Two weeks ago, HarperCollins dictionary added “meh” as an official entry for its 2009 edition. Etymology: Murky. Possibly the Simpsons, a response given by Bart and Lisa when Homer suggests a day trip in a 2001 episode. Definition: refers to an apathetic response. It really has a striking similarity to “eh,” used for the same purpose. I suppose the “m” at the beginning added just that scholarly touch that HarperCollins needed.
We seem to violently not care about a lot of things, as illustrated by the expetives we use to show the degree of our un-caringness when “meh” won’t suffice: “I don’t give a shit,” or “I don’t give a fuck”… even “I don’t give a flying fuck.” (Can you imagine the visual that would be produced in a non-native speaker’s mind when first hearing that someone doesn’t give a flying fuck?)
Caught in the Obama fury, one might easily not think of this year as a particularly “meh” one. Especially since this apathy — normally associated with our generation — was arguably rebuked by the efforts poured out by our age group across the country.
But as this is my last column of 2008, and my last column during Mr. George W. Bush’s presidency, I took a few minutes to ponder the idea of caring.
Violent apathy might seem like a contradiction, but in the past four years, President Bush’s inaction has been as dangerous as his actions. Over Thanksgiving break, CNN ran a program about civic-nominated “heroes.” The hero of the year, Liz McCartney, completely changed her course after Katrina to co-found St. Bernard’s Project, an organization devoted to rebuilding families’ homes in St. Bernard’s Parish in New Orleans. Due to the efforts mostly undertaken by this organization, one-half of the pre-storm population has been able to move back into what were declared previously as absolutely uninhabitable homes. While the broadcast left me feeling overwhelmingly inspired by this woman and others, I also felt infuriated: where in the world was and IS our government in this?
At the same time as not caring about people’s basic material rights in New Orleans, former political leaders have interestingly enough equated caring about the country to consumerism. Caring, Country, Consume. This alliterative triumvirate has carried over to today, so that when we do care, we care about the wrong things. The best episode to epitomize this occurred in Valley Stream, Long Island, where a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death in the rush for shopping deals on Black Friday last week.
Let’s think about this for a second.
Thomas Friedman wrote in last week’s Times that he is tempted to run over to people he sees eating out and warn them to save their money: “You don’t know me, but I have to tell you that you shouldn’t be here. You should be saving your money. You should be home eating tuna fish. This financial crisis is so far from over. We are just at the end of the beginning.” Clearly, Friedman’s warning has not been heeded so far. So many people were in a rush to buy from Wal-Mart (one notorious for its low wages, as a side-note), during a time where we should (if anything) be thrifty, that a man died.
We’ve got to stop acting like animals boarding Noah’s ark before the flood. We’ve got to stop thinking that the holidays would not be the holidays without their materialism. It’s no coincidence that the economic crisis is tied in with this year’s Morbidly-Black Friday. We live in a society that tells us to measure our worth based on what people give us and what we give others. Perhaps Black Friday represented what many perceived to be their last shot at normalcy — an attempt to cover up the grim truth of this nation’s sinking economy with gift wrap and sparkles.
The problem is, that the morning after 12 or eight (or zero, or however many nights you celebrate for) arrives, we will be forced into giving a shit. We’ll be giving much more than a shit, actually — many will forfeit future plans, future expenditures, and for our generation especially, immediate professions that have always seemed somewhat safe.
We can no longer afford, both literally and metaphorically, to be “meh.” Here’s to making 2009 a year of pathos — a year of not just caring about our world, but of actually taking better care of it too. A sense of genuine caring is not one which could be imposed via governmental policy or a writer’s sense of urgency, but frankly, I’m afraid of the alternatives if we don’t care a little bit more. At the very least, if we all run and hide from fear of this economic crisis, we could care a little bit more as to not literally trample one another on the way. Meh?
Ariela Rutkin-Becker is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be contacted at arbecker@cornellsun.com [1]. Dude, Where’s My Karma runs alternate Tuesdays.
Links:
[1] mailto:arbecker@cornellsun.com