Dangerous numbers
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” — Elie Wiesel
Sometimes, it seems Americans have lost faith in just about everything.
Pew Research Center says just 36% of Americans attend church at least once a week, not much more than the 30% who attend seldomly or never.
Trust in national news sites fell from 76% in 2016 to 61% in 2022, according to Pew. Trust in banks fell from 49% in 2019 to 40% last year. Trust in large corporations fell from 36% to 25% in that time. Trust in technology companies fell from 58% to 49%.
Just this week, according to the Washington Post, a Post-ABC News poll found 71% of Americans have “just some” or no confidence at all in newly christened U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to make the right decisions for the country’s future. Seventy-two percent say they lack confidence in congressional Republicans, 68% lack confidence in President Joe Biden, and 70% lack confidence in congressional Democrats.
In other words, sizeable majorities of ordinary Americans think the people in charge are a bunch of dunces just as likely to lead us into economic calamity as they are to lead us into prosperity, just as likely to lead us into World War III as they are to lead us into peace, just as likely to sell every American up the river for their own personal gain as they are to create an environment where every American can thrive.
That comes just a few months after a high-turnout election, which to me suggests people want to have faith in the system, they’re just constantly choosing between the lesser of two evils.
I would not suggest we ought to place politicians, corporate leaders, preachers, or tech leaders on pedestals or put all our faith in them to solve the nation’s ills.
I believe we Americans are best suited to solve America’s problems, through hard work, grit, determination, and ingenuity.
But I’d also like to live in a society in which the people trust the leaders they’ve just elected to do the right thing. You’d like to think government works for the people.
And we have to have faith in something.
Faith helps us believe in a system that, even if it’s broken, can be fixed again. Faith provides a sense of purpose and hope, something to strive toward, to work for. We tend to remain engaged in the things in which we have faith.
A lack of faith is dangerous. It leads to apathy and indifference.
And evil triumphs when good people do nothing. Evil runs amok when we don’t pay attention.
We can blame many people for the destruction of faith.
Certainly, the institutions themselves have hurt their own reputations. Too many church leaders have been caught leading ungodly lives. Too many corporations have been caught shirking the little man. Biden’s bungling departure from Afghanistan and U.S. House Republicans’ bungling speaker election provide reason enough for damaged faith.
Media writ large shares some blame, too. Too many movies focus on the worst in humanity. National newspapers and cable TV news especially tend to obsess over scandals large and small and rarely talk about the parts of the system that work (and there are some).
I’m proud to work for a newspaper that maintains a vibrant Lifestyles page that showcases the creativity and generosity of my community.
Like many things, social media bears a fair amount of blame. Numerous researchers have found that negative information spreads farther and faster than positive posts.
Which means we share some of the blame, as well, because we’re the ones clicking those “share” buttons and sending on the vitriol. We’re the ones giving TV news the ratings for their scandal coverage and buying tickets to those movies that show us conspiratorial governments, evil corporations, unholy church leaders, and other depravities.
I don’t know the answer to the problem.
But, like most solutions, I know it starts with us.
Stories about broken government and corrupt corporations have their place, so we can know what needs fixing, but we ought to read stories of human triumph just as often. We ought to share stories of positivity at least as often as we share negativity.
We can run for office, ourselves — espousing and working toward hope and ambition — to replace the politicians who keep letting us down.
And we must search for something, anything in which we can believe, then put all our efforts into making that thing bigger, stronger, better.
–Justin Hinkley, The Alpena News