The Strange Addiction

For many of those much more passionate conspiracy theorists, those who claim Snowden is an American Hero (now seeking refuge in Russia), and that the NSA is evidence that the end is nigh, it may seem that Orwell's ominous prediction has come to pass. And while all of this is true, and some Special Agent may be currently surfing through my browser history looking for evidence of terrorism, the majority of Americans are not enslaved by the idea that Big Brother is watching us. (Unless they are on the TV show, Big Brother, of course.) No, our every move is not controlled by some ominous figure head, we are controlled by something much more tangible, and much scarier.

Our cellphones.

Everywhere you go now a days there will inevitably be someone on their cellphone. In fact, I am currently writing this on my phone, sitting in the stands at a water polo game, and I am not the only one paying more attention to my hand held device than the final quarter of the game, ( albiet the game isn't very entertaining, the score is 12-4). No one seems able to break their eyes away from the hypnotic glow of the screen. Even out with friends people spend more time on their phones than communicating to the person next to them.  When confronted, they'll give some lame excuse about how their being social "with other people", but then what was the point of spending time with these people?

In any matter, the evidence is clear, we as a people are plagued by this strange addiction. It is clear to me that while Orwell's prediction still lurks somewhere off over the horizion, this much greater evil has already taken hold, and we have failed to notice.

So before we lock ourselves away in fallout shelters to hide from our abusive government, we should first address the most prominent concern, and look up from our screens.

Night at the Museum

While some may preach that a museum's key function is to educate, (or preserve knowledge, or earn money, or any other singular way to approach the subject) those who look at it from only this perspective miss the point. While this objective is a noble task, as are the other aforementioned goals, a museum's most important task often goes overlooked. A museum should aim to wonder, to draw in a person's attention, to keep him staring at the same work of art for minutes straight as he considers each individual brushstroke. It should not be their sole goal to educate the public, but to garner an appreciation in them.
I think that Night at the Museum got it right, it brought artifacts to life in spectacular fashion. And while it may only be a silly franchise movie, and magical Egyptian tablets cannot really bring a T-Rex skeleton to life, each museum should try to create an atmosphere capable of such great feats, one that gets people thinking that maybe, just maybe, all of this could come to life. When a museum accomplishes this, all the rest will follow. People will learn about the past because of a genuine interest in it, they will explore new worlds and old ones, they will buy those little trinkets and key chains from the gift shop not because of rampant commercialism but as a memory of the past they visited once upon a dream.

A museum should not discourage imagination by claiming their noble mission to educate trumps all, and one should not assume that just because something is fun, we cannot learn from it. Breathe life into learing, preserve artifacts not only physically, but in the minds of those who behold them, and do not reduce souveniers to blatant commercialism, only filling the pockets of beurocrats and going no farther. A museum can be so much than the standard we are holding it to. So let it be.