I really got put off today. You know? Gosh. It was just too much. I’m teaching a class and, you know, nice kids, nice young people.
The eyes are open and they’re so interested and we have to discuss the news. The news. Now the news is absolutely filled, as I see it at least, with violence and with pain. But, gosh, I’m not young. 68 years old, and I’ve never been shot.
Not once. Never been stabbed. Never. Not been blown up. So how much of the news is real?
And I think if you ask the average person, have you ever been shot? They will think you’re crazy because we associate this kind of violence with criminality. Perhaps you’re selling drugs, something that produces this level of anger and competitiveness in people. If you then go on, have you ever been stabbed? Now in Britain, of course, hard to buy, gun hard to get a gun, so they say knife crimes are off the scale.
Right? So, obviously, their society is pretty angry for sure. And then finally, have you ever been blown up? Of course, once again, never. Now these things obviously must happen in the world because they’re reported on, but I think they’re probably embellished as well.
Yellow journalism. Yellow journalism was started by Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer at the end of 19th century. They were attempting to sell more newspapers in New York City, so they essentially sensationalized the story. Missus Smith comes home. Her cat is missing.
Kitty, kitty, she calls out to her cat, her precious cat, her wonderful cat. It’s not there. She opens the door and goes into her home down the long, long hallway. At the end is a little table. She sees a letter on the table.
Has her kitten been kidnapped? Has someone broken into her house and stolen her little precious cat for ransom? Read tomorrow to see what happens with this story. Now this kind of ridiculousness, and no joke, this is how it began. Now if you go back before this, in the 19th century, if you study newspapers, they’re mostly filled with facts.
Not sensationalizing those facts, just facts. And you could sit back and reflect and analyze your own life relative to these facts. So as I was alluding to, all these young people looking at me for guidance. Gosh. And what do you say?
Will you tell the truth? That the news is foolish, and it’s not truthful. But they get so much of it. We get so much of it. Some of it must be truthful, and this is the danger.
I believe with the modern news, with many stories, there is a piece of truth in the story. A piece of truth. So let’s take an example. At the moment, as I speak, England is exploding with riots over perhaps immigration or issues such as this. 2 totally different size.
The story comes out. It’s only gangsters, and it’s only thugs. This is a new word for me. Thugs that are protesting. And in reality, the good people, which are all also now protesting, are actually with the government.
We should have mass immigration. Now you would think a balance view would be to analyze the both sides. Is immigration a good thing if it’s not controlled, or is it a bad thing? The what’s the truth? Small example of a story.
I have my own opinions, but I don’t want to pro offer them here. But there are many, many tales such as this. So what do I do? Well, I must learn for sure to think critically, and I must be willing to investigate some history and some news. Otherwise, I’m just going to be influenced by this wave of negativity that seems to descend upon us every single day.
And it’s so extreme now that many people say don’t watch the news. Have nothing to do with the facts around the world. They’re too unhappy. But that’s not the answer, is it, in truth? Because we must know what’s going on in the world as well.
We have no choice. We must be aware of society and how it will unfold. So I think the real solution is to study some history. You must know some history. Go back into the ancients, bring it forward to the medieval period, the Renaissance, and then the modern age.
Even if it’s only a superficial understanding of history, it will help us. Now, of course, history is normally written by the winners. The Second World War, for example, If you read German sources or you read, perhaps, American sources, the history is extremely different. The way they saw the world at the time was extremely different than we read, for instance. But in the end, I think we’re smart people, and I think we can truly, truly find our way.
So don’t just dismiss the news. Don’t. But once again, realize that life is, for the most part, positive and good. I don’t think the average person is evil. There are some, for sure.
There are some sociopaths, and, eventually, there are some psychopaths that should be in jail, of course, but not most of us. Most of us are kind, loving. We want the best for each other, for sure. And you know what they say you know what they say. Critical thinking is necessary, certainly, to discern the truth from lies, and critical thinking is great. Truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.