Now we see the violence inherent in the system
I think it’s bullshit that violence and competition are so ingrained into our culture, even down to children’s TV programs. Mr. Rogers called this out back in the 60s and that’s why he created Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He thought the TV for kids was not good for their development. He was right then and it’s only gotten worse.
All of these shows feature an “us” versus “them” dynamic and the way they resolve that conflict is through violence. And people wonder why there is so much conflict and violence in our society today. We’re socializing our children from birth to understand society as “us” and “others.” And the others are bad. There are bad guys, and the good guys need to fight them with fists and swords and guns until they lose.
People argue “well that’s how it is” or “that’s how it’s always been” or “I was raised that way and I turned out fine.” To which I say: why does it have to be that way? Do you think the state of our world is really great right now? If this is how it’s always been, maybe that’s a bad thing? And, did you turn out fine? If you really take an honest look at yourself, do you get angry at nonsense? Do you resort to violence and power as a means of dealing with tough situations? Do you see people as “others” or “thems” to rally against?
The majority of normal human life is not competition (excepting that capitalists and the culture want to push us into competition so we don’t create solidarity with our fellow humans). Are you competing with your neighbor? I hope not. We lend each other gardening tools. We help each other out when we need to move something heavy. We bring in each other’s garbage cans when one is out of town.
Do you compete with your coworkers? The system is set up at most companies so you do—again to prevent worker solidarity. But you achieve so much more when working together. Look at NASA in the 1960s. You had 400,000 Americans working together to accomplish the single goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely back to Earth. Through cooperation we reached beyond our planet. Did competition with the Soviets get us there? I can already see those arguments. But we were already reaching for the stars before the USSR. As Kennedy said:
Many years ago, the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it? He said, “Because it is there.”
Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.
Space is there, and we’re going to climb it. It wasn’t about the Soviets, or what anyone else was doing. It’s human nature to want to explore and learn more about our world and the universe. We were always going to the moon, we just needed to work together to get there. As Buzz Aldrin said on the way home from the moon:
This has been far more than three men on a mission to the Moon; more, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown.
So why do we keep creating and watching TV shows for kids that tell them it’s “us” or “them” and the way to deal with “them” and “win” over them is through power and violence? Is that the world we want to live in? How has that worked out so far? One of our finest hours as a species was on July 24, 1969, when those three men returned safely back to Earth after stepping foot on another piece of rock hurtling through space.
We should be on Mars now, through the efforts of a consortium of nations, not through the petty competition of egotistical tech billionaires. Imagine if NASA kept working on the problem of space travel. Imagine if the efforts of employees at Blue Origin and SpaceX were not pitted against each other but instead combined to solve the toughest problems.
We can do so much better for our children and the future and the whole world. But we’re failing, from the very start.