I'm not usually one to jump on the bandwagon. So when my friends started tossing around the Joker's infamous catch-phrase, although I initially sort of agreed to their logic, I didn't really ponder it. While I'm certain that thousands of blogs like this have already come out, I feel the need to align myself with what may be one of the most important questions reverberating through the atmosphere:
Why so serious?
In the past two weeks I've been home, I've engaged in many conversations with friends and family members on the subject of morality and religion. And often, even though I intend these conversations to be, well, conversations, it always detours into a heated debate. I'm a very conceptual person, and the majority of my arguments and jokes are misconstrued and either taken too literally or warped out of context. The result: words are put into my mouth to make me look like an ass, and neither of us have actually gained anything at all. So much for conversation.
But it goes beyond that. Last semester, we were played a Beethoven piece and asked our opinion, and I replied that it wasn't a very good piece and it showed how control of musical material as dictated by the music theory of the Classical Era can wring true expression and artistic freedom from a piece of music, even from a highly talented composer. (And often, this rings true today, too.) The retort? "Well, Ryan's just weird." No, I'm not kidding. And that was the end of the discussion.
And at work, where my fellow students would get angry at me for not being able to instantaneously refill the tater tots when they run out at the buffet. Or when I was at a gas station on New Year's Eve and a man literally spent ten minutes interrogating the 17-year-old attendant on why the store didn't have the lottery ticket he wanted to buy. Or when a couple of my friends and I went to see The Spirit and Yes Man, and throughout the nearly the entirety of both movies, we were the only ones who laughed.
Alan Bloom wrote a book in the 1980's called The Closing of the American Mind, in which he discussed how students in elite educational programs were becoming more and more apathetic and less passionate about what they do. Throughout much of American culture, and especially my own generation, I'm actually finding the exact opposite. Although I rather doubt it, perhaps my viewpoint may stem from the social context he's describing. But nevertheless:
I'm not trying to demean passion. I think it's great that people find something they stand for. And I will admit that to a certain degree, it really is human nature to be self-centered. (In fact, it's probably natural throughout all of nature). But what frightens me is this overzealous solipsism that's been poisoning our society recently.
Who do we blame? Do we blame modern politics, with its "my way or the highway" attitude? Religiosity, with its continuing misconceptions and debasement of atheists, homosexuals, and various other groups of people? The Media, with its over-romanticized portrayal of people who don't know the meaning of the word 'stop?' Or maybe its athletics, where people win or they don't matter.
Or maybe it all comes from somewhere much deeper...
Whatever the answer is, we'd better find it quick. A positive attitude toward each other is the only way we're going to pull through this moral recession. And while I'd prefer to leave one specific solution out, I do have a good question for us all to start with in 2009:
Why so serious?
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