Academia Sighs as the World Goes to Hell

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

-T.S. Elliot

they firmly believe that all of the world’s problems can be solved through “awareness.”  Meaning the process of making other people aware of problems, and then magically someone else like the government will fix it. 

-Christian Lander

On sunday, I went to church and the guest speaker was the president of International Justice Mission, an organization that does work against sex trafficking and other cases of slavery all across the world.  As most non-profit workers do, he told a rousing sermon.  Stories were told, pictures were shown, tears were shed, and shouts of passion rose up in the audience as he recounted the stories of the downtrodden, successful or unsuccessful.

By the end of the service, the musicians were on stage, leading the whole congregation in a chorus to the Almighty: "I will go!  I will go!"  Their words echoed in my head, but they felt more like a dirge.  As the people shuffled out of the room to their lives, the painful fact become apparent: statistically, about 95% of the room just told a brazen lie.

Unfortunately for us, the privileged middle children of human history, detached from wars and suffering and lulled to apathy by the static of the television, most of us will go back to our lives in monoliths of human invention, totally unaware of the horror going on around us.  We can hardly be blamed, can we?  The bitter sweet taste of prosperity is that it will ultimately make all humans numb and ignorant to the great injustices of our time, while at the same time making us unable to bear the slightest bit of pain or suffering.  In a book by Dr. Paul Brand, a famous leprosy doctor, he ranked the people of the United States as having one of the lowest pain tolerances and thresholds in the whole world.  Instead of being able to take pain in stride and as a natural part of life, Americans avoid pain at all costs, even to the point of theorizing that pain is so terrible that God could not exist.

As Tyler Durden said, "you'll never believe what people will do to avoid a fight." 

In my current situation, the most painful reminder of our numbness is the university.  We sit in great big stone buildings and learn about saving the world, and somehow get it into our heads that all problems will be solved in giant General Assembly chambers, or in the basements of faculty office buildings, or big think tanks, or, as a white guy once said, simple "awareness."  The sufferings of people become pawns in the hands of white men in suits, or strongly lettered words on the sign of a disgruntled university students, just dying to make a difference.  Not a tear will be shed for any of them, no more than anyone is going to cry over a math problem with no solution.  And when we finally see them face to face, its likely that we will think we already know the solution to their problems, even before they do.  Academia will sigh sympathetically while the world goes to hell.

I will not be so arrogant to suggest that I am at some sort of higher understanding, and that I will not be among the sighers when the masses are suffering.  Only I want to reflect how maybe our society, both academia and all other parts, have become numbed by prosperity into never feeling pain, and perhaps never being able to empathize.  When is the last time you've seen someone cry over a news report of a shooting?  Or seen someone be stirred by a sermon and, like the parable characters of old, will sell all he has to find the truth?  When will we make the connection between the problems we study and the emotions that should accompany them?

Right now, I guess all I can do is cry.  It doesnt do any good, because tomorrow I will wake up, and ill still be spending 50,000 to spectate the horrifying things happening around the world, and not have the resources to do anything about it.  Am I part of the problem?  Are we all part of the problem?

Maybe someday it will be worth it.  At least I hope so

~Jared