Customized Experiences Lead to Lack of Common Sense

I have determined that there is no such thing as common sense any more.  Just the other day I was reading in the sports page of my local newspaper.  A professional football player in Florida was at the home of a team cheerleader; he is 30, she is 19; the team has a rule against cheerleaders dating players, so she was referred to as his "ex-girlfriend".  The couple was upstairs in her parents' house, in a gameroom, allegedly watching television.  A man in a ski mask appeared, brandishing a gun.  The gunman dragged the girl around by her hair, and struck her with his fist while the football player watched.  When the gunman turned to pistol-whip the football player, the girl ran downstairs to get a gun.  The gunman gave chase, and shots were fired.  The football player shut the door, put a chair up against it, and jumped out of the window so he could "run next door to call police".

"This is wrong on so many levels," I commented aloud.  A female co-worker responded: "Yeah.  She shouldn't have had a gun in her house."

Huh?

Several weeks ago I wrote a column for the newspaper.  I praised the efforts of local Baptist churches for getting involved in charitable work.  The charity I mentioned was all about helping lower income families get food, clothing, shelter, and school supplies for their children.  I commented that many have the mistaken idea that Evangelicals are all about sharing the Gospel, and not about feeding the hungry, like other more socailly liberal denominations.

The only letter to the editor published in response to my column was a woman ranting against giving tax-exempt status to churches.  Did she miss the point, or did I?

And that is the point I am trying to make here.  Americans used to have things in common, like families and community events.  Barn-raisings and bake sales.  As the electronic age was birthed, families gathered around their radios for news of the war.  Later, we would all talk about the same characters on the same television shows.

Where has that sense of community gone?

There used to be something called "common sense", and it sprang from the same common experiences we all went through.  Be nice to animals. Don't spit into the wind.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

But now, in the name of "diversity", we all  have different cultures.  With 400 channels, no one watches the same shows.  Even with sporting events, over 100,000 people can show up for a Cowboys game, but ten times that many people in the DFW metroplex do not even know they are playing, and do not care what the score is.  There are no winners or losers in children's games any more.  You have to give out ribbons to everyone for "participation".  You can't fail students any more; everyone gets a minimum grade of 50% just for turning in their work.

These different experiences have splintered us as a society.  We no longer have a shared experience, therefore we are moving toward a time when we no longer have a shared purpose.

When will it all end?