Seeing Clearly

When something becomes popular and fashionable, it is often difficult to view it clearly. For example, Chinese women have had their feet bound for thousands of years, wearing shoes to stunt their growth because small feet were considered a symbol of beauty. The feet of aristocratic women were so small they could hardly walk without assistance. Peasant women could not afford small feet, as they needed to be able to walk and work. The women with normal-sized feet were considered ugly, vulgar and uncultured. They were to be pitied.

Although the wealthy women were thought to be smart and beautiful, they were cripples. Any wealthy woman who didn't conform to the practice was condemned as being crazy, because it was the only way she could obtain a handsome husband and marry well. Only when the practice was finally abolished could the people see its stupidity.

Extremely overweight women were once considered the epitome of beauty to South Sea Islanders.

In the 1800s people purchased cigarettes from druggists and smoked them to cure a head cold, asthma, hay fever and throat diseases.

Just because the masses accept a practice or belief doesn't mean it is rational. Our society continues to embrace ideas that are as mindless as those above. And I find myself wondering what we are currently doing that one day will be looked back upon and considered stupid.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the practice of injecting deadly botox poison beneath the skin as a beauty treatment. The process often compromises the immune system and people get sick as part of the process.

Or how about the Catholic ban on birth control in an overpopulated world, where in some countries hundred of thousands of abandoned children live in the streets?

Here's another: government protection of big businesses that pollute or endanger the environment and our very survival.

Help me out here.