There is a growing percent of the population of people who reject millennia of established science, replicable empirical evidence, and experiments they can do themselves, and believe the earth is actually flat. When confronted with the collective human knowledge, and reason, you are answered with denial and conspiracy. It may seem easy to dismiss ‘Flat-Earthers’ as a harmless fringe group; however, they are but a group of people illustrating we are losing a war many of us didn’t know we were fighting. People may look down upon them as crazy for believing something so obviously false. Why would they reject objective reality when facts stare them in the face? Unfortunately, they are far from the only ones.
With an astounding, overwhelmingly clear majority, scientists are, and have been, telling us climate change is happening. Furthermore, our activities are contributing to the problems. We are already seeing the effects now, and it is projected to only get worse as weather events increase in both regularity and severity, as well as severe disruptions to food-chains and over all extinctions of entire species as a whole. As with the Flat-Earthers, Climate Change Deniers are a real group of people. They too flatly reject the evidence provided to them. While some may do so for purely financial gain, for self interest (a.k.a. evil), the motivation of rejection for the rest may be less evil on them and more evil on the people who put them there. Anti-Vaxxers too.
In all cases, Flat-Earthers, Climate Change Deniers and Anti-Vaxxers, there are figureheads who actively rally the troops, as it were, and encourage people to be irrational under the guise of rationality. When I stop to reflect upon this, and zoom out, this is not all that different than what I see happening all over the country. This is the war we are losing, that we didn’t realize we had to fight. This rejection of reality, of evidence, of critical thought, is older than I am. I feel, since it is now being openly challenged by people like me, people who are used to just getting their way are trying their best to maintain control and demonstrate their intolerance for being challenged.
In certain churches across the country, leaders of those church offer messages of intolerance and hatred while hiding behind one book that potentially teaches love and forgiveness. As such, we have a constant stream of voters and legislation that go against America’s values: be they racially discriminatory, sexist, favoring one religion over another, homophobic, et al. We have certain states that openly try to alter the map to intentionally cheat minority voters, and purge voter rolls of them. They try to think of any way they can tip the scales to only get ‘the right people’ to vote. Even when voters approve their own ballot initiatives, certain legislators will overturn the people’s will. Even when the nation elects someone with a clear majority, certain electoral college electors will overturn the people’s will. Even when voters vote in a new government, certain lame duck sessions will sap as much power from the incoming government as possible.
All of this is now happening with a minority support. When you ask how this is a good thing, you are met with the same kind of irrational zeal that Flat-Earthers, Climate Change Deniers and Anti-Vaxxers have. It doesn’t stop there either. Entire media megaphones feed this particular population with manufactured malice and constant conflict. Tribalism is the name of the game. It’s all about winning, while we are losing on the people who focus on the short term and the rejection of reality, instead on: gross income inequality, spiraling healthcare and education costs, unlimited dark money flowing into and corrupting the political process, our degrading environment, human rights issues including imprisoning children, needless trade wars while ignoring concerns like our workforce being left behind in a globalizing automated world, foreign interference and/or ownership of our highest levels of government and future interference into our election processes and social infrastructures, and more.
The majority of this country, poll after poll shows, has clear visions on the direction we should head in and it’s not the path we’re on. The powers-that-be are doing what they can to continue to line their pockets while the world burns around them. Even worse, they’re doing their best to convince whoever they can that fire isn’t hot and smoke is just fine to breathe. George Carlin once taught us: “The quality of our thoughts and ideas is only as good as the quality of our language.” When the powers-that-be succeed in convincing people to: reject reality, be incapable of listening to anyone but a chosen cult leader, and that it’s good to hurt yourself as long as your enemy gets hurt too, that’s a truly dangerous place to be in. That’s the America we live in today.
This Veteran, trying desperately to break the shackles of PTSD, implores people to apply some real critical thought to yourself and the world around you: No, Black/Brown/Yellow/White people aren’t inherently bad by the virtue of being such; No, women aren’t inferior aren’t by the virtue of being such; No, people of different sexual identities/orientations aren’t wrong just because your old book said no just as you don’t appreciate it when people exclude you because you like your old book; Information is not automatically incorrect because it does not fit your narrative, it is best to gather the evidence and form a conclusion as opposed to start with a conclusion and try to cherry-pick evidence, this will mean reforming your conclusion from time to time as new evidence presents itself; Evil exists, and it has, but it is ok to admit you were wrong and get back on the right path; divided we are weak but united we are unbreakable.
Life isn’t a team game. ‘Owning the Libs’ as one side likes to say isn’t a long-term viable strategy of success, as they are harming themselves in the process as well. We’re all in this together, and this anti-intellectual trend only sets us all back or does us all irreparable harm if not quashed soon enough. Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson has said: “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” and I find it fitting here. We know more know about this war of anti-intellectualism than we have ever before. Since the end of World War II we were on the road to better and brighter things but the blowback of the Civil Rights Era has hit America, and by extension the world, hard. Facebook and other Social Media has brought to life sharp divisions that many of us knew, but we see it in real time and amplified by millions of voices. We were losing a war that we didn’t even know we had to fight. However, all is not lost and we must win. We will win, not just for those who fight but for those who are misguided and mean well. We will win for a better tomorrow, for it is not really a ‘us vs. them’ kind of boots-on-the-ground tribalism fight. We have a much better idea of who is pulling the strings, and we’re coming for you.