the drab reality of the American Middle West

“… the drab reality of the American Middle West … the social tyrannies and cultural emptiness …the conventions of village life … hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness … total conformity …thinking and feeling with the crowd.” (Perceptions of Sinclair Lewis on Mid-Western America) … And these are the positive attributes. Yet each may be amplified, and are, only to render a more diminished reality of life. Ignorance abounds, and may be perceived as elevated in its social estimation. Intelligence, education and real ‘acquired’ or sought after knowledge, suspect, if not actually disdained.  

 

But I know for a fact it is not only the Mid-West. Such attitudes pervade across the entirety of the country, but, I must say, seem to be all the more so at this juncture, at least, more openly so. “God, Guns and Automobiles” such is the mantra of what America has become. A pragmatism which asserts a self will and intention and damn the far reaching consequences. If it works, if only in the short term, and for the temporary benefit of the few involved, let’s ‘do it’. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead tomorrow will take care of itself.  It’s our ‘Manifest Destiny’, as if anyone really knows what that is all about. 

 

I have found there are 'Theists' (those who in one form or another assert the reality of some 'god' or deity), Atheists (those who at least verbally deny any such entity existing above and beyond themselves), and Mammonists (those who ascribe to one or another deity, or not, but in actuality deify the gain to be sought for in what ever monetary rewards are available). More often than not, the theists are in actuality mammonists, as they account financial success or  accomplishment as being the evidence of theistic approval and reward. The atheists, may equally be in reality mammonists, as they too are equally susceptible to the economic pressures and realities which concern all realizing a material existence, and must live in accordance with a common set of values as all must do. As such, common ideals are adopted, whether theistic in origin or otherwise. The dominant religious being the most convenient, though not necessarily adhered to by either the theist or the non-theist, but a foundation for arbitration existing to make the system of relations tenable, but not without sufficient negotiation.  

 

As the general nature of culture becomes more distant and less involved with the history which led to its own evolution and dimensions, ignorance prevails and a spiraling disintegration ensues. In such a system I find my reality, and in such I must allow myself to become involved. It is not the reality of the 'Internet', where I may pick and choose my friends and acquaintances, but the reality of flesh and blood, and human beings of less than perfect character and aspirations, of failures and those trying to find redemption, some meaning and value to their own existence, and for what it's worth I join them and seek my own.