{"id":3305,"date":"2010-11-29T10:34:54","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T15:34:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3305"},"modified":"2010-11-29T10:37:09","modified_gmt":"2010-11-29T15:37:09","slug":"are-we-you-know-okay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/11\/29\/are-we-you-know-okay\/","title":{"rendered":"Are we, you know, okay? Edmund Morris thinks not."},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, I came across two bits of cultural data that troubled me and left me pondering.\u00a0 The first was this video taken in a Target store in Buffalo during the “Black Friday” shopping rush.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

The creepy part here isn’t only the fact that people were hurt and could very easily have been killed.<\/p>\n

Equally troubling is the fact that these sad, dreary people are piling over each other to go and spend heaps of money, often on things they don’t really need, using money they haven’t really earned.<\/p>\n

(Yes, I’m both generalizing and moralizing, always a dangerous thing to do in the same breath. But it seems in order here, don’t you think?)<\/p>\n

After watching this rather feral bit of consumerism, I stumbled across Edmund Morris’s appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation<\/a>.\u00a0 The famous historian, an American who emigrated from South Africa, said this:<\/p>\n

“We’ve become such an insular people…I come from another culture…and I’m aware of the fact that people elsewhere in the world think differently from us.<\/p>\n

“I can sort of see us Americans with their eyes and not all that I see is attractive.<\/p>\n

“I see an insular people who are insensitive to foreign sensibilities, who are lazy, obese, complacent, and increasingly perplexed as to why we are losing our place in the world to people who are more dynamic than us and more disciplined.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As readers of the In Box know, I don’t usually buy this kind of anti-American blather.\u00a0 The facts indicate that we work longer, harder and often smarter than most other developed societies.<\/p>\n

But that video from the Target store in Buffalo is troubling, no?<\/p>\n

So what do you think?\u00a0 We like to blame Washignton and the politicians for our woes.\u00a0 But maybe we have met the enemy and they is us…<\/p>\n

Your thoughts welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, I came across two bits of cultural data that troubled me and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}