Perspective.
Is the glass half-empty or half-full? In an age of Instagram stories, one can truly manufacture their narrative. Purposefully cluing their followers to see a picture one chooses to paint. This reality rears its head every four years in America when it is time to either elect a new president or continue for one last ride with the incumbent. Yet in a particularly sadistic twist, America has managed to create a game where actual gripes with society fit "just right" into the parameters of the two political parties. Preventing actual progress from being reached as those firmly planted on either end of the spectrum have shut off the mechanism for having communicative dialogue. The maze--ultimately being a big circle--comes from the country's own mantra: where the insistence upon freedom of speech and individualism has allowed its people to hide under the cloak of blissful ignorance. On one hand, Americans can boast about the newest iPhone or the ability to directly tweet at its nation's highest elected official to give him a piece of their mind. This is freedom, democracy at play in a sandbox without a care in the world. All the while the problems piling up in the closet threaten to viciously rip the door hinges off. A scholarly article on addiction posits, "many, perhaps most, see drug abuse and addiction as social problems, to be handled only with social solutions, particularly through the criminal justice system...science has taught that drug abuse and addiction are as much health problems as they are social problems." A true statement of course yet this undoubtedly comes back to a social problem in asking who in society takes on the lion share of health problems? Richard Wilkinson, co-author of The Spirit Level, focuses on the strong correlation between inequality and poor health discovering that countries with the highest disparity amongst social stratification tend to have worse health, more violence, more drug problems and more judgmental of those inhabiting the lower socio-economic classes. The book utilizes data to show the ramifications of attempting to climb the social ladder with a glass ceiling: 41% of Blacks in the U.S. suffering from high-blood pressure compared to 27% of Whites whereas globally the percentage between the races are, on average, closer to being equal. To add the cherry on top, Wilkinson describes the rates of social mobility in these countries as being low. However, this does not stop the attempt to climb due to the notion expressed by a collegiate professor that inequality fuels ambition; creating an escape where society believes it is performing a good in crafting motivation from scratch. Thus, the burning question--especially where it is considered controversial to insinuate that healthcare be a right instead of privilege--is how does a country which aspires to be great stop the hamster wheel? Surely at some point, society has to understand that it is running a race with its shoelaces tied together. Surely, the people have to come to the realization that the institutions it lauds operates more so like the WWE and less like the Constitution that it tries so passionately to live up to. More so, how can a society hellbent on progress still have only 27 amendments to a 230 year old document? As the figurehead for capitalism, how do we--as a nation--ensure that we are not devoured by this -ism? If capital and the acquisition of it rules the day, where does the social responsibility of capitalists lie? Because if everyone is out for self and their own capital and well-being than to whom do we bestow the title of stewards to? In America a tale more often told than the most popular fairy tales and bedtime stories is of how money does not equate to happiness. We have heard that the money is no good being buried in a casket with the remainder of the earthly possessions capital has harvested. And despite all of the suggestions and advice, we speed past the climate change signs straight off the cliff. At some point, society needs to realize this planet is not a bottomless mimosa and read between the lines of the popular story, Frankenstein. We have created a monster and unfortunately this movie is playing out not on the big screen but in the actual, literal reality. |
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Ty FosterQuestion everything. WQHC Archives
June 2020
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