Polarized Society

 

Every day during my morning jaunt through town, I take notes, observations of the people I come across. Not the people I come in contact with – that’s a no-no when giving strangers the Jane Goodall treatment. I wouldn’t want to risk interfering with my work by literally getting too close. So I keep my subjects at a reasonable distance, using binoculars only when appropriate.

My findings rarely surprise anyone with a background in anthropology. Some people wear hats, some people do not. Some people wait for the light to cross the street, while others like my neighbor William “Dash” Nilly traipse across bustling thoroughfares in what could only be described as a willy-nilly fashion. They help me pass the time in between cups of coffee. But recently I’ve noticed something – according to many, we are living in an extremely polarized society. That may be so. However, too often I see people walking the sunny streets post-dawn without sunglasses. Should they be donning shades, the lenses are rarely if ever polarized. Is it too much to ask in a supposed polarized society for one’s choice of optics to match the tenor of person-to-person interactions? 

I thought so. Yet when’s the last time Ray-Ban or Oakley had a thoughtful word to add to the fraught conversation? They are tongue-tied, afraid to get involved. What they don’t understand – what you’d like to think Polaroid understands – is that they are already involved whether they realize it or not. Want to change society for the better? Increase access to your sunglasses and allow people to finally see the world as it is. 

There’s another problem staring at us through reflective glass. In this polarized society of ours, how many people reside in either of the globe’s two poles? As in, what is the number of folks who pay their taxes from the North or South Poles? There’s Kringle. There’s John Q. Penguin. After that, the rest of us are only pretending to live in a polarized society.

Although, the earth has always been a little bipolar.