I had a great conversation with my father and brother on Thanksgiving. It reminded me how good it feels to relate via critical thinking, to find others who are trying to make sense of a rigged game; to resist, to dissent.  Yeah, we talked a lot about conspiracy theories and “what’s wrong with the world today.”  So much so that I fear the house will be bugged and we now have FBI files.  This holiday season, give the invaluable gift of bonding over dissent.  Things to go on about for a little while:

• Millennials. (Thanks to my brother for this link. But I don’t think you read my blog, do you?)  Though slightly patronizing, I found a lot of parallels to challenges I experience with the students I teach. 

• Profit Systems.  This is always my go-to soapbox tirade.  Behind every terrible thing that has happened or is happening in the world is the quest for profit–by an individual, an industry, a group of people, a ruling class, etc.  Test it out next time you listen to the news.  Peel a few layers and you’ll see that atrocities are happening (and changes are not happening) for want of money and power.  Now and historically, and maybe forever since too many are wrapped up in the distractions doled out to us. (Required Viewing: Noam Chomsky’s Requiem For The American Dream and Collapse, which pretty much gave me a nervous breakdown when I saw it. Good times.)

• How Bad Movies Are Now/How They Are Remaking Everything But Watering It Down For Dumber and More Superficial People. (See: Millennials above).  This is difficult to me as a Generation X-er.  Film, Music–this was our currency of cool.  Our complex exploration of self left us lacking some practical skills, yes, but we really got to know ourselves deeply and we really understood the value of quality.  It seems like this no longer exists.  Mass media is total garbage because it’s made for the masses… who lack vision, critical thought, emotional depth, the want for experience that results in emotional depth, and the ability to distinguish these things and value them.  Good learners don’t think they have all the answers already.  Your curiosity does not entitle you to instant knowledge. Wisdom is available but hard-earned.  It is earned only through experience, not typing things in search engines.  Oh my goodness, here I go again

• Celebrity Culture. Why do people care?  No, I want to know. Sometimes I see People magazine by the cashier at the grocery or drug store and it is baffling. Who—-Cares?

• The data that is you. Why are we giving away so much for so little? The computer age created one of the most disturbing profit system yet. All of our habits, interests, our face, our friends, our privacy, our accounts, everything–I’m going to hand it to those who sell it to the highest bidder for the price of being able to say “Google, what’s the weather today?” They will give us small conveniences–which are growing larger and larger as we usher in the use of A.I.–and we will give them everything. And they tell us they will sell us and we hit “Agree” without reading. Didn’t anyone ever see The Terminator?

So take those 5 agenda items and see how they play out at your next Holiday soirée. Personalize as you will.

P.S.A.: Think. Like all the time. And freely. It is like armor.