i said, we live in a bubble.

whew! just finished writing a monster response to a 1-line comment that i decided belongs on the blog proper, as opposed to being allowed to linger in the comments section. Anonymous's* post was in response to my post titled "we live in a bubble."

*grammar nerd alert--I do believe it is "Anonymous's" as opposed to "Anonymous' ," as, with very few exceptions, proper nouns ending in "s" are expressed in the possessive by using an apostrophe and another "s," a notable exception being any reference to Jesus, where you would write "Jesus' " BUT only when referring to Jesus Christ. Your friend Jesus who is not the Son of God would still be be "Jesus's." Interesting eh? Grammar debate, anyone?....anyone?*

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At 2:59 PM, Anonymous said…

You mean, “I live in a bubble”. Take some responsibility for your ignorance!

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At 7:18 PM, K said…

Hm.

By "we live in a bubble," I meant that it's oftentimes hard for me to believe, even though I hear of it on the radio or read it in the news, that the atrocities that happen outside the US are real. Because though I see it on TV, it doesn't affect my life in any tangible way, except maybe paying a few more bucks at the gas station.

When I look out my window, I see palm trees and ocean. When people like BEYFlyer (mentioned in the post below) look out their window, they see the shit being bombed out of Beiruit airport.

It was not until I visited the minefields of Cambodia that I saw beggars with their limbs hanging off them in stumps, and Pol-Pot's regime became something a little more real than a lead pencil smudge on a history test. It wasn't until I spent thousands of hours volunteering for immigrant farmers in Mexico, generations of whom live their entire lives in cardboard shacks, that I realized the true cost of my salad veggies.

The "bubble" is the very sad fact that if I stopped reading certain news websites, and stopped listening to certain radio stations, and stopped travelling...I simply wouldn't find out about the atrocities that happen each and every single day to the majority of the population of this world.

Do you disagree?

As an American, I have the ability to choose between seeking information about the "outside," or simply ignoring it--and it makes me so concerned that some people choose to ignore.

I've had more than a few people ask me why I care about what happens outside this country...and why I bother to ever leave the US. I think it's a tragedy that it's not uncommon for people in this country to think this way.

One law student whom a lot of us at school know famously quoted: "why would I ever need to subscribe to and read TIME, or The Economist, or Newsweek? I'm not ugly! Only ugly people need to read those things." Sigh.

Maybe you do live in a war-torn area, in which case, you have every right to say I, as opposed to "we," live in a bubble. Because I, and a lot of other people in this country, do. But if you live in the US--wouldn't you agree that this place sometimes resembles Truman's world?

Hey, not that I'm complaining about living in a safe place. Just that--the more I read, the more I'm convinced America is this little island of ignorance in a sea of suffering people who for the most part hate our guts. Wouldn't a synonym for that be...bubble? Just travel anywhere else in the world--anywhere!--and ask the locals what they think about our government.

I should add that my comment about not reading the news or listening to NPR anymore was totally in jest. As all who know me can attest, I'm quite the international affairs junkie. Law school puts that on the back burner sometimes, but it's certainly one of my loves in life.

Ignorance is something that happens when you close yourself to the world, and to the opinions of others. I try my best not to do that.

Glad you stopped by to read, but surprised you'd come to such a hasty judgment.
-K