I’m not what many people would consider an avid TV-watcher. For reasons I don’t know, I completely lost interest in TV upon entering college. After all, one can only watch the Disney Channel for so long.
What I wound up watching for my grand return brought to mind one of the most critical epiphanies of my life.
I will refrain from revealing the program’s name for the sake of maintaining an audience, but I’m sure you’ve seen many like it: political talk shows, brimming with masters of wit and elocution whose ability to sidestep logical inconsistencies make Usher look like William Hung.
Within moments, their razor-sharp ideological exchanges can devolve into glorified shouting matches of the rich and educated.
As I sat and watched round after round of this, I marveled at the blatant lack of understanding between the debators.
Surely someone would concede a talking point, admit to a fact error or somehow even agree with an opponent, right?
Wrong.
Granted, these people are paid to spin their way out of an apology regardless which flavor of the red or blue Kool-Aid they prefer. There’s a reason Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and the like stay popular and profitable.
Let’s face it, the yelling demagogues appeal to the dogmatic intellectual pugilist in us all.
To borrow from C.S. Lewis, pride is different from other vices in that it cannot tolerate its existence in others. It is the one vice that all humans seem to have at least some measure of, and the more one has, the less one acknowledges it. The arrogance-induced drama on TV, and its influence on our country reminded me of the same drama that plays out in our lives constantly.
Pride kills. It assassinates marriages, poisons families, sabotages businesses, corrupts kingdoms and instigates war.
Pride is blinding. It teaches us to ignore inconvenient truths flashing in neon lights, ruining relationships just to win an argument.
Pride emphatically condemns the “bastard” who gossiped about your dating habits, as it defensively explains how your comments pertaining to your friend’s love life were misunderstood.
Pride is insidious in others and understandable in ourselves. It’s what made the devil who he is.
Make no mistake, we all have it.
My pride forces me to be better than others in the worst way. It constrains my ability to admit when I’m wrong and forces me to plow through others when they are.
What does your pride do? Some of us are absolute terrors to live with and be around, all the while thinking that we’re God’s gift to mankind. It would be comical if our delusions weren’t so devastating to the people around us. Ignorance on that level might make for a compelling villain in the magical realm of TV, but it makes for a pitiful human in the real world.
It’s time we examine ourselves honestly.
I’m not trying to be Debbie Downer here.
I’m just someone who is compelled to address this sobering reality. In the weeks to come, we will delve into how to handle such issues of the mind and heart.
In the meantime, I must issue a bittersweet thank you to my last round of TV watching. Despite our best efforts to shift the blame to the “other” group for actively destroying the country (and refusing to change the world), I know where the real issue lies.
I am the problem with the world.
Ryan Galloway is a religion senior at UF. His column appears on Wednesdays. You can contact him at opinions@alligator.org.
