Horse-drawn carriages make a walk through New York's Central Park even more memorable. The sturdy steeds dutifully plod where the drivers direct, aided in their task by distraction-blocking blinders.
Horse blinders are good. The horse goes where the driver wants it to go, and at the end of the trail it gets a bowl of water and bucket of oats. It occurred to me that human blinders act much the same way.Sometimes we put the blinders on ourselves, preferring blissful ignorance to inconvenient truths. But often, those who seek to control us do so by means of our unwitting submission to blinders.
The media, for example, do the bidding of their political benefactors by deftly using fear and hot-button emotional issues to blind us to higher truths. Indeed, truth is the enemy for those who revel in the thralls of righteousness, who believe in self-justification and demonization of enemies above all else. Hard-held traditions and fears trump science and rationality with blinders so securely in place.
Perhaps such control is good. We go placidly along, enjoying summer softball, rounds of golf and cookouts by the pool, merrily oblivious to political leaders acting against our long-term interests, against the very founding principles of our nation.
But how many bribes will we allow the politicians to take, how much public interest will we let them sift off to their special pals, how many innocents over there will we kill to vainly ensure a false sense of security over here before we yank the blinders off?
Fish, like a horse with blinders, can see only their little world directly in front of them. They are oblivious to the magnificent universe beyond the ocean. Yet the job of the fish is to be fish. As humans we are called to more. We are called to use reason, to seek truth and to follow it wherever it goes.
It is time to take the blinders off. It is time to see from sea to shining sea -- and especially beyond.
Horse blinders are good. The horse goes where the driver wants it to go, and at the end of the trail it gets a bowl of water and bucket of oats. It occurred to me that human blinders act much the same way.Sometimes we put the blinders on ourselves, preferring blissful ignorance to inconvenient truths. But often, those who seek to control us do so by means of our unwitting submission to blinders.
The media, for example, do the bidding of their political benefactors by deftly using fear and hot-button emotional issues to blind us to higher truths. Indeed, truth is the enemy for those who revel in the thralls of righteousness, who believe in self-justification and demonization of enemies above all else. Hard-held traditions and fears trump science and rationality with blinders so securely in place.
Perhaps such control is good. We go placidly along, enjoying summer softball, rounds of golf and cookouts by the pool, merrily oblivious to political leaders acting against our long-term interests, against the very founding principles of our nation.
But how many bribes will we allow the politicians to take, how much public interest will we let them sift off to their special pals, how many innocents over there will we kill to vainly ensure a false sense of security over here before we yank the blinders off?
Fish, like a horse with blinders, can see only their little world directly in front of them. They are oblivious to the magnificent universe beyond the ocean. Yet the job of the fish is to be fish. As humans we are called to more. We are called to use reason, to seek truth and to follow it wherever it goes.
It is time to take the blinders off. It is time to see from sea to shining sea -- and especially beyond.
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