WHY THIS COUNTRY IS DOOMED-The Macro and the Micro

I hope I am being facetious here but I am really worried about the future of this country and it’s not necessarily for the reasons that most people are worried. First let’s look at the macro picture.

Paul Krugman, another NYT writer that I respect immensely, recently had a column talking about the vote on the recently passed Waxman-Markey climate change bill. The bill passed the House by a narrow margin. The reason, as Mr. Krugman points out, is that there are a large number of elected representatives who actually reject the notion that something must be done to reverse the buildup of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, in other words, the whole notion of global warming. I was flabbergasted as I read this. At this point in time, 2009, when the evidence of global warming is so evident, being reported everywhere, here are men and women who purport to call themselves intelligent telling us they don’t believe in the concept of global warming. How did these people get elected to any position of responsibility? How can you take a single word that comes out of their mouths seriously?

As Mr. Krugman points out, these people aren’t just disputing one argument with another, they are wholly rejecting the idea that a crisis even exists. It’s absolutely unbelievable that stupidity of that magnitude is tolerated in the halls of Congress or anywhere else. If we as a nation are willing to put up with that kind of stupidity, we are doomed. The triumph of fundamentalism is anti-intellectualism. Someone is so afraid to admit they are wrong that they willfully choose ignorance and denial. That, to me, constitutes mental illness, and it is apparently rampant among our elected representatives.

Now, the micro picture. As I have said before I have a very unglamorous job as an inside consultant for an energy company. In plain and simple terms I am a telemarketer. Fine, hate me if you will. But I am not selling newspapers or magazines, I am selling energy efficiency. In effect, I am giving away money. For nothing, I will have someone come to your business and let you know if we can help you reduce your energy bills. But it is a very hard job, and it’s made harder by the fact that people consider it perfectly acceptable to be rude, and I mean terribly rude. They have a good time being rude.

If they would take 30 seconds and listen, my company could help them insure the viability of their business going forward. But just like the elected representatives they would much rather remain rude and ignorant. Asking them to think is just too much of a burden for them to bear. I don’t when the country took this turn or who raised the people I call, but this is not the way I was raised. My dad, God rest his soul, would have had no problem admonishing me in public if I displayed rudeness to anyone. As an adult, I learned that courtesy and respect are hallmarks of self respect. You cannot expect anyone to show you respect if you so clearly demonstrate that you don’t respect yourself or others. And yet, this is how the people I call conduct themselves. It’s a miracle they make dollar one. And don’t try to tell me that indications of this kind of rudeness aren’t reflected in other aspects of their lives. It has to come to the surface in other unsociable ways.

Now, I know that these people are pounded by cold callers all day and the market we are working in is the busiest in the world. But that is not an acceptable excuse. How do you expect society to function if people can’t at least be courteous to one another? The spirit of civility that used to be the norm in this country has evaporated. Will it ever come back, I don’t know. Maybe the country needs to go through another depression to discover its civil soul. Maybe when everybody is in the same boat and we realize that we all need each other to make this country function again, we’ll remember that civility matters.

I hope it doesn’t come to that. But at this point in time, I don’t hold out much hope for the immediate future because people prefer to be ignorant. That is actually the most distressing fact. There was a time in the world when you had no choice but to be ignorant. Knowledge was scarce. But this is 2009. The entire world’s knowledge is right at your fingertips. All you have to do is type and click. But people don’t want to do it. Their personal growth is limited by their lack of perception. Their world revolves only around their immediate needs, and change, the only constant in life, is something to be feared and disputed. God help us all.