I’ve heard various things. Sometimes, a comedian will tell you to do that. What he does not tell is “you just heard my worldview and I am - well - right.” That’s all it boils down to. Some intellectual types have come up with a few interesting ideas like, “I’ll just create my own language.” Great, but you’ll be the only one who understands it.
People who study human behavior and demographics know that human beings are basically the same. There are many things we do day in and day out. Pay bills, go shopping, do the laundry…" There are people who think they can change human nature. But, killings happen every day, death happens every day, etc.
Arbitrary changes in behaviors and actions do not, in 99.9% of the cases, produce good results. Rediscovering a good behavior is not “new.” Good results are based on long-standing behaviors and actions that have been going on for generation after generation.
The other thing is everyone needs to understand that the words and images we see every day affect us to some degree. That thinking for yourself is you picking and choosing ideas you’ve been exposed to. Reality is real. Sure, you can try this or that but that often involves behaviors that are bad or harmful.
The assumption that rejecting conformity makes you free or freer is not shown by the various examples I’ve seen over the decades. Group A rejects a lot but turns into a tribe where everyone looks alike, acts alike, listens to the same music, reads the same books, goes to the same events, etc.
A favorite is creating trends, usually by people who may sound sincere but just want your money. And it’s all presented as new. And being different is cool (and makes us money). Dye your hair purple, get a piercing, go New Age, listen to some cool, with a compelling back story, band and get into whatever’s new because it’s new. No, it’s just different.
Sexual behavior that deviates from the norm: marriage and babies, is all about pleasure, and an STD epidemic. Medications, contraceptives and abortion are viewed as answers for some. No, STD’s are not caused by toilet seats.
In the early 1970s, someone used the term “collective individualism,” a nonsense, self-contradictory term. But creating new labels, words and slogans don’t define people as “modern” no more than the “new” words or slogans or labels defined anyone in any decade, except for marketing purposes, or in the case of slang, “a new way of talkin’.”
The Church has not been around for 2,000 years by accident, but self-proclaimed “new” groups are always going to appear. And the young, in particular, are most likely to be affected. “New” movies and TV shows are constantly out to make the bad good, year after year, decade after decade, but anyone can find out that this was not always true.
Dark appears in so much fictional media that eventually, the word will be dropped from overuse, if nothing else. But marketing evil as good has been going on for a long time as well, always repackaged and relabeled to sound “new” or “cool” or whatever other word that replaces those other words currently in use.
Study yourself. Be honest with yourself. A decade ago, Time magazine ran a cover story about all the medical advances we’d be seeing around now. In the next issue, a doctor, the head of a major medical association, had a letter printed: “In your entire series of articles, not once did I see the word ‘behavior’ used. At least half of the diseases and conditions mentioned could be avoided today if people just changed their behaviors (quit smoking, overeating…)”
Yes, think, but think it through. Research it on your own.
Best,
Ed
