Keeping It Real

O.K...this one is probably going to tick some people off. ;)

In the 80’s “Greed was good” and in the 90’s “Apathy was good”, but here in the 00’s “Stupid is good.” Some where along the way our heroes went from being people in the space program to NBA players who can barely articulate while referring to themselves in the third person. According to much of the U.S. in multiple ethnicities, being uneducated & ignorant is “being down to earth”. Expressing oneself poorly with bad grammar and a 3rd grade vocabulary is “keeping it real”.

Oh is it?

There’s a reason “Ignorant “ sounds so much like “Ignore”. With the plethora of media sources, the internet, books, television documentaries, the only way to remain ignorant of what is happening in the world is to make a choice to ignore it. So if you are making decisions that are not based on facts, you are so far from “keeping it real” you might as well be dancing with fairies. You are so far from common or “horse” sense, Mr. Ed wants his tapes back.

For example, many people felt that college-bashing George W. Bush was more “down to earth” than the “New England College educated liberal” John Kerry and that Theresa Heinz Kerry “didn’t understand the real life of a working woman…” The only way they could make these attacks was by ignoring the fact that George W. Bush himself was raised in a very wealthy New England family, attending not just one, but two prestigious Ivy League schools. Laura Bush parents are wealthy people that managed to get her out of manslaughter charge when she was 17 (police records of the incident have been sealed). Think they really know what “real life” is like any more than the Kerry’s, or any other politico in D.C.? Think they know how big a chunk rent and groceries take out of the average paycheck? In short these attacks leveled at the democratic candidate could have easily been leveled at the other.

Granted, there are many Republicans and neo-conservatives in the world who do support the Bush administration and have actually rationale for their support, but a lot of people voted for Bush because he was “tough on terrorism”, feeling that he would “protect the nation safety”, except he didn’t fund the Office of Homeland Security, cut the budgets of the “first responders” , ie. the Police and Fire Departments, and has done nothing to beef up security along our borders. They voted for him because he felt was taking care of the problems in the Middle East, except that he has created for more problems than he has solved (and that’s ignoring our part in creating those problems in the first place). They say they voted for him because they “supported the troops”, when in fact he sent them to war so they could scrounge through garbage piles to armor their vehicles and attempted to cut their veterans benefits and the benefits to their families. Then there are those that voted for him just because he was a "Republican". They obviously haven't looked at what the traditional Republican party stood for and what the Neo-Conservatives in office have made it into. And I guess blatant lies and incompetence are "Republican" as well? These people can’t even seem to apply basic logical reasoning, it's Faith Based voting.

I’ve even had people defending “Bushisms” saying “That’s how Southerners talk!” I should hope not. There’s a big difference between colloquialism (conversational language) and not being able to formulate a sentence.

The sad thing was, the person who said that was a Southerner herself.

(An office mate of mine thinks it’s because Bush is faking the entire Texan/Cowboy thing. He’s reformulating the wealthy New England culture sentences in his head into rustic Texan slang and keeps messing it up. An intriguing theory.)

The truly sad thing is that people seem to be proud of this. They scorn people with college educations, that read the newspaper, that try to make rational decisions based on facts, and hold up their willful ignorance like it's a point of pride. Like ignorance defines what being "truly American" is. “We don’t have to pay attention to what’s been going on. We’re the 800 lb gorilla! We’re too powerful to care!” But it doesn’t. It’s a complete myth. Even with the South’s recent embracing of the “Redneck” image, one cannot turn away from the fact that the South has a long intellectual and artistic tradition to be proud of. Some of Americas greatest gifts to literature and theatre come from there. William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams , Truman Capote , Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Dashiell Hammett . Somehow I don’t think those authors and playwrights really thought the being ignorant was being “down home”, that they were any less “real” for their intelligence, creativity and eloquence.

Affluence is not a requirement for intelligence; College isn’t even a requirement for intelligence. My father’s family is a logging family from, well, what was before it was “discovered” by retirees and wealthy vacationers from MA and NJ, a miniscule town in Maine. Four townships in one high school with an average of 85 students per class. That’s how small it was. My Dad was the first of the family to attend college. But just because my Grand folks didn’t go to college that did not mean they didn’t read voraciously: Newspapers, novels (Grampa was a big Louis Lamoure fan) non-fiction books about Science and History (I remember stacks on stacks of Popular Mechanics, National Geographic and Reader Digests). They continued to learn and be aware through their entire lives while they ran the local greasy spoon and my Grandfather went out to the woodlot every fall to cut a couple cords for the barrel stove. (And did I mention the three rusted out cars and a truck behind our own house?)

Not learning about what’s happening in the world and why makes you quite the opposite of “real” and “down to earth”. It’s called “denial” or “You can’t handle the truth!” or “sticking you head in the sand”. Being ignorant does not make you any more “real”.

It’s one thing to think Larry the Cable guy is funny, it’s another actually to want to be him. You don’t need a college education to think. You don’t need money to continue reading and learning through your lifetime. Not having a college education does not define who you are nor does ignorance define any American sub-culture. One can be a Redneck and still use one’s head instead of dancing with GWB, Condi Rice, Mistleblossom and her little pixie friends.

And for those that still think that being a moron is the way to be “Real”... “Here’s your sign...”

P.S. And for those guys that think that being meatheaded is part of being manly and macho? The ultimate Alpha Male. This guy went to Iraq and kept signing autographs during a motar attack.