It's easy to
think that the world made up of a bunch of fucksticks. And while they are certainly out
there - you don't have to walk far to encounter all measure of idiots,
douchebags, ignoramuses, assmunches, morons and outright fucksticks - I posit
to you that perhaps people are generally more OK than all that, and that a lot
of the universal ill will we all have towards humanity may be mostly the result
of too much media consumption. Getting to know a person on a one-to-one basis
is a whole different ballgame than viewing humanity by means of the corrupted
goop that is spoon fed to us through screaming pundits and women's health
magazines and gas pump TVs and urinal ads.
As with a lot
of questions, you can figure out a lot by following the money. The media-industrial complex is not
public service; it's big business. Its one and only goal is to make money.
People are nuanced, complicated and (I'll go out on a limb; I think it's true)
generally thoughtful. But nuance, complication and thoughtfulness don't sell
stuff. What does sell stuff, and what is the basis for limitless reserves of
cash-suckage, are two of the fundamental underpinnings of human nature:
self-affirmation and schadenfreude. If you think along these lines, you'll see
how neatly just about everything that gets fed to you on TV or ads in the
subway conforms to this rubric by depicting nothing but the very most
fuckstickish back alley of humanity.
The emotion
that schadenfreude-based messages elicit are something along the lines of, wow,
I may be below average in terms of looks, intelligence, wealth, sex appeal,
marketable skills and personal hygiene - and, let's face it, basically a loser - but at least I'm not THAT guy. And self-affirmation operates by painting your preferences,
biases, political leanings and worldview as so obviously, simplistically right
and the opposing views as so ridiculously, maniacally insane, that it's an easy
lob-ball, grand-slam to bolster your self-image and be comforted in knowing that
what you believe and the way you live is so clearly superior to The Others. For
all that to work, everything about everyone has to be dumbed down and blown up
into an exaggerated, absurdist caricature.
The polar
opposite of all that is meeting a person one-on-one. There is a scientifically
proven direct, negative correlation between intimate, meaningful engagement
with individual human beings and belief in universal fuckstickism. Everyone
thinks their neighborhood is the best neighborhood in the world. "Once you
get to know the people in [any town in any country anywhere in the world], you
realize that they're all really great. We'd do anything for each other. It's a
really tight knit community." So it's good to know your neighbors. But
it's also good to meet some people in another neighborhood, and even in another
state or - gasp - another country. Distrust of foreigners is usually just
simple provincialism.
Leslie and I
were in Lake Okoboji, Iowa last week, which all of our friends on the east
coast thought was outright hilarious. The underlying assumption behind all of
the chuckles and raised eyebrows was that Iowa - one of the most flyovery of
flyover states - must be full of hicks and yokels (the rural incarnation of
fucksticks). But, lo and behold, just about everyone we met was kind and
interesting and had the same cosmopolitan access to the Internet and Under
Armour tee shirts and pomogranitinis as the hipsterest of Brooklynites. We met
a group of beer-gutted cyclists who shared their Coors with us and told us
about their careers as a heavy equipment operator, cosmetologist, and promoter
of a start-up company with a patent for an advanced sunglasses strap. And we
met a guy at breakfast at the Mall of America Embassy Suites who was working
all night, every night at the federal reserve installing check processing
software and who, like me, ran marathons all over the country. And we met a spiritual yoga lady at a hippy coffee shop who, in response to a guy who said that maybe the reason there was no wifi was because people were meant to get away from it all,
It's the same
thing everywhere. Cities, towns, dude ranches, lakes, Hong Kong, Elmira. Folks
are alright. The barriers you assume exist everywhere may not be barriers at
all. So take out the ear buds! Turn off the TV! Leave the house! Say hello to
the dude sitting next to you! Sure, there are some fucksticks out there, but
most people are pretty cool.
*This post is dedicated to my friend Josh
Schultz, without whom I may never have been enlightened with the term "fuckstick."
