The country has lost its ability to be shocked

I know we are supposed to be properly shocked by the new independent report detailing many years of the Southern Baptist Conference suppressing information on sexual abuse of church members by clergy. 

But are we, really? 

We are living in the aftermath (with some cases ongoing) of the gigantic Catholic priest scandals and massive payouts to victims. We have a large percentage of prospective Republican legislators and governors and state officials proudly lying about the 2020 election. We have the wife of a Supreme Court justice lobbying for a coup while her husband bemoans the loss of status of the Court. We have justices now about to overturn Roe v. Wade, despite proclaiming it "settled law" during confirmation hearings. Who would have guessed that people would lie so blatantly?

Mass shootings continue to occur with numbing regularity, and gun suicides are reaching record levels. Deaths from auto crashes are soaring. Drugs are killing Americans at ever-higher rates. 

I know. I should take a breath. After all, there are so many great things going on across the planet while all the crap is continuing, and most of us may not be directly affected.

I am sitting in my comfortable Highlands Ranch home, grading some papers and planning some summer workshop sessions and looking forward to a lunch break to watch some shows with Kathleen this afternoon. And then, off to see the newest Downton Abbey film followed by dinner.

What, me worry?

I did get a notification on my phone this morning that someone I had been around has tested positive for Covid, but the information is so nebulous that I wonder what I am supposed to do with it.

We just were in Seattle and we wore masks on the plane, etc., but isn't it a virtual guarantee that if we are out among people we have been in close contact with someone with the virus? It would be more helpful to receive a notification that I have NOT been in close contact with someone with the disease.

So learning about the latest outrage or illegal or immoral or unethical actions of a religious group or a federal institution or the gun/death lobby? Shrug.

H.L. Mencken once wrote: No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.

He wrote that 100 years ago.

Yes, this attitude is a bit elitist, but isn't it basically just a truth that observation confirms over and over? I suppose the only question is about how to define "plain people."

Certainly not you and me.