Demodulation
[2007-02-23 15:05]

In my typical state of mind, I'm a cynical idealist. I believe that people and society should strive to be as good as they can (both Good in terms of quality and Good in terms of morality), but I am convinced that most people are too stupid, corrupt, selfish and/or apathetic to even come close. This usually leaves me in a perpetual low-level state of disappointment and depression.

In reality, though, I believe that most of us are pretty reasonable people and, as such, are capable of creating a reasonable society in which we can lead very reasonable lives. Unfortunately, evidence of this notion is rare.

Too often, as John Stewart noted, "this country is run by extremists because the rest of us have got shit to do�. But more than that, I think we appear to be run by extremists because bad news is more marketable than good news, so that's what the media feeds us.

Righteous Indignance is the greatest feeling there is -- we're all addicted to it, and we all want our fix (look at me, I'm doing it now!). So, the media gives us what we want.

Occasionally, though, people do demonstrate that we're capable of great empathy, great insight and great compassion. If we're lucky, it's recorded for posterity. A recent example of this is this clip of Craig Ferguson talking about Britney Spears.

Now I don't know anything about Craig Ferguson as a person, and I'm not going to deify him for this one monologue. For all I know, he could be a self-righteous, pandering bum. And I'm not going to demonize people who make jokes at Britney's (or anyone else's) expense, either. If those jokes are funny, I'll laugh along with everyone else. I'm not immune to Schadenfreude

But, whether or not Craig's story was genuine, the message is still good (both Good in the quality of its delivery and Good in its ethics). And that's worthy of respect. And that gives me hope.