Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Thoughts about all those folks out there who seem to be doing something that the experts don’t like.

1980—it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away when I heard a woman telling foreign dignitaries about the common person in America. I didn’t approach her and hit her with a two-by-four—mostly because I didn’t have a two-by-four handy.

Today, “The common person gets their news from Facebook. Can you imagine the ignorance?”

The person making that statement used to be paid to write for a newspaper or the web version of the newspaper. The common person now talks to trusted friends instead of reading this former “journalist” who shot himself in the foot by writing nothing but editorials instead of being a journalist. Now this former journalist is unemployed and is lashing out at “the common person.”

Never underestimate “the common person.” The adjective “common” means there is a lot of these folks.

This isn’t yet another praise of “the silent majority” or populism or something. Just a reminder that there are plenty of persons “out there” (they must be out there because if they were in here some of us wouldn’t be worried about them) who don’t see things the same way we or me or someone else sees them.

Those folks out there are not ignorant. They simply disagree with some other folks.