Tag: social comment

Lying to Ourselves about Meredith Kercher

Along with most people on this planet, I don’t care who killed Meredith Kercher.  (Took a nanosecond to remember her, didn’t it?)  It’s a shame that a young, promising life was snapped off suddenly and violently before it had a chance to begin, but after that, I’m done.  It sounds pretty callous but I’m only saying what most people would, given a moderate dose of sodium pentathol.  It’s increasingly apparent that the victim is not the focus here.  At best, she rates a sentence or two in the 24/7 media cycle, but mostly it’s just her name and sometimes not even that.  I don’t wish to denigrate anyone’s tragic loss but the facts remain.  Nor am I here to defend or decry the cable news carnival that’s the attending physician at the resurrection of this four-year-old news story.  Like most people, if they were honest, I have no problem with tabloid news.  I think they’re scummy, but Rupert Murdoch and Oprah Winfrey didn’t get to be gabillionaires by denying the people what they want.  The thing I’m concerned about is not justice or integrity but honesty.

To even the casual observer, it’s obvious somebody’s been lying in Perugia, Italy.  I know very little about the original crime or the case against the accused, but when there are two conflicting versions of a murder, I’m old enough to know it’s not just a difference of opinion.  Ever since Cain forswore brotherly love and did the nasty to Abel, people have been trying to weasel their way out of murder charges; that’s to be expected.  Therefore, at this point, there’s no way to get at the truth.  It’s locked in the hearts of 3 or 4 of the players in this tragic little opera, and I don’t think the justice system has the key.  Honesty has left the building, and it’s now only in the eye of the beholder.

There is one truth coming out of this case, though, which is far less complicated.  It’s becoming abundantly clear that it’s the beholders who are lying.  They are confessing (on and on and ever again) that their only interest in an appeal trial in a minor Italian capital is purely to see justice done – one way or the other.  This is a lie.  At best, it’s flimsy sleight-of-hand to cover a perverse peek into a torrid tale of sex, drugs and death.  At worst, it’s an excuse to watch the ultimate reality show that doesn’t have any producers or directors and only one immunity challenge.

I have no problem with people going touristing on the slightly sleazy side.  We all do it.  That’s why we watch Dexter, Breaking Bad or CSI (in its infinite incarnations.)  Nor do I think that people should not be titillated by the sordid goings-on of folks who’ve dropped their moral compass.  We all do that, too.  In its mildest malevolent form, it’s called gossip.  We justify indulging ourselves in these things in any number of ways.  We bend, stretch and twist the truth when we present our motivations to the world.  It’s an accommodation to our ego.  We need to be seen by others as good people.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  However, I think there should be a modicum of honesty involved – if not to the folks around us, at least to ourselves in the cold dark soul of 4 o’clock in the morning.  We need to be self aware.  When we start lying to ourselves, we have a problem.

The unintended tragedy of this murder case is we’ve lost sight of the victim, and without a victim, there is no real crime.  It loses its seriousness.  Guilt or innocence become a matter of conjecture — regardless of the evidence — and the crime itself becomes secondary.  In this case, the on-again/off-again perpetrator has taken centre stage because this is where our interest lies.  But we cannot admit this.  If we do, we become nothing more than sleazy voyeurs, peering through a slightly open window.  So we dress it up as an altruistic search for justice.  However, by losing the face of Meredith Kercher, we’ve inadvertently revealed that it’s the tawdry details we seek, not some moral resolution.  As we watch the circus of justice play out in our living room, we need to admit this — if to nobody else but ourselves.

Complaining: A New Generation

It’s been over three months since the overprivileged young people of Vancouver staged a reenactment of Last Tantrum in Paris on the streets of my city.  Unfortunately, last June’s Stanley Cup Riot has not faded into history.  The mayor, police chief and various media outlets are keeping it alive by miraculously growing extra fingers to point in all directions.  Incredibly, there still haven’t been any criminal charges filed but most ordinary folks around here don’t want any more cheese with that whine: they’re tired of it.  Only a few of us at the time who realized this was going to be Inspector Clouseau meets the Keystone Kops.  However, it’s starting to surprise me that some people are still surprised that our oh-so- caring/sharing local government is wandering around the halls of power clueless on this one.  Frankly, it’s no secret our elected elite couldn’t pour chardonnay from a boot — with the instructions clearly printed on the heel.  But enough about that; I have different fish to fry.

Ever since our sons and daughters took it upon themselves to drag their city’s international reputation through the mud, I’ve been wondering why.  I deal with my fair share of young people (basically the under-30 crew) and aside from their unholy sense of entitlement, I’ve always thought they weren’t particularly different from any other generation.  They strike me as enthusiastic, full of energy and ideas.  They generally work hard at what they do.  For the most part, they’re polite and take their society seriously.  They have their share of doubts and make mistakes – but don’t we all?  Personally, I think they’re a little smarter than we were at that age and if not more mature, at least more realistic.  After all, we thought if we just calmly explained things to the idiots running the world, they’d shape up and fly right.  Today’s youth is under no such illusion.

However, after conscientiously listening to young people for the last three months — in an effort to understand what snapped last June — I’ve discovered a substantial difference between this generation and pretty much every other one that’s come before it.  These folks are constantly bitching.

Don’t take my word for it.  Check it out.  Grab anybody who can’t realistically remember the Berlin Wall, buy them a coffee, and I guarantee you — within 20 minutes — max — they’re going to have something nasty to say.  Actually, it’ll probably start at the counter with the quality of service, which seems to be the bane of every young person’s existence.  If you get through that, I don’t care whether the conversation is about science, art or commerce, before the Starbucks is finished, they’ll be complaining about something.  And whatever you do, don’t get tangled up in politics because Hell isn’t big enough to hold half their wrath on that subject – and that’s on both sides of the aisle.  Nor does the discussion have to be about matters of great import.  If you want to get a real earful, try talking about television, or gardening or the smartphone they’ve been texting with under the table.  In fact, technology is one of their major complaints.  It’s almost as if they’re having a Sicilian blood feud with digital innovation.  I have yet to find anybody young enough to actually work a smartphone, who isn’t already mad at it.

Young people seem to see every social encounter as an opportunity to complain.  They spend most of their waking hours dissatisfied, and this isn’t just disaffected youth; these people are serious about it.  At a time in life when everything should be bright and beautiful, this generation is in a perpetual state of pissed off.  It’s as if they believe the bumps and grinds of everyday living were put on this earth to vex them.  Everything from the economic downturn in Europe to the old lady who won’t pick up after her dog is a personal affront.   Mick Jagger got more satisfaction, for God’s sake!

I don’t have any idea where this comes from or why it’s particular to today’s youth, but it strikes me as completely contrary to Mother Nature’s way of doing business.  Old people are supposed to grump around, grousing about everything that crosses their path.  Young people are supposed to be flexible and shrug everything off — because they’re too busy dancing and singing and ringing in the new.  This generation seems to be so high strung (and for no apparent reason) dogs whine when they whistle.  I’ll tell you one thing, though: somebody better give these people a tickle pretty soon, or by the time they get to be my age, there’s going to be no living with them.

The Necessity of Success

I’m tired of success not being an option.  There’s a gathering idea in our society that, no matter what we do, there are certain things we’re just going to have to live with.  This attitude has been floating around our world like an airborne social virus for some time.  However, recently, like its contagious cousin the flu, it’s become a regular feature of our everyday life.   (Remember, not so many years ago, when we didn’t have to make the annual pilgrimage to get stabbed against a recurring seasonal disease?)  My point is that more and more people are thinking that successful solutions to our problems are just so many Chimera, wandering in herds in the distance.  We can vaguely see them out there, but we don’t actually believe they exist.

For example, my city has an outrageous drug problem.  I’m not talking about Carol, Bob, Ted and Alice getting together, rolling a joint after dinner and watching The Hangover on Blu-ray.  The stuff going on here is life threatening.  It’s destroying people — wholesale.   Entire neighbourhoods are falling down stoned, and they can’t get up.  It’s a complex situation that just begins with a Hydra-headed set of problems and then gets worse.  But the major obstacle that prevents us from reclaiming our city and its people from drug dealers and criminals is our own attitude toward drug abuse.  The prevailing wisdom is that there will always be people who abuse drugs – full stop.  Therefore, any strategy (we don’t even call them solutions anymore) we attempt to deal with our drug problem has got to be based on that one overwhelming fact.  And make no mistake: that fact does overwhelm us.  We have never taken the long-term view that we must focus our energies on eradicating drug abuse and the soul eating misery it causes.  Instead, year after year, we expend our limited resources trying to mitigate the here and now effects of individual drug use.  We do this because there will always be people who abuse drugs – full stop.

Similarly, because of our mild climate, my city has more than its fair share of homeless people.  I live in one of the most affluent countries in all of history, yet as incredible as it seems, we still have people — who are, but don’t want to be — homeless.  Meanwhile, across the street from Shopping Cart Estates we’re building six-storey condo units, as fast as we can pour the concrete.  We have the wealth, equipment and expertise, yet our chances of solving the homeless crisis in this country are as bleak as a northern Manitoba winter. (No offence, Herb Lake.)  Why?  Because once again, we simply don’t have the will to solve the problem.  It’s long since been decided that the destitute among us must be warehoused in urban atrocities called “social housing”; either that, or they will naturally remain part of the landscape.  So, since there’s never enough “social housing,” the attitude (although nobody ever out and out says it) is, “Ain’t it awful!  You can come and see us for some blankets next winter, but sorry, buddy: you’re on your own.”

In that same vein, there is more poverty in this country now than ever before, but instead of helping poor people get on the Gravy Train, we’re throwing money out the window at them, as we go by.  And the kicker is, after forty years of The Just Society, we know it doesn’t work.  Our attitude seems to be that people who have enough to live on have somehow taken that money away from people who don’t, and they must give it back.  This is not a solution.  We’ve just hired a bureaucratic Robin Hood to maintain the status quo and perpetually keep the poor on the cutting edge of down and out.  It’s an unfortunate fact, but robbing employed Peter to pay unemployed Paul is only good in the short term.  Eventually, given that trickle down, neither one of them is going to be eating regularly.

These are just three examples.  There are hundreds more.

The problem is, as a society, we no longer believe we can succeed – at anything.  We don’t think we can identify a problem, agree on a solution, turn our collective strength to that purpose, and with resolve and hard work, solve it.  We are becoming convinced that our problems are permanent and our best course of action is to throw money at them promiscuously in the futile hope they won’t get any worse.  That’s why, for example, we waste our time and resources looking for terrorist bombs instead of terrorist bombers.  We don’t believe we can win the War on Terror, so the next best thing is to minimize the damage.  It’s why our kids have become fat, dumb and unhappy.  It’s why we’re choking on our own waste and why Climate Change is going to make Armageddon look like a Wiener Roast gone wrong.  And it’s why, if we don’t change our attitude tomorrow, over breakfast, things are going to get a lot worse.

Here’s the deal.  We’re it.  We can’t shuffle our problems off anymore and there’s nobody left to download them to.  We need to succeed because, if we don’t, the consequences will be terrible.  We can do this.  It’s not hard, but success must become our first choice again.  As Galadriel said to Frodo, “This task was appointed to you, Frodo of the Shire.  If you do not find a way, no one will.”