figured there must be some reason that I didn't get it. Over time, I have come to see that it wasn't me that didn't get it. It is the general state of humanity that is confused about priorities.

Here's another backwards set of words: theist versus atheist. People who believe in invisible magical beings who supposedly violated known laws of physics in the past (but are somehow conveniently unwilling to do so now) are considered the norm. But people whose view of the world is based on the things that we can see and prove are considered so horrible that there are even states where they are not allowed to serve in public office. Convicted criminals are okay, but people who base their worldview on reality are not. How backwards is that?

As someone who has researched and written about historical subjects, and been involved in their preservation, I have become all-too-aware of the lack of respect for fact -- that is, reality -- among the general readership and even among the authors of historical works. Standards for factuality in my own area of study -- lighthouses -- are hideous. The reason that I try not to make public comments about other lighthouse authors is because it is very difficult to find nice things to say (Tom Taylor was one of the exceptions, and he was taken from us before he gained widespread readership). This lack of concern for fact -- or even a preference for fiction -- is, unfortunately, even present in the volunteers who regularly interact with the public at historic sites. What tour guides quickly learn is that fantastic stories "sell" better than most real history. While this is certainly a criticism of docents who do not stick to established facts, it is more a comment on the cultural information market that leads them astray.

If we combine the subjects of the previous two paragraphs, I hope you'll see why I consider religious historians to be inherently untrustworthy. What can call one's judgment regarding historical fact more into question than believing mythology collections to be historical tomes?

In the field of writing, those who produce fiction tend to be more highly esteemed, and marketable, than those who discern, assemble and relate facts and truth. I first gained some level of notoriety for my writing skills when I wrote some fictional works as a child. I won a couple of awards in school and attracted some attention from schoolmates with these writings. To gain notoriety as a nonfiction writer, even at a regional level, took many years of study, discipline, and practice. Yet many people -- especially fiction writers -- do not even consider writers of non-fiction to be "real writers." How's that for irony?

Do we even need to go into movies or television? In both media, documentaries are the stepchildren of the industry.

Who do we idolize in culture (pun intended, by the way)? People who sing made-up stories and professional fakes (we call them "actors") who act out stuff that not only never happened, but often is physically incapable of happening.

Awards shows? Look at the ratings of the Oscars, for example, versus the Nobel Prize broadcasts? What's that? You've never seen the Nobel Prize ceremonies on television? Thank you.

How about looking at amusement parks versus museums? Museums are rarely commercially viable, while amusement parks are often cash cows.

It's great to be optimistic. Even being pessimistic is okay. But go ahead and try being realistic and see where that lands you in society (see the third paragraph in this post).

I do wonder if we are starting to realize (pardon the pun) this problem at some level. We now have "reality" TV shows, which may allow us to pretend that reality is important, while still allowing us to avoid reality. Heck, if you're watched a reality TV show or two in one week, you're entitled to some good old-fashioned entertainment, right? In the real world, of course, MTV producing a show called "The Real World" is about as oxymoronic as you can get.

Americans, and humans overall, are better natural storytellers than historians. But I would argue that "are" and "should" are vastly different conditions.

All of this, at this point in my life, causes me great concern. I suspect that as long as American Idol gets better ratings than Nova, more Americans can name Oscar winners than Nobel winners, and Disney World gets more visitors than the National Archives, the US will continue to slide away from its former leadership position in the world. After all, how can (and should!) we expect people to look up to a society that values fantasy above reality?

XXX

The Genius and Courage of Charles Darwin

Darwin's genius is really understood by very few people. He was obviously a great biological observationist and thinker, and fathered one of the most successful fields of science in the history of mankind. But he is under-appreciated. He really should eclipse Einstein as the pre-eminent thinker model. His work was, in many ways, more successful.

Here are a couple of things about Darwin that probably very few people realize...

The idea of evolution pretty much predicted DNA (as a physical way of transmitting data between generations). With an understanding of DNA, evolution makes much more sense than it did before we knew how traits were passed along from generation to generation. The fact that Darwin figured it out WITHOUT knowing the mechanism is impressive.

Evolution also required more time to explain the world than the age of the solar system, as it was believed to be at the time. In fact, Lord Kelvin believed the sun was only -- if I remember right -- tens of millions of years old, and that was not long enough to explain the current state of life on earth. I have read that this troubled Darwin. Well, Chuck, it turns out that you were not only write about biology, you nailed cosmology, as well. We now know, through the benefit of our much greater abilities to measure and calculate both huge and tiny quanitities of matter and energy, that the solar system is over 4 billion years old. And that works just right with Darwin's observations.

So even without knowing the mechanism for biological evolution, and with his work conflicting with the work of the era's greatest physicists, Darwin got it right. That not only requires genius, but courage.

Life With Judy: The Incomplete Life

First, a little background for those of you who may not know about my sister, who lives with me and my wife: Judy is my big sister. She's 22 years older than me -- 67 -- and has suffered from birth with a developmental disability. That is, her brain did not develop "normally." She is rather high functioning, though; enough so that she understands her disability and feels the frustration and anger for not being able to live a "normal life." She lacks the freedom to make many of her own choices in life. Although Diane and I do what we can to give Judy a myriad of experiences, there is no way to ever give her the life that she might dare to dream of.

One of the things that Judy used to talk about when she was young, and I was a little kid, was getting married and having a family. She wanted the sort of fairy tale wedding/babies story that little girls dream of. This was never something that she could have -- and perhaps she knew that deep inside -- and I suspect that is a big part of the anger and frustration that she lives with.

She has been watching The Bachelor on television (SEE NOTE). Tonight, there is a wedding on the show (Jason and Molly, I believe). They are having a huge, facetious, Hollywood-type wedding and Judy is watching it. I was sitting next to her on the couch with the laptop (which I have now moved to the kitchen) when I looked over and remembered how much she wanted something like that. I became both sad and angry at once. To say "it's not fair" would be the grossest understatement, but I also understand the reality of biological life, the tenuousness of what we call a normal human life. Some people just get screwed in DNA's quest to replicate itself. My sister is one such person.

I suspect that the life-long torture of my sister has had some influence on my religious views. While it is true that from a rational, fact-based point of view, I simply find no evidence for any of the many gods various human tribes have proposed, I also find it even harder to believe that there could be any sort of loving super-sky-daddy. Call it the Problem of Evil, if you will (Check out the first episode of Mr. Deity on YouTube). I can't imagine anything more twisted, sick and evil than the sorts of physical deformities -- don't forget that developmental issues are physical deformities -- that are imposed upon innocent children. I've watched my sister's torment for my entire life -- you can cram your "loving god" fairy tale up your ass.

Having pets in the house -- a dog,cats, and parrots -- helps to make Judy feel more like she is in the midst of a family and keeps her occupied. She babies the cats, especially. I think she had long had a sort of mother complex about me, too, which is why it was such a tough adjustment for my wife. Judy probably felt displaced to some extent and gave her hell for quite some time, blaming Diane for any problems ("Everthing was fine until Diane showed up" was one of her many angry, barbed attacks). It must be tough for Judy to be at the mercy of me and Diane. We do what we can for her, but there's only so much of the void we can fill.

The show will be over in a few minutes. When it is done, I'll go sit with Judy for a little while and talk with her before she goes to bed.

XXX

NOTE: I don't like her to watch what I would consider "White Trash TV," but I try to walk the fine line between looking out for her and micromanaging her life.

Waiting For Pat Robertson...

Well, it has been a few days now and still no word from Pat Robertson why his god gave Chile an earthquake. I think I have it figured out, but I'd really like to hear his opinion.

If there's one thing that his god (the Abrahamic God) has little regard for, it is women (SEE NOTE 2). And guess what gender the President of Chile is? Yes! A female! And what is worse than a female? Yes! An educated one! And what happens when people become educated? Yes! They tend to become agnostic! An educated, agnostic woman as a democratically-elected President!? It's no wonder they are being punished!

Given the fact that Chile's earthquake was much more powerful than Haiti's, one must suspect that that god finds an educated agnostic woman president much more offensive than a nation making a pact with the devil for freedom. Sure, you could argue that the stronger buildings in Chile required much greater energy to topple than those in Haiti, but that's thanks to man-made building codes (said the building code enforcement official), not some scriptural edict (This also brings up the subject of gross destructive intent versus net destructive intent, which I lack the theological background to properly address).

Anyway, if anyone has an "in" with our friend Pat and he has not figured out why his god put a whoopin' on Chile, you may want to pass along the info.

XXX

NOTE 2: Genesis lets it be known that women were only created because the animals weren't helpful enough for Adam (many more Abrahamic scriptural passages note the lowly state of femininity, but MySpace lacks the server capacity to address them all). It seems to me it would have been a more efficient move to just give dogs opposable thumbs, but I suspect to one day see a VH1 "Behind The Music" episode that reveals the real reason: That annoying little "erection" problem. Of course, Eve being created from Adam's own flesh does point to a sort of "go fuck yourself" attitude on the part of his god. You have to love deity humor that way.