Thinking For Yourself Is The New Counterculture
I’ve always been the type to ask questions. Rarely a day passes that I am not standing before the archeological ruins of existence itself, digging and brushing at the “why’s” of this or that. I am interested in life and the mystery of reality, in people, and the unique mechanisms that provoke the maneuvers of their minds. There is a truly beautiful intimacy that comes from walking the corridors of thought with someone, knowing how their mind works and in doing so, seeing one’s own mind in relation to it. It’s a dance that makes life interesting. I like to glimpse the lived experience from other facets that would otherwise remain unknown and inconceivable to me. In a world that seems increasingly bent on arriving at a homogenized, equalized, fully regulated, safe-spaced consensus reality, reveling in the freedom that comes from allowing everyone their vantage point, and the diversity of experience it brings, is one of the fundamental joys of being human. I find the multiplicity and diversity of existence fascinating and worth exploring.
Lately my proclivity toward associating with all various types of people and ideas has been unbearably strained by the erupting expectations of our current society that screams for tolerance while being mostly devoid of it. Points of view that oppose the increasingly straightjacket-esque demands of political correctness are shunned and their advocates silenced by threat of social alienation or worse, a destroyed reputation. Even in the sphere of academia where discourse and new insight should be encouraged, livelihoods are jeopardized, in some cases careers are terminated, for daring to challenge the ideology du jour. A life’s work can be cancelled because of a single tweet. Friendships are lost, families are at odds. ‘Conform or else’ is the pervading command among an increasingly restless mob that enforces their vehemence with flippant impatience and a total disregard for the gradient spectrum of each life experience. The woke movement has become less about equality and justice for all and more about establishing itself as an ideological aristocracy with authoritarian tendencies that is absolutely hostile to all dissent, to paraphrase a recent tweet.
Remember when ideas were evaluated on their merit and worked over in a public discourse to achieve the best possible outcome? Those days seem like a distant dream. It feels as if we are being herded into conformity by a suppressive force that determines the breadth and scope of our perceptual reality by syphoning attention into ideological labyrinths in which we are kept occupied, running in circles and arguing amongst ourselves. The civil war of our generation isn’t racial but ideological, rooted in a division that hides behind benevolent language and worthwhile ideas such as inclusivity, equality, and justice but is definitively and purposely devoid of the aforementioned qualities when the motives and the means are questioned. Inclusivity is a funny thing. It’s only convenient when it serves the mind’s agenda of rightness.