Politics Sunday

Welcome to the new segment of this blog called Politics Sunday. When Andy digests all of the NPR he's listened to and throws up some thoughts and questions.

So, this week I didn't listen to the news much at all and instead listened to the No Country for Old Men audiobook.

Questions:

Is humanity qualitatively worse now and getting even worser?

Is this country for old men?

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Discussion:

I called my sister today and we were talking about books that middle schoolers read. And House of the Scorpion came up which I remember as a particularly "dark" book with "edgy" themes and settings.

Then I thought about how much more upsetting that book would be to me now, understanding more of the context and actual impact of the things the books talked about.

Sometimes we say kids can handle things because they don't have big reactions but really the stuff is just going over their head. Looking back now I think I just didn't have a fully formed concept of right or wrong. It's a weird thing to talk about and I think it boils down to the fact that I didn't "really" know. Like I didn't realize how things that happen casually all the time in movies and media and whatever can be hugely impactful when it happens to you. Is that a really obvious thing to say? Am I way too old to be reaching this conclusion?

What am I saying? I guess I'm saying that if something is "mature" then it SHOULD upset you but you should have the tools to cope with that and process it. Which can outwardly look similar to not even really understanding the significance at all. This is me becoming a more conservative, old person right before your eyes.

Someone in a book: [does a lie]

14 year old me: lol whatever

27 year old me: DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND HOW LIES CAN DESTROY RELATIONSHIPS AND RUIN YOUR LIFE?