Atomictumor

Only a year or two after it started up, Oak Ridge’s online mind has melted down.

Several of the local blogs have been inactive for months or just outright shut down.  The online forums have become one sided pile-on’s, with people jumping on their favorite rants, throwing out few new ideas, or any kind of postive feedback.

Last year, I saw hope in it, that so many people in this normally fractious town are getting together on a common pedestal, disagreeing as necessary, but generally trying to get a point across.  Now I’m really just kinda seeing static.

Problem is, this reflects Oak Ridge’s mind as a whole.  The town has always been one, for the decade or so I’ve been here at least, to hunker down into camps, almost like the idiotic blue/red mentality that has hamstrung politics in this country for so long.  The same people who pile on board one topic are likely to pile on board another, unrelated one.  Is it because they just happen to keep agreeing?

Or is it the thinking that “My buddy wants this, so I’m going to want it too”?

One of the issues I see are that people are all set to leap together and work on something, whether it’s a senior center, a shopping center, a hotel, with a myopic focus on that one object, without ever working on the larger picture.  After the one object is achieved, or not, as the case may be, there’s no getting together in the aftermath to try to figure out how the victory or defeat can be parlayed into something decent for the town.

Is there no deep thinking?  Is that the problem?

Or has everybody given up, burnt out on the work done for those previous victories and defeats, taking on a ‘fuck it’ attitude in the face of the immovable positions of both of the camps.

See, thats what I was hoping the online thing would overcome.  Probably idealistic, but don’t all the good ideas sound idealistic?  A situation where class, or location, or history wouldn’t make a difference, where new ideas could pop out and take root?

Maybe the apathy wins out over idealism.