It is apparent that humans have
incredible expectations for themselves in life, but also for their children,
for their peers, for the people involved in their ideals, their escapes, their
distractions. Indeed, the author portrays it as though Odessa could be any town
in America, but this even is too narrowed of a vision field, and the base
themes can be extracted and set to every aspect of humanity in its entirety. Humans
tend to find things to place their faith in; activities to escape from
existence of a boring, depressing life; something to complain about. The
reasons behind are different for every individual and nobody can claim to know
fully what those reasons are because as of yet there is no effective way to
penetrate the subconscious mind of an individual not giving the penetrated
information, especially if the person does not yet understand the complexities
and vast expanses behind their every thought.
The
oil town of Odessa is dying, as is Greenville in a sense, so the situation is
relatable. When the work leaves, what is there left for sustainment? People
stay because this is all they know, and they begin to turn to metaphysical
concepts like racism, unreasonably high ideals for sports and other such
organizations, vilification of whomever one can vilify. The Odessa citizens
vilify their opponents in football, they vilify the coaches, and they vilify
those of differentiating ethnicity. This vilification is an escape mechanism
used globally from infancy well into adulthood due to the issue that humans
fail to condition themselves and their offspring to actually important aspects
of mindset and attitude which would in essence better humanity and quality of
life. Granted, what we deem as “important” is entirely subjective also, as the
importance of high school football and the vilification of those surrounding it
may be indispensably important in the mindset of Odessa, but on a more in depth
look, this important aspect is a pathetic excuse for the desire for dominance
and to dissociate ill-conceived guilt. While this statement is also
individually subjective, its claims are made in facts and logical, unemotional
thinking, while the conceptions of Odessa are driven by metaphysical realities
of superior race, gender binary dominance, disconnected outlets for
entertainment serving as the only ultimate escape from the reality which the
townspeople have both pushed and been pushed into, vilification of those who
appear to be ripe, plump targets, familial hierarchy, which then divide into
personal attitudes and perspectives birthed out of the circumstances.
Bissinger
tries to draw parallelisms between Odessa and the rest of America’s small
towns, but this is only a child’s step toward a greater understanding. What is
the unit of Odessa’s population? Human beings are. One could make the argument
that they are Americans, but people are people, and they are a global populace.
Is it not apparent that humanity as a whole is constantly is finding scapegoats
in politics, religion, lifestyle,
personality, genetics, wealth, ideals, and a seemingly endless chain of other
excuses to discriminate? All of these metaphysical realities born of the
recesses of the subconscious mind, rooted for generations through traditions
and values, conditioning and corruption, over and over until we now, as a
global race, seem to overwhelmingly see metaphysical as above physical, better
than physical, more real than physical, because it is unobtainable, because you
can never touch god, you cannot hold feudalism, you cannot smell superiority.
These ideas which “surpass” the physical world are dangerous. What happens to
someone who loves objects, who values items and physical artifacts more than
patriotism or faith? They are ridiculed, condemned in the minds of others as
greedy, slothlenly, gluttonous, materialistic fools who cannot grasp the wonder
of the conceptualized ideas of the rest of humanity. Metaphysical dependence is
like a drug; it is addictive, and it is as if one can never get enough of their
own specialized mind-warp. When we place the value of our religion, politics,
and ideals above out value of life and existence, we are essentially labeling
ourselves as an at-risk species, and with the modern technology capable of
decimating the planet multiple times over, we are certainly a self-destructive
endangered species. This is the ultimate message which should be extracted from
this novel, but again, it is one completely subjective in the perspective of
one who is constantly looking for ways to poke holes in the fabric of
humanity’s cloak, and could very easily be skewed as well. After all, I’m only
human.
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