Has Consistency Become a Bad Thing?
I think consistency is one of the most powerful human qualities we can possess. If you find your path and consistently maintain your pace, you can do many things. This quality is so powerful that it has been discovered by some as a tool to use for negative reasons. In the book 1984, there exists a totalitarian government that goes beyond simply using its might to rule all people. They use words which describe good qualities then change their meaning to support their evil wishes. It is an enslavement of the word by changing the word’s definition. I think this is what has happened to the word “consistency.”
The adulteration of a word should be prevented by the media and our school system. Both of these institutions were set as impartial fact providers years ago. Much like the words they were supposed to protect, they have also become slaves to political interests.
I would exempt most K-12 schools from blame, however leadership at a higher institution can plant the seed of bountiful fruit or they can sow the weeds they think are pretty at the moment. They can easily twist words then bully students into accepting their warped creation and carrying it out to the world.
The media should be a bulwark that stands in the way of the twisted words used in false news. National media has instead willingly used every new or incorrect definition of old words. News shows have blurred the lines of truth and actual news seems to rely on the adulteration of words to present the news in a sort of code. It’s like they are using the words incorrectly, but they feel the end justifies the means.
Consistency should be used to support logic or fairness, instead it has been the lockstep to which the hobgoblin of little minds dance. I shake my head when I see people who consistently believe in whatever silliness some politician latches onto when he or she discovers a large bank of voters believes the rubbish they include in their speeches. There are also too many people who think that they must consistently believe whatever their political party says they should believe. If it doesn’t make sense, you should question the belief. If you can change a political group’s ideas when they are false, you have a party. When you must adopt their ideas without question, you have a mob. This is not consistency; this is intellectual slavery.
Demanding consistency can also imprison positive changes made by someone who is trying to improve themselves. This takes two forms: demanding that a person act in the future as they have in the past and demanding that they never change how they think. Making change when you realize you’re wrong is growth and shows strength, it is not a weakness.
We live in unsettled times, something that will calm these times is intelligent, moral leadership. If we ourselves are not intelligent and moral, then we will never receive leadership that matches our standards. If we are only concerned with being in lockstep with whatever is left of thought after it has been cropped, misrepresented, injected with false emotion and then fed to us without shame on our televisions, we should expect more of the same. It would only be consistent.
