I knew exactly how the conversation would go. I would say something about the situation in Georgia (the country, not the state). I would mention the global economy, political allies, post-Cold War relationships. I would bring up apathy and our government's work at keeping their citizens blinkered and ignorant. I would get a little riled up, but I would keep my cool. And all I would hear is, "Why should I care?"

When did this become an acceptible answer to any query beyond those regarding immediate gratification?

In other words, who told you it was okay to not care?

Screw this attitude. I hate people who say "why should I care" in response to just about anything that doesn't concern their eating, sleeping, money-making or sexual lives. Somewhere along the line this became a savvy answer to impassioned, bleeding heart liberal do-gooders (oooo, could I say SOCIALISTS?). It became the dapper response of the intellectual elite, the suave capitalist, the libertines fending off those who would pick their pockets so the pick pockets didn't have to. Like a giant ostrich with it's head in the sand, the United States has become a country so ignorant that half of our school children cannot name 25 of the 50 states, they cannot tell you the years of the Civil War, they do not know the names of our founding fathers. There're plenty of dates that I don't know, plenty of facts about our wars and treaties and imports and exports that I couldn't tell you the first thing about. But when I meet a random French foreigner who can tell me more about a country he only visited for 6 months and it's struggle with other countries--including current wars and religious strife--than I can tell him about my own state, I feel ridiculous. How can you not be ashamed? How can you be complacent, how can you let go and say, "hell, not MY problem"?

Allow me to let you in on a little secret. It IS your problem. They're ALL your problems.

I'm not being an alarmist, I don't think the world will end tomorrow. This planet and its civilizations have lived through plenty of strife and will live through much more. It's built to last, Ford tough, if you will. I do think, however, that in order to ensure our warranty, we'd better keep an eye on things. You live in proximity to about 260 million other people, and that's just in your country (this excludes anyone reading this from outside of the USA). But you don't care, you don't care about any of them. Their living and their dying have no effect on you. What they do with their time, who they love, what they fear, what they desire more than anything in the world and what they'll do to get it--none of that matters to you in the slightest, as long as you get your ass, your gas, and your grass.

Hey, it's Thanksgiving, right? Guess what. If the first people to land on this shore had thought all the way back there in England, "Shit, why should I care?" we wouldn't have been here. If those Indians whom we subsequently slaughtered and brutalized and oppressed and contine to oppress had thought, as the onset of winter numbed those first settlers' hands and brought cold death to their children, "Why should we care?" you had better believe we would not be here. And sometimes I wonder if that apathy was the road not taken, if they had watched the pale faces grow paler and sink beneath the snow, saying "why should I care" all the while--wouldn't they be better off now? Don't they deserve that?

They didn't take that road. They cared. And look where it got them. This is not my argument for apathy. This is my injunction, to you, to be grateful for those who did care, and who do care. We would be nowhere, we would not exist, if someone hadn't cared. And that is why you should care.




Please. Don't ever say "Why should I care?" to me. Just don't.