The Right to be Stupid

The future of the Internet is in dispute, as you may have heard. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler and staff are working towards a policy that would give agency regulatory authority over how Internet traffic flows between Internet service companies and content.  President Obama is in support of net neutrality and against a proposal that would let companies buy modes to deliver content more quickly to their consumers. Basically it's the difference of treating the Internet like a utility or cable.  The important thing to know is that it's important and any time you ask yourself "How did this come to be" in regards to any medium, give yourself a history lesson about what went down between the government and the F.C.C. because it changes everything and therefore, this debate is a huge deal. 

Do I think that people know that or care?  I sure hope so, but I'm not sure.  Why?  Well, that brings me to my point. 

I believe that the Internet should be free in every sense of the word.  It should be a free market and it should be free of censorship.  Why?  Because it's our right and it is a slippery slope when you give anyone the power to govern your mind.  However, I must say, no matter how free I believe we should be to educate ourselves....we could use some practice. 

Whenever you are seeking information of any kind (books, television, the Internet) ideally, you should ask yourself two things:

 1.Is this making me a smarter person?

 2.Is this making me a better person?

Now you're free to make yourself dumber and less moral.  Your right to choose stupidity allows for my right to learn freely without governmental control, so I support you in your decision.  But I will tell you, you are only doing a disservice to yourself and your society by not caring about the quality of the content you're ingesting. 

How many people know what's going on in the world?  How many people have this free Internet and use it to look up statistics on political speeches or domestic violence rather than You Tube videos of cats flushing toilets or something equally as stupid?

There are a lot of things going on in the world that I feel hopeless about. I feel like no matter what I do, politics will suck and children will starve. Because I feel hopeless, I absolve myself for a while. I try to bury my head in the sand in my own life and not talk about my opinions with anyone else about things that actually matter. I worry about my own schedule, I work more hours, I read a book, and avoid the news....but something always haunts me. Instead of removing myself from the problem, I become part of the problem. I went to school for journalism and the news makes me sick; this makes me ill.  What makes me the most ill though is the amount of garbage that people care about instead. 

So then I care again.

I get it.  We are on overload and sometimes we just want to be left the hell alone and go into a hole where we are free to be a dumbass. We are bombarded with shitty information and crappy tabloid entertainment, so much of it that we can't decipher from the truth, trash, and propaganda. We feel hopeless.  We can't decide which issue to care about the most and so some of us choose to care about nothing, but this isn't ok and that's what some people in power are counting on.  Society has been dumbed down and we have allowed it and while I realize that I say nothing new in this post, I do say it again because it's depressing. As long as people give a crap what the Kardashians wore to last week's stupid pointless event but they can't tell you who is running for president, there is a problem and I feel like moving to another planet.  As long as people don't know that their Internet experience could be changing because of a policy they don't know about, well what the hell are we fighting for?  The freedom to watch cats flushing toilets may be a freedom, but my gosh it's depressing.  We really are better than that. 

Shouldn't we be concerned that watching some of this stuff takes zero brain power? The fact that you can sit and eat marshmallows while not blinking or moving with your mouth hanging open and still understand what's going on during a show....isn't that kind of disturbing? You should be engaged, no matter what you do and the fact that people have become engaged with something that would bore a chimp to death makes me feel very alone. Tabloids aren't entertainment, they're trash and a waste of time. Crappy reality TV.....you may as well go put on a dunce hat and sit in a corner with your thumb up your ass because you'd accomplish more. And to be honest, I really don't care who Taylor Swift might be talking about in her 53rd  breakup song, especially coming from a reporter who is supposed to be delivering the news.

I'm not even going as far as to say that I wish everyone would read the news every day and read a book rather than watch TV....but can't we just reject the absolute junk? What if every American decided that we are smarter and more capable than what they're telling us we are? Imagine a country where Honey Boo Boo isn't entertainment and following politics is. Or imagine a country where everyone knew how to read. Imagine a time where seeing a dysfunctional family on a reality show wasn't looked at as entertainment, but instead, sad. The fact that people are given attention for either having done nothing of importance or for doing something abhorrent has made me sick for years. I honestly don't want to damage another generation and I fear that it will get worse. 

My point of writing this isn't to be mean.  It's actually to say that we aren't meeting our potential. We as human beings and Americans are connected on a higher level. Our sense of community needs to be stronger and we need to understand that the big picture does directly have an effect on us and all of your seemingly tiny actions influence the big picture. Our country is in fact connected to the rest of the world. What we put in our minds and what we choose to do with our time DOES matter, every day. We are better than what we are choosing to do with our time. Critical thinking skills are important and we are failing to teach this to our children when we fail to use our own. Challenge your brain. If it's hard, go with that. Be engaged and lively. Choose to learn that new language. Read something inspiring that will change the way we live our lives and that will make us want to be a better person. Pick up a new hobby. We can choose the more intelligent but we have to say no to the garbage.

We have the freedom to be stupid and those who care about your right will protect it.  But what a waste.....