America it is time to Grow Up

America, it is time to Grow Up.

This country is dealing with multiple crises at a time and rather than taking a serious posture of figuring how to best navigate these difficulties we are resorting to blaming, name-calling, and hoping for a Hollywood ending where the hero saves everyone and everything ends happily ever.

I have cited the book Amusing Ourselves to death by Neil Postman as a great resource for helping us to understand why we are in the space we are today. Postman said that the death of culture will be a society that sees everything as a source of entertainment.

If it isn’t obvious to you yet, we’re already past that point. It appears that many Americans have decided to create a fantasy land with heroes and villains in order to dissociate from the painful truths that surround us.

“There is nothing wrong with entertainment. As some psychiatrist once put it, we all build castles in the air. The problems come when we try to live in them.” — Neil Postman, Amusing ourselves to Death

For the last 15 years or so it feels as if Americans have been trying to live in castles in the sky. We’re no longer electing Presidents. We’re now electing Messiah/Heroes who will save us from the Red or Blue Villains and these Messiah/Heroes will fix all of our problems and the bad guys will die.