Limed for the Truth

You know what the problem with modern society is?

Acid-free pulpless orange juice.

Acid-free pulpless orange juice. Tell me, what’s the point of orange juice without a kick? Without pulp? Nothing. It tastes like thick orange-colored water, and it’s indicative of the single largest problem with western civilization, nowadays: everything’s got to be clean and easy to take. Nothing exciting, nothing that stirs an emotion, nothing that makes your eyes widen momentarily as the sensation hits you. It’s got to be pre-packaged and guaranteed not to cause anyone discomfort. Everything prepackaged for the mass market, focus-grouped until any trace of individuality is sacrificed on the altar of marketability. This makes everything pretty goddamn bland.

The most egregious example: John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine.’ Bunch of pretty words about unity and harmony (two completely incompatible concepts, mind you) and world peace and whatnot. One of the last lines is, ‘Nothing to kill or die for.’ If there’s nothing to kill for - nothing worth fighting and dying for - then what the fuck’s the point of living? There’s no passion for things anymore, as a society. We’re too passive, too willing to let stuff go because we don’t want to fight.

I don’t have a solution. I think we’re mostly sheep, just gettin’ by, thanks sir, without enough things that we really, deeply care about. Right now we’re down to God (or the lack thereof), the enviroment, and, what, socialism? Oh, and AIDS. We’re low on romantics, or poets and songwriters that don’t suck. [More on that in my forthcoming rant on American Idol.] We have far, far too many lawyers. People used to defend what they believed in. Now we don’t believe in anything except ‘don’t rock the boat,’ and I think that’s a shitty way to live.

I don’t know what I’d prefer people believed in. Honestly, I don’t think that’s my place. I just wish people - not those reading this, naturally; you’re all more than forthcoming on your particular insights - were willing to speak their views on moral issues, on religious issues, on any damn thing they wished without worrying about upsetting someone. I wish we were willing to listen to things that upset us. I dunno, I’m probably just talking out of my ass, but I think the fact that there’s a demand for nonacidic pulpless citrus fruit beverages is really fucking sad, and a sign that we’re stagnating as a civilization.