By Sam Prendergast -
Sometimes the things we need are the things we’d rather avoid, like setting aside a solid eight hours to work out exactly why we should give a shit about the stream of horrifying ‘world events’ that flash by on the news for five seconds, then disappear from our brains until we find ourselves sitting in a group full of people talking in all-knowing tones. Over the past few years, I’ve done more than my fair share of sub-par “hmm”-ing when I’ve heard words like ‘civil war’ and ‘reality TV star running for US president’. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. It’s easy to say I should just pull myself together and make a little time to read beyond the headlines, but you know what would be more effective? A day of national shaming set aside to make us feel shitty about everything we don’t know, in the hopes that we’ll spend time doing some research.
A day where Netflix is down, supermarkets are closed, and the weather’s so bad that you might as well sit on your couch and google, “What’s actually happening on the Texas-mexico border”. Hint: some pretty bad stuff.
I’ll admit the idea’s a hard sell, but it’s helpful to think of this national day of giving a shit as a really specific sickie – a bit of a downer, but ultimately better than spending a day at work, and definitely in all of our long-term interests.
Imagine a family barbecue with a 10 per cent reduction in your uncle’s fake facts. Even better, imagine a family barbecue held on National Find Out What’s Actually Happening Day, where everyone joins together to dispute your uncle’s fake facts! The miraculous possibilities for a
day of forced shared learning are endless, even if the whole thing requires a little bit of planning. Infrastructure-wise, we might come across some problems, but it’s nothing that can’t be solved with the nationwide distribution of study snacks and increased access to some high-quality podcasts.
The problem with our fakefact world is that we don’t have a bunch of time dedicated to getting our facts straight. Even with plenty of education and an unfettered stream of access to almost everything I could want to know, I’ve somehow failed to get my head across 99 per cent of the shit that’s going down in 2018. Give me an unexpected day off and I will fill it with 20 straight hours of nothing. Part of the problem is that there’s an overwhelming amount of stuff to learn, and no clear place to start, so it’s ultimately much easier to give up on knowing anything and instead watch every single Youtube video in no particular order. Ask me what’s happening almost anywhere and I’m a beacon of ignorance, but I’ve now watched a good hundred hours of Buzzfeed videos about chicken dinners, so at least I can roast you a potato.
Obviously I’m more in need of this particular public holiday than others, but that’s OK. For people who are already actively on top of giving a proper shit about the world, this can be a day of rest and reward. For the rest of us, it’s time to acknowledge we don’t really understand all that much about *insert conflict/ political nightmare/huge travesty here*, because the first step is always to admit we have a problem. And in this case, I’m pretty sure the problem could be remedied – at least a little bit – with a nationwide day of low-level shaming, followed by a week-long period of sharing. In the end, we can’t really hope for miracles, but any step away from mass confusion and misunderstanding seems like it’s worth a public holiday.