Beware of What “Everybody Knows”

A sure indication of the downward spiral in American wisdom is the brilliant thought processes displayed on any number of radio and television talk programs. You can hear similar nonsense at numerous cocktail parties around many cities and towns too. While there are often plenty of well reasoned logical theories put forth in many circles, the vast majority of the great unwashed rears its ugly head with emotional leaps, conspiratorial contortions, and conclusions of irrational thought.

How does one tell the lucid from the far out proposals on the nation’s airwaves, on the street, or in front of the office water cooler? One dead giveaway of this mental minority comes in the form of people so dug into their point of view that they must project it upon us all. They preemptively attempt to explain away their position’s weakness with sweeping generalities that they think will fill in all of empty space in their hypothesis. In reality their suppositions are really riddled with more gaps than a fine block of Swiss cheese. They preface the conjecture that they are about to espouse often beginning with the phrase “everybody knows that…” Such a ridiculous premise being laid at the opening of someone’s statement should have sound thinkers either laughing or running the other way. Surrounding oneself with such self-absorbed and closed minded thought processes are not the hallmark of traditional America or a sign of balanced, and cogent thought.

Eventually the unbridled emotion that is corrupting dispassionate and more accurate thought will push things a bit too far; as if we haven’t already gone far enough. The culture supports such hedonism in all of its outlets as evident in the can you top this sweepstakes of stupidity. One need not look any farther than reality television shows to see the confirmation of our own corruption of thought, debauchery and self esteem. We as people will pay the price for abusing privileges bestowed upon a free nation; more so that we already do. We are eerily on a similar track as the Roman Empire. In its finale throes the Romans also experienced an almost anything goes cultural upheaval as it slid into a comparably long slow steady decline before its final collapse and overthrow.

Once upon a time in America, the culture penalized weak thinkers, improper behavior, and more or less policed itself by shunning those whose thought and actions were weird, off center, or out of the mainstream. Cultural guidelines were unspoken yet everyone adhered to the regimen out of moral fortitude. Today’s culture embraces all of those bizarre elements and seeks to push the envelope, even if it means logic falls off the edge of the world. After all, everybody knows that…. the world is flat.