Life in the West: So much pettiness, so little time…
First, one appetising thought: In times of wars and famine, suicide figures are low.
Now, to the real meat of today’s sermon.
People in the West don’t have enough real problems. I know that this may sound slightly absurd, with the economic crisis now hitting many of us at home, at work and in our collective wallet (or those of us who still have work, a home and/or any money to spend, of course) but I would still suggest that we have it way too good.
What’s more, you can, more or less, prove that people don’t have enough serious stuff to worry about by looking at, what I would call, the pettiness factor - which expresses itself through the amount of stupid shit that people do obsess about and the intensity with which they do so.
Here are three examples of this pettiness factor in pathetic progress:
1) Christmas warriors
While the loony right complains that there is some vast conspiracy against Christianity, of which the so-called war on Christmas is but one symptom, the imbecilic PC fringe obsesses over the lack of inclusiveness of Christmas trees, certain words in Christmas carols, et cetera. All of which has more normal people ask themselves why these idiots won’t get a life. (Although it could almost be seen as a wonderful miracle that these two, so very different groups can be brought together by the Christmas spirit: Joined at the hips of pettiness, that is.)
2) Health Nazis
Now, I’m not going to rehash all the arguments against anti-smoking laws, even though the scientific basis of these laws is extremely dubious. So, let’s not go there but simply accept that the anti-smoking lobby has won that war. Still, for quite a number of people, this is simply not good enough. The sight of someone who still hangs on to his or her habit is so offensive to this, rather largish minority that they want to ban any smoking in public, even in the open air. Hence, there are more and more smoke free beaches, smoke free open railway platforms, et cetera. This, obviously, has nothing at all to do with issues of health. (Anyone who has just spent a few hours in heavy traffic to get to a beach and then complains about someone lighting up ten meters from which he or she is sitting, for reasons of health, is, I’m afraid to say, a moron.) In other words, it’s just that old pettiness factor in action again: People not having enough real things to worry about, obsessing over nonsensical stuff.
3) Fringe martyrs
There are many wrongs & ills in this world of ours. Which is an enormous blessing to people in the West, because that gives them all sorts of things to obsess about which are not totally self-indulgent. There are some great causes and truly amazing organisations, doing splendid work and more power to them, of course. Problem is, you will always have enough idiots who will latch on to any cause and who will immediately lose all sense of perspective and proportion. In worst case scenarios, this has lead to middle class European kids, joining terrorist gangs like Germany’s RAF or Italy’s Red Brigade. Most of the time, of course, it simply leads to relatively harmless, if very lopsided forms of lunacy. For instance, there was one case, in which some animal rights organisation got very upset and angry about the fact that, at the Olympic Games, a few Chinese shops sold earrings with a live goldfish in them. Which was, according to these people, reason enough to boycott the Games. Now, I’m sure these goldfish inside their very small bubbles were not really happy campers and I, for one, would not have dreamt of buying such an item but this save-the-goldfish protest came at the same time that Russia invaded a neighbouring country and while farmers in China were losing their harvest and their whole livelihood, because the Games used up the water these farmers needed for their crops. All of this also against a background of violence in Tibet, the very heavy-handed suppression of various religions and God knows how many rubber-stamped life sentences for political dissidents. In other words, there are times that obsessing about a few goldfish would seem to be more than a little bit self-indulgent, single- and even simple-minded.
Anyway, these are just three examples of people obsessing about small stuff, because they don’t seem to have anything more worthwhile to focus on but it would be easy enough to make a list of ten or a hundred examples of the pettiness syndrome in action. This kind of self-indulgent behaviour is, obviously, one of those luxury problems that we, in the West, have developed to fill what have become, for many, spiritually empty lives.
End of sermon.
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