Some Truisms Aren’t True!

poverty

Our world is full of pseudo aphorisms — all widely accepted and all utter crap.  For the most part, they’re harmless, even cute.  But lately they’ve been creeping into our fundamental thinking — causing trouble — and distorting our ability to handle problems.

For example, whoever said “There’s honour among thieves” obviously hadn’t met many thieves.  This is a truisms that simply isn’t true.  Thieves steal things; that’s their job.  When there’s no one else about, they will steal from each other.  Haven’t you ever seen The Sting?  “Honour among thieves” suggests that there’s some kind of a Rogue’s Code out there that governs the little bastard who stole your iPhone™.  There isn’t!  He doesn’t belong to a fleet-footed fraternity of contemporary Robin Hoods, dedicated to redistributing technology to the less fortunate.  The only creed he lives by is economics – straight up and down.  He stole your phone for money: that’s it!  We attribute a modicum of honour to his profession because most of us simply can’t fathom an ordinary person following a moral compass that doesn’t have a dial.  However, the reality is the gentleman thief is a fiction, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law to amuse his Victorian friends.  Unfortunately, it has somehow gotten stuck to our psyche, with disastrous results.  And it’s not the only one.

There is a general misunderstanding that poor people have a moral leg up on the rest of us.  It is widely believed that if you are struggling to make ends meet, you’re absolutely bursting with integrity.  Not only that, but if, for whatever reason, you jump off the moral balance beam, the assumption is you were forced into it by an unforgiving society.  Let me set the record straight.  People who take the early bus to menial, minimum wage (or below) jobs do not necessarily have either honesty or empathy hardwired into their DNA.  Yes, they are working hard and, quite probably, getting the shaft on a daily basis, but I doubt very much that moral intrepidity is based on an unfavourable income tax bracket.  The “Poor but honest” stories we all grew up on are wonderful tales for children.  However, unless you’re seriously into economic profiling, there’s no reason to believe that poor people are any less corruptible than your average middle-class, 80K-a-year systems technician (No offence, systems technicians!)

These are just two examples of truisms that simply aren’t true.  There are piles more.

Our society has some serious problems, and most of us sincerely want to fix them.  Unfortunately, we’re never going to come close as long as we keep using mythology as our starting point.

The Oscars Are Old!

oscars

This year, the Oscars have snuck up on me because – uh – well — for the first time in living memory, I don’t really care. This isn’t a sudden revelation: it’s been building for a few years.  Oscar and I are just not that into each other anymore.  It’s sad to lose a lifetime lover, but we’ve grown apart, Oscar and I, and I’m probably going to spend the evening playing with my new friends on Netflix.  So what happened?  Oscar got old.

I’ll grant you I’m no spring chicken, myself.  I can clearly remember the night Oliver, a piece of junk musical, beat The Lion in Winter, for Best Picture – what a shock!  But that’s what Oscar used to be – wild and unpredictable.  It was magic.  It was fun, and everybody wanted to know who won.  These days, despite its chiseled abs and perky breasts, Oscar is old enough to be my grandfather and acts the part.

Let’s face it: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have become a bunch of dithering old people, worried about what the neighbours will think.  Look at all the dicking around over Kevin Hart.  Why does this remind me of Shady Acres Care Facility?
“Okay, fine!  If Mrs. Crabtree can’t run the rummage sale, then I guess we just won’t have a host this year.  Satisfied?”
Plus, there’s the on-again/off-again Popular Picture Award and the bickering over which awards do or do not deserve television time.  God, folks!  Get over yourselves!  Nobody cares!  Ordinary people tune in to Oscar night for the Big Six and wade through the rest because of the dresses.  Here’s a newsflash: there’s only one person who remembers who won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 2010 and that’s Nicolas Schmerkin – the guy who won.

The problem is, like old people everywhere, the Academy just doesn’t realize it’s old.  It’s still thinks it’s Ava Gardner-glamourous with oysters and champagne, but what the rest of the world sees is Meryl Streep, drinking low-fat Chablis and blathering on about the intestinal benefits of ancient grains.  The Oscars are too earnest, too political, too aware, and too damn grouchy to be magic anymore.  They’re not fun.  They’re scolding.

So I’m going to give them a miss for all those reasons and mostly because — ever since The Hurt Locker — Oscar has become totally predictable.

Good luck, Black Panther – you haven’t got a chance!

Popular Culture — Temporary Truth

pop culture

Pop culture is to culture what water is to granite: write your name in water and see how long it lasts.  But, eventually, even the mightiest carved granite tablet will be worn away by rivers of water.  Pop culture might be trivial and easily forgotten (I’m looking at you, Beanie Babies) but while it hangs around, it can change the way we think.  For example, for 99% of human history, a person had to work hard to be universally hated – mass murder usually did the trick.  Enter the Internet.  These days, all anyone has to do is disagree with Twitter once too often and they’ll find themselves on the business end of a Cybermob, howling for their blood.  Here are just a few other examples of how Pop Culture has changed our perceptions.  There are many, many more.

Look what happened to clowns!  Back in the day, clowns were fun.  They were colourful.  They were silly.  They had big feet and made balloon animals.  They hosted TV programs and were everybody’s first choice for their child’s birthday party.  They even advertised fast food.  Then, in 1986, along came Stephen King.  BAM!  Suddenly, clowns became evil.  And not just regular evil, either — eat-your-eyeballs evil!  Now, everybody’s afraid of clowns as if humans have always had a deep, primeval fear of painted faces.  We even have one of those meaningless psychobabble names for it – coulrophobia.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, vampires were created to scare the hell outta people.  They were the creatures whose very existence broke the laws of God and nature.  They were the secret horror that lurked behind us in the dark, thirsty for our souls.  Wow!  What a difference a generation makes!  Anne Rice and a couple of million imitators have turned vampires into that kinda odd, undead guy next door.  Vampires play video games and Monopoly, and aside from the nasty habit of wanting to feast on your blood, they’re no more dangerous than an angry Chihuahua.

For centuries, machines were our friends.  However, the prevailing wisdom of our time is that, one of these days, your laptop is going to become self-aware, leap up and slaughter you, the kids, your neighbour, your cousin and anybody else who gets in its way.  Apparently, this is the inevitable result of Artificial Intelligence.  Crap!  It’s too complicated to explain here, but trust me: there is no scientific proof for this, at all.  None!  It’s all based on recent science fiction books, television and movies.  Think about it!  My computer can’t even get Auto-Correct right; how the hell is it going to take over the world?

And finally, one of the best ones:

Of all the lame excuses in the history of lame excuses, sex addiction has got to be the lamest.
“Sorry, honey!  I slept with your brother, his best friend and Carl from work — cuz I’m a sex addict!”
“No, not all at the same time.  I’m not that addicted!”
I’m pretty sure sex addiction isn’t a real thing.  Mother Nature made us wanna have sex because that’s how we make more of us.  It’s next to impossible to be addicted to something that you’re biologically programmed to do in the first place.  It’s like saying, “I’m addicted to breathing.”  Contemporary culture made up sex addiction so we’d have someplace to hide when we act like emotional assholes.

My point is, be careful what you believe to be irrefutable truth because, as some Persian poet said, a thousand years ago, “This, too, shall pass.”