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America’s Problem? We’ve Forgotten How to Mind Our Own Business.
Everyone’s angry these days. We’re mad at people wearing masks and people not wearing masks. Mad at the crowds in Portland and mad at the cops trying to keep the peace. Mad at Trump and Biden and Kanye West.
Which brings me to “Ghostbusters II.”
In this cinematic classic, our titular heroes identify the source of a recent paranormal outbreak. The general anger and discontent that defined 1980s New York City created a subterranean river of psychoreactive pink slime.
“All the bad feelings, all the hate, the anger and vibes of this city is turning into the sludge,” Winston (Ernie Hudson) tells the mayor.
“What am I supposed to do,” the mayor responds, “go on television and tell ten million people they have to be nice to each other? Being miserable and treating other people like dirt is every New Yorker’s God-given right!”
What used to be a New York thing has gone nationwide.
After weeks of research, long nights of analysis, and more than a few Bill Murray films, I believe I’ve discovered the problem: We’ve forgotten how to mind our own business.
The nosy neighbor is a long-running trope in popular entertainment, from Gladys Kravitz in “Bewitched” to Marie Barone in “Everyone Loves Raymond.” These meddling, gossipy scolds were examples of what not to be.
These days, they would probably play the heroes. Most of America is now glued to their phones to see who did what and how they should punish them.
A recent convo with someone far more plugged in than myself went like this:
“You hear ‘Entanglements?’ Can’t believe August did Jada like that.”
“August? It’s July.”
“August Alsina. You know. His song about Jada and Will. Uncool.”
“Will Smith?”
“Yeah! Jada had that affair with August and he did a song about it.”
“Can we stop talking?”
To my credit, I knew who Will Smith was, that he was married to Jada, and that he shouldn’t have made “Wild Wild West.” The rest of it was beyond me.
I’ve never followed Hollywood gossip because nothing celebrities do has any effect on my life. I’ve got a fading number of brain cells and I can’t afford to fill it up with nonsense.
In other words, I mind my own business, just like my mom taught me.
At least celebrities make news because they’re famous. Today, everyone has a smartphone and records everyone else in their worst moments. There’s the guy yelling at a cashier, a driver following a commuter home because she flipped him off, and the woman losing it because the restaurant ran out of guac.
As social media busybodies lambaste the latest hate object, they never seem interested in the other side of the story. Maybe the moral monster captured on shaky video just found out her dad was diagnosed with cancer. Or has been working double shifts the past several months at a health clinic. Or is struggling with a mental illness.
Kanye West has engaged in erratic behavior over the past week, earning mockery and contempt from media sophisticates. This, in spite of his well-publicized struggles with bipolar disorder.
His wife responded to his accusers Wednesday. “We as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health as a whole, however we should also give it to the individuals who are living with it in times when they need it most.”
When Kim Kardashian becomes a moral exemplar, it’s time to reflect. Perhaps once we each solve our myriad personal flaws and misbehaviors, we’ll be in a position to judge complete strangers.
Until then, let’s relearn how to just mind our own business.
Originally published in the Arizona Republic.
Published in Culture
How does the concept of respecting the other, and not minding their business but our own, translate into our behaviour in these respectful exchanges on Ricochet?
I nominate this post for the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize, and maybe even a Cracker Jack prize. The word everyone needs to hear right now.
“Mind your own business” ought to be our national motto.
Just today, saw a NextDoor post from a woman dictating what the APPROPRIATE (her capitalization) and INAPPROPRIATE responses to “Why aren’t you wearing a mask?” are, when walking outside. So far, thankfully, I haven’t been accosted by this woman when walking my dog Marlowe.
As Living Colour sang: I’m not one of those “joiners,” I’m not down with the club… I just leave it alone
Well done! I think people occupy themselves with the misdeeds and gossip about others because it allows them to achieving a moral superiority over others without having to admit and sit with their own personal flaws. It’s a lazy way to feel better about one’s faults, and avoid the hard work of self-improvement.
Jon,
Dickless needs to be restrained. Then I’m with you 100%.
Regards,
Jim
I once read a sci-fi story in which a stranger shows up on a libertarian planet, and the response to any of his questions was MYOB.
I’ve never cared too much about celebrities outside of pleasant human interest stories, like random celebrity X visited a fan in the hospital or gave a lot to charity.
People need to focus more on people they know in flesh and blood, or at least talk to regularly so you don’t need emojis to tell their emotions. Do not deliberately blind yourself to the social signals we have been engineered to use and have survived evolutionary development over the millennia. They will detoxify your social interactions
What you speak of has been the worst part of these past months for me.
I’ve got real life friends whom I have no desire to reconnect with after seeing their behavior on Facebook. Everything from complaining about masks to calling the cops on too many young people walking down the street with no social distancing.
about a month ago there was a many-commented upon post about a suspected party. I finally shut them all up by asking for the address and inquiring if it was private
My family enjoyed a rare night out last weekend when the bars/restaurants were allowed to serve outside on the street. It was a lovely night and we had a great time
Someone took a video and shared it in the spirit of “isn’t it great to see everyone out and about”. The condemnation and vitriol was disgusting. It was far beyond any health concerns.
I’m convinced there are many unhappy and miserable people in this world who resent the rest of us not joining them in their misery. Covid, for whatever reason, has given them license to express themselves honestly.
And while I’m complaining (there’s an irony) I wish to God everyone would stop declaring their “Underlying conditions” or their age like badges of glory.
We found out we can hurt each other without getting arrested or sued, the rest is just the result of humanity being barely sane hormone driven monsters.
Nailed it. They are the same people who say we shouldn’t enjoy stuffing ourselves on Thanksgiving as long as there’s one starving child in the world. The fact that most of these people are liberals is a mere coincidence . . .
I say it’s time to panic . . .
Stad,
Now Stad, we must be forgiving. Perhaps, if someone could write her a nice country ballad, hey you’re pretty good at that. I’ve got the title for you. Silicone Angel.
Regards,
Jim
Good observation. I would add “fearful” to your list of “unhappy and miserable.” Fearful people are often miserable, and they lash out in their misery. And so many are fearful thanks to the MSM who are, for all intents and purposes, sellers of fear.
Agreed. Fear is not a virtue, though some think it so.
No. We’re mad that the people who want to wear masks are forcing the people who don’t to wear them.
Don’t help build the left’s strawmen.
This is what Marshall McLuhen meant when he said that electronic communications turns the world into a Global Village. In a village, everybody knows everybody’s business and the village busybodies are the most powerful, feared, and despised group of folk. Ayn Rand wrote that “Civilization is the progress towards a society of privacy” as people migrated from the villages to the cities, but Marshall McLuhen saw that electronic communications would undo that progress.
Exactly.
I’m reminded of the line from that Steppenwolf song “Monster”:
“We don’t know how to mind our own business,
‘Cause the whole world’s got to be just like us.”
I was just talking to a clerk this morning who said he has a friend who’s a germophobe and he’s glad everyone has to wear a mask now so that he doesn’t stand out.
So what’s it to you whose business I mind?