© Charles D. Hayes
Picture a young man who’s born and
raised in the post-war South, trained in the Marines, and steeped in the ideological
culture of Texas law enforcement. That’s who I was in the early 1960s. Like
millions of others, I had internalized the popular ideas of my geographic
region, which imbued me with a xenophobic and racist worldview as the one true
window on reality. I was up to my neck in mainstream indifference. It would be
another decade before I embarked on the process of self-education that would
enable me to begin awakening intellectually.
Mainstream indifference is a form of
ignorance born of inattention and apathy. Depending solely upon appearances, it
is fed by pettiness and gravitation toward whatever seems easiest. It revels in
anti-aesthetics, bad faith, an absence of mindfulness, and a total lack of
reflection about matters vital for making sense of the world. Not just
half-hearted, these are half-headed efforts. Devoid of compassion, mainstream
indifference is a hostile, authoritative, and testosterone-laden environment
where the weak are ridiculed and the poor are held in contempt, regardless of
the circumstances for their plight.
This anti-intellectual mindset leads to
the kind of situation where, as recently as 1998, unthinking white men can
assume that it’s acceptable to drag a black man behind a pickup truck until he
is dead, as happened to 49-year-old James Byrd in Jasper, Texas, or to murder a
young man like Matthew Shepard in Wyoming simply because he is gay.
In effect, mainstream indifference is a
selfish, cliché-ridden, and narrow-minded refuge for racists, bigots,
misanthropes, and misogynists. It’s a psychological wasteland where thoughtless
people are bound together by a yoke of stupidity that’s wholly accepted as
plain old common sense. Such thinking frequently betrays itself, however, as
seething hatred, complete with public demonstrations of contempt for “others”
when, actually, a lack of curiosity is the real culprit. The social realm where
it thrives is anti-intellectual to the bone, feeding upon a disdain for
eloquence in literature, the arts, and all serious endeavors that require
cerebral verve.
This deeply internalized conviction is
often vested in superstition, intermingled with conspiracy theory, and held so
dear that it cannot be acknowledged for what it really is—a profoundly
malignant strain of despair shared by a fearful populace who are unified by
their own lack of awareness and bonded by a form of hatred so spurious that it
feeds off itself. I understand this level of relating because I was a frequent
participant before I began my own journey of self-education. I have seen how
such insensitivity infects otherwise good people who don’t set out in any way
to harm others but wind up doing so because of an inherent default to the worst
human instincts. Indifference lies at its core.
In 1987, Holocaust survivor and Nobel
Laureate Elie Wiesel put this mystery of
human nature in crystal clear perspective. He said, "The opposite of memory
is not forgetfulness. The opposite of memory is indifference. What is the
opposite of art? Not ugliness. Indifference. What is the opposite of faith? Not
heresy, but indifference. What is the opposite of life? Not death, but indifference
to life and death."
Indeed, history has shown that
indifference is often a breeding ground for evil, allowing social relations to
deteriorate to a point where facts are less important than choosing sides. In a
democracy dependent on accountable citizenship, indifference is a spiritless
sidestepping of responsibility and a serious impediment to achieving
authenticity.
My perspective about learning and
relating to others stems from the advantage of seriously pursuing education
later than most, when I already had some worldly experience under my belt. Even
though it’s nearly impossible to remember what it’s like not to know something
after you’ve learned it, I still have a keen understanding of what it’s like to
internalize a racist social outlook without the cognizance to know better.
Hatred thrives on indifference, but knowledge fosters tolerance, even a measure
of tolerance for indifference. I’m quite certain that, had I not embraced
self-education as a lifelong endeavor, I would have become a frustrated and
anxious individual by now, very likely convinced that any reason there might be
for my not achieving more in life was someone else’s fault.
Today millions of Americans have such an
outlook, and what’s so disappointing is that I know how they feel. After more
than three decades of voracious reading, writing, and reflecting, however, I’m
convinced that curiosity can overpower indifference. I also know that reaching
a level of interest about any subject powerful enough to become a
self-sustaining form of motivation can be a hard thing to do. Still, I think
for most people it’s not a question of having enough time but rather how they
choose to spend what time they do have. Intellectual maturity is a function of
deliberate learning, not of age. True adulthood is not possible without it.
Reflective maturity involves the kind of
intellectual honesty that enables clear scrutiny of our hidden prejudices as
well as the ability to discern patterns of self-defeating behavior. This need
not be an unpleasant experience. Maturity is not the time to shrink from
responsibility; it’s the time to assume it. Later life is not a time to become
set in our ways, but rather a time to figure out how and why we have “ways” at
all. It’s a time for lifelong liberals to look for value in conservatism and a
time for conservatives to do the reverse.
Learning in the September of one’s life
is exhilarating because of the vast perspective that years of lived experience
provide. Maturity achieved is an unspoken yet glaring declaration not only that
one has lived, but also that one has learned from the experience. (Adapted from
The Rapture of Maturity: A Legacy of
Lifelong Learning.)
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