Symptoms: Easily distracted, difficulty staying focused, prone to physical hyper-activity. And who was smart enough to tap into this trend in our cultural body? That's right, Donald Trump.
I don't think anyone can honestly say we're a particularly cerebral or contemplative people. We like our experiences quick, easy and often...and we don't like to be required to explain what we're doing and why. We like the surfaces of things and thoughts. We've always been in a hurry to get to the bigger and better, but now we don't much care about the substance of the bigger and better. If they have an appropriate veneer of strength and in-your-face that challenges whatever is opposed to what we think we want, then that's our next bigger and better.
We like all the institutions of society—religion, government, education etc.—to be easy to understand and quickly realized to our personal benefit. If we need to think about any of these things, we regularly turn to something less thoughtful, like a 240 character message or the most recent smooth-it-away prayer sent via Facebook by one of our latest and distantly vague "friends." Or we scan Youtube to get some yuks and Instagram to get some cutes. Or flick on the latest installment of NCIS to enlist ourselves in their 15+ million audience.
We tend to be both physically and mentally slack-jawed. Thus we accept our newly acquired oscitant countenance. We like to shout and laugh loudly wherever we are at whomever has behaved more uncivilized than we are. For that reason virtually all our overly abundant entertainments are keyed to provoke the noisiest response from us...no matter where we are.
These keys have evolved into our 21st century shibboleths. We react quickly and loudly to "socialism," "Muslim," "politically correct," "immigration," "free trade," and so on. And we feel the need to cover these keys with some sort of grand negative behavior, loud booing and stomping, turning public information venues into gobsmacking mosh pits. We follow the leader who provides the least amount of information and the most amount of entertainment, the greater distraction from the spiritual ache and pain of our psyches.
If the throngs who jam themselves into public spaces to worship at the Trump altar and the millions who watch the "debate" debacles to see the latest outrage in real time (and boost the coffers of the 24 hour "news" programs)...if these people were in a school they would be required to attend behavioral counseling and therapy. And they would probably require various forms of stabilizing medications.
But we can't look only to Trump for our cultural slough. We have been nurturing this for a long time and under varieties of huckster and trickster types. Ronald Reagan was our first media con man. Then came Bill Clinton. Then came the absurdist version, George Bush. And we bought our merchant of peace version, Barack Obama, who entertains our lust for glorious vengeance with sanitary but indiscriminate drone wars. Given this recent history and our penchant to believe the various cons, we ought to feel some sort of fay sympathy for Bernie Sanders' trumpeting a revolution to the ears that are shuttered by ear buds. Do we dare consider what new distracting con will be offered to assure that we keep from focusing and asking? I don't think so. We're very proud of our willful ignorance.
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