So Much to Think About

Hope for 2022
Compared to 2020, weekday prime-time viewership declined 38% at CNN this year, 34% at Fox and 25% at MSNBC, says Nielsen. The drop was 12% at ABC World News Tonight and CBS Evening News; and 14% at NBC Nightly News. 

As Jonah Goldberg recently quipped:
“That’s the thing about choosing the wrong path at a fork in the road—you usually have to walk a long way before you realize the error”. Hopefully, 2022 is long enough.

Gluttony
If you’re in a room where everyone is a greedy glutton hoarding all the food they can grab, gluttony becomes a matter of rational self-interest. Get yours as quickly as possible or you get nothing.
Jonah Goldberg

Wisdom
Maybe what we lack isn’t love but wisdom. It became clear to me that I should pray above all else for wisdom.
We all want to love, but as a rule we don’t know how to love rightly. How should we love so that life will really come from it? I believe that what we all need is wisdom. I’m very disappointed that we in the Church have passed on so little wisdom. Often the only thing we’ve taught people is to think that they’re right—or that they’re wrong. We’ve either mandated things or forbidden them. But we haven’t helped people to enter upon the narrow and dangerous path of true wisdom. On wisdom’s path we take the risk of making mistakes. On this path we take the risk of being wrong. That’s how wisdom is gained.
Richard Rohr

Insanity
? Many Americans have been vaccinated but continue to act as though they have not.
? Many other Americans have not been vaccinated but act as though they have.
? Many of those who got vaccinated hate Donald Trump, who considers the vaccines to be one of his greatest achievements.
? Many who refuse to get vaccinated love Donald Trump.
What do these facts tell us? They tell us that we, as a nation, are insane. But we knew that.
Dave Barry

“identity-protection cognition.” 
As humans in a tribe we conform to our tribe so as not to be alienated from our tribe. To alter our minds from our tribe means alienation and excommunication, and no one wants that kind of liminality.
Jonathan Haidt said this way: Our minds “unite us into teams, divide us against other teams, and blind us to the truth.”
Group think then can be blind and prevent us from finding truth but all the while we are convinced we are entirely reasonable and right. When this occurs the whole tribe “loses touch with reality” and truth. When this occurs cults form and we get “paranoid alternative realities.”
Scot McKnight

The smartest people
Our culture champions the mind. We think of ourselves as far more brilliant than those who lived in the past and certainly more aware and understanding of the processes and realities of the world around us. In short, we think we’re the smartest people who have ever lived. In point of fact, we have narrowed the focus of our attention and are probably among the least aware human beings to have ever lived.
Fr Stephen Freeman

Fruitcake
Two friends from Iowa have been exchanging the same fruitcake since the late 1950s. Even older is the fruitcake left behind in Antarctica by the explorer Robert Falcon Scott in 1910. But the honor for the oldest known existing fruitcake goes to one that was baked in 1878 when Rutherford B. Hayes was president of the United States.
What’s amazing about these old fruitcakes is that people have tasted them and lived, meaning they are still edible after all these years. The trifecta of sugar, low-moisture ingredients and some high-proof spirits make fruitcakes some of the longest-lasting foods in the world.
Scot McKnight

Psychics
Within a few blocks of the University of Washington in Seattle, there are not one but two establishments offering psychic services. At one or both, you can obtain palmistry, fortune-telling, aura cleansing, crystal readings, dream analysis, chakra balancing, psychic aura readings, past life regressions, and tarot card readings. Every American city has similar listings in Google Maps for professional psychics, including 20 in Philadelphia, 17 in Memphis, and 18 in St. Louis. The Pew Research Center reports that fully 41% of all Americans believe in psychics.
The same surveys indicate that 29% of Americans believe in astrology, and many of them seek astrological guidance for their lives. They can easily download the sophisticated apps promising personalized advice that have replaced the simple horoscopes earlier generations read in newspapers. Co-Star, one of the leading apps, says it “uses NASA data, coupled with the methods of professional astrologers, to algorithmically generate insights about your personality and your future.” According to a brand promotion company, the “mystical services market”—which includes but reaches well beyond astrology apps—totals $2.1 billionin the U.S.
This movement is heightened among young people. Many social trends gather steam initially in the young, and that is certainly true with respect to religion. Within Generation Z—generally defined as people born after the mid-to-late 1990s—the percentage who do not affiliate with a religion has reached an all-time high. Among those who do hold a religious identity, attendance at worship services has fallen off a cliff.
Young people are also disproportionately represented among the enthusiasts for astrology, Tarot cards, and various forms of New Age mysticism. They frequently pair their excursions into the paranormal with standard religious activities such as prayer. To put it simply, DIY religion has meant for young people a substantial retreat from religious participation in an organized community but no major withdrawal from religious and mystical belief.
Mark Allen Smith
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-rise-of-do-it-yourself-religion

“To see what is in front of one’s nose,” George Orwell said, “needs a constant struggle.” 

Still on the Journey