My visit to Worthington Kilbourne

Hey Folks,

I visited Worthington Kilbourne High School today to address the “Political Radicalism” classes, and told them to listen to all the speakers but not to believe anything they said – including me. I argued that nobody knew any more about the important aspects of life than they did. I asked, “If experts know so much, why don’t they ever agree and suggested that almost everything they confront in life is dedicated NOT to solving problems for them or helping them to find the truth, but instead was designed to draw them into a particular “camp” – something helpful to the proselytizer rather than the proselytizee.

Two movies provided examples of how I see “culture” or “civilization” operate in this regard.

From The Truman Show:
“We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.”

From the 1st Matrix :
Morpheus: “Let me tell you why you are here. You are here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it is there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. That’s what brought you to me.

Do you know what I’m talking about?”

(Neo) “The Matrix?”

Morpheus: “Do you want to know what it is?

The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes.

It is the world that has been pulled down over your eyes to blind you from the truth, the truth that you are a slave. The Matrix is a dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into a power source for others.

As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free."

* * *

To help challenge the “givens” foisted upon us as we grow up I suggested “questioning the dominant paradigm” – so to speak. Here are some examples:

Question the Matrix

1. Why do politicians spend so much money to get a job that pays peanuts?

2. Why do corporations give so much money to politicians who are elected by and responsible to the People?

3. If, as studies have shown, in most cases the amount of money spent campaigning determines the victor, what is “democracy” based upon – people or money?

4. If our nation’s foreign policy is aimed at “American Interests,” which Americans’ interests are they?

5. Why do the vast majority of people surveyed believe THEY will go to heaven but that most of the other people won’t?

6. If Cuba is our enemy because it is run by a “Communist dictator,” why do we like China?

7. If this nation was founded on “Christian” principles, how could it have
accepted slavery?

8. In WHAT wars did soldiers fight and die to “protect our rights”?

9. If adultery is a sin, couldn’t we eliminate it by outlawing straight marriages along with gay ones?

10. If experts know so much, why don’t they ever agree?

11. If it makes sense to say, “Choose life; your mother did,” what about “Have sex with your mother; your father did”?

12. If a number of religions claim to be the one, true religion, don’t all but one HAVE to be wrong?

13. If, as some say, health care is a privilege not a right, does that mean that sick poor people have the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but NOT life?

14. If the “death tax” is so bad, why don’t we hear more dead people complaining?

15. If it is wrong to collect a welfare check for doing nothing, why is it OK to inherit Wal-Mart?

16. If winning athletes thank God, why don’t losers cuss him?

17. If winning athletes used performance-enhancing drugs, should God still get the credit?

18. If God saves the survivors of a disaster, who killed the victims?

19. If God made man in his own image, what does that say about God?

20. Put another way: If we are the product of God’s “intelligent design,” just how intelligent IS he?

21. If a Christian is a capitalist, does that mean he doesn’t covet his neighbor’s wife – just his neighbor’s goods?

- Uke Man