STOP THE MEANNESS!

Today was a very good day for Beyonce Knowles. She won a VMA award and saved the day for Taylor Swift with her very classy save of Ms. Swift’s victory, which had been upstaged by an ill-advised and tasteless bit of business by none other than Kanye West, who always seems to dance on the fine line between something great and something confounding. With today’s pop stars owning so much of the business they’re in (as Kanye West does), it took a lot of personal courage for Beyonce to do this, and I’m really impressed by it.

This is also the day I read that oodles of idiots have decided to chide young Rumer Willis on her perceived lack of beauty.

What is this meanness? Where has all of this come from? The answer that I’ve found over and over again with mean people is that they’ve intellectually shut down. They no longer have the capacity or the willingness to look deeper for more answers, resorting instead to the sort of simple logic that would satisfy a 5 year old. I want – I need – give it to me – you’re ugly – I don’t like you because you’re different – I don’t like you because if I do, others won’t like me.

Lazy, lazy, lazy. When our brain food is reality TV and nasty radio, and our discussion is merely others who think just like us muttering, “yup” over and over again, we’ve fallen prey to our tendency toward irrelevance.

I wish John Lennon were here to conjure up another, “Imagine”. But, alas, it is our job to right this misguided and persistent ship. How do we do this? How do we stand up and say, “Stop it!!”, “Stop the meanness”, “Love Again”?