David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

David McElroy

Briefly: Dumbed-down public discourse means reason is dead

By ·

The decline of modern culture can be seen clearly by looking at what passes for public discourse. There was a time when people who wanted their ideas accepted made rational arguments. It was assumed that most people were bright enough and rational enough to evaluate those arguments — and a surprising number of them really were. Today, the arguments are made in the form of irrational and simplistic graphics called “memes.” Because these graphics can’t convey complex or nuanced information, they present dumbed-down presentations of positions which are stunningly juvenile and seem designed to offend rather than to convince. We have regressed from books and dense pamphlets to a level more like that of angry kindergartners making crayon-scrawled hate notes to send to other children. Reason no longer plays a role in public discourse, and this signals the coming fall of this society.

Related Posts

I can’t tell truth about my father unless I dig for truth about myself

By ·

I was trying to tell a friend about my film idea when I stumbled upon the right title. I casually said something about attempting to tell “the truth about my father” when it struck both of us that I had just spoken the right title.

“The Truth About My Father”

That would be the name of the non-fiction book I would write and then it would be the name of a very fictionalized comedy version that I would make afterward. Why did such a strange tale need to be told as a comedy? I didn’t know then and I still don’t know, but I know it’s a dark comedy.

That was years ago. Ever since then, I’ve struggled to figure out how to make the story work as a film script. Redrawing my father as an exaggerated form of his eccentric self was easy, but the story centered around a son learning the hidden truth about his father. And I figured something out this week.

The story is boring — and it doesn’t work — unless I dig into my own flaws and trace where the worst part of me came from. To tell the truth about my father, I have to dig into — and expose — the worst parts of myself.

And that’s scary.

Keep Reading

Related Posts

What makes someone want you enough to make you a priority?

By ·

It was after midnight when someone tagged me on Facebook. I checked to see what it was.

“Came across this going through some old photos from about 5 years ago,” this person wrote as his caption next to big words on a picture. “Words of wisdom from David McElroy.”

I don’t remember writing the words, but it sounds like my voice, so I’m sure I did. As I read the words, I agreed with them, but I found myself painfully aware that I haven’t always lived up to them.

“You can’t force someone to believe you are worth making a priority,” I wrote, apparently about five years ago. “If you try, you will end up bitter, hurt and angry. If a person doesn’t value you enough to make you a priority, it doesn’t matter what he or she says — even if the words are, ’I love you.’ Love is lived out through priorities and actions, not words and wishes. If you wait and beg to become someone’s priority, you’re not showing how much you love someone else. You’re showing how little you value yourself.”

I remember what it feels like to be a woman’s priority.

Keep Reading

Related Posts