With so much information at our fingertips we have become expert skimmers. What is that doing to us? It is steadily and methodically transforming the character of our culture. Our current society has evolved into a culture of ‘instant information and gratification.’ We are bombarded with a vast number of messages daily via social media, the news, television, and even flashing billboard signs aimed at gratifying our senses. “ We listen with unshakeable faith to the fatuous patter of carefully trained and indoctrinated guides who have bogus statistics and mindless slogans endlessly intoned in them.” (Malcolm Muggeridge,English journalist) It involves effort , a lot of effort to question and to challenge what we read or are being told when we are so easily distracted by entertainments or diverted by consumerism.

Consider this, why do we vest all our beliefs in a single person or governing body? When we do,aren’t we creating a climate which amplifies and exaggerates that individual’s or group’s understanding of their authority. How often in history have we seen this new found authority lead to a greater concentration of power? It never seems to work out well for the general populace. Without any kind of objective or just reporting these governing bodies, in their greed and ambition ,flood the world with untrue or incorrect assertions, blaming a crisis on a few isolated ‘fools’ to provide an explanation of why such extreme measures have been necessary. Doesn’t that make them ‘misleaders’?

We have been lulled into complacency rather than being challenged. We tend to get swept up in the moment because we want easy answers. And ,as we are creatures of habit, we allow these habits to take hold. Where has our independence, individuality, and integrity gone? Patience and persistence seem to have become a lost art. Shouldn’t we be thinking more, reading more, learning more, teaching our children not only to read but to question what they are reading and for that matter to question everything. Why do we continue to accept everything at face value? We seem to forget how to form our own opinions. Euripides,an ancient Greek philosopher once said “ Question everything, learn something.”

Shouldn’t we?

Mary-Anne MacDonaldd
Summerland