Here I go again.Now, I'm thinking that I have called this blog sceptical view and maybe, just maybe, some readers are finding me not sceptical enough. Perhaps, not critical enough. Well, I never intended to write personal attacks, so if that's what anyone is looking for, look elsewhere now. Also, I won't publish personal attacks if people post them to the commentary section of any post. Further, I believe in informed and civil debate and I do attempt to look at more than one viewpoint on any subject before I post. I'm getting grumpier with the winter weather, though, so all that could change in a heartbeat.
A subject that I have touched upon previously in other publications is the compartmentalization of our society. I think that when most people read that, they conjure an image of a huge apartment tower in some major urban centre where neighbours go about their day to day lives and ignore one another and crime victims' pleas for help are falling on the deaf ears of the uncaring. I may have just set a record for run on sentences, too, but that's another matter and it was a damn good sentence. Getting back on track, I would like to suggest that the image I wrote above isn't necessarily wrong, but I believe that compartmentalization is far more broad spread than that and far more insidious. I have three main culprits in mind and I am going to attempt here to lay the appropriate degree of responsbility at the feet of all three.
First: the work place. If one looks at the job market in this day and age it is a wonder to behold. Long gone are the days of the "jack of all trades" in the blue collar industries, or the "generalist" in the white collar fields. Recruiters (bless their scurrilous little souls) seem to gasp in wonder that a person could actually have been in charge of budgets and in charge of staff discipline and in charge of media relations all at the same job! To imagine someone doing all of those things seems near impossible to them; to imagine one person doing them all well is nigh incomprehensible. When one looks at job descriptions these days, or even some job titles, it becomes apparent how "specialized" work has become. Almost every task seems to have taken on it's own meaning and, this is where things start to get ugly, it's own jargon. If I want my work to appear 'specialized' as in--that makes me special--one of the important parts of doing that is that other's really don't understand what I'm doing. It's working. Sadly, proof of that is the fact that recruiting agencies (bless their salacious little viewpoints) even need to exist. But, I'm wandering here, the important point is that language is the basis of culture. It always has been and it always will be, so there. When I was helping people start small businesses, clients came to me with their business ideas from another agency just a couple of blocks away and said that they would rather work with me than with the business development officers at that other agency. Was it because I had a better business plan? No, actually at the outset business planning is pretty generic. Was it because I had better funding opportunities that I could make available to them? No, on the contrary, the other organization had $75,000.00 interest free, forgiveable loans with the requisite that the new entrpreneur work with their people! I had no money to offer. Enough!, cries the eye-weary reader, what was the reason? Quite simply, I spoke to the clients in plain English and explained to them what they needed to do in plain English. The people they had been dealing with spoke to them in terms that would have resonated perfectly at MBA grad schools all over North America, or on a stock exchange floor or at a bankers' luncheon but were basically meaningless to the clientele. Ironically enough, the clients could have done the same in return if they were looking to start a business that required any level of specialization. I would dare one of those MBA's to try to understand the basics of home renovations or auto mechanics. The world of work has created a paradigm where people understand other people doing the same job as they do at other companies better than they understand their own co-workers. Thus, how much do people engage with one another in the workplace? Less and less all the time.
Second: Television. You remember television, right? It's what everyone in the western world worshipped between the death of God and the birth of the Internet. Entire families found a solution to bickering and arguing, get a second tv! Put one in every room in fact, you aren't going to have a family fight if you don't have to talk to one another. If you don't believe me, try this simple experiment. Have a couple of friends over and sit around having coffee or drinks and strike up a conversation. Now, watch how well the conversation progresses, then after ten minutes or so, click on the tv. The conversation will, 90 times out of 100 fizzle out faster than it became 'engaged' and soon will switch either to what is being watched or someone suggesting changing channels. This is McLuhan's global village. A village where no one comes out of their own hut. Mission accomplished, compartmentalization is now in full swing.
Third: The Internet. Seriously, put work and television on steroids and shake. Still not even close, you can work from home, you can chat on social media, you can watch movies, porn porn porn, if that's what you're looking for, there is no end, literally, no end to what the Internet can do. The grandfather of the tweeterverse is still robust and going strong. In the entire history of western culture nothing else has actually caused a decline in television viewing. That, dear reader, is power. Compartmentalization is complete, those on Twitter and Facebook are quick to learn....learn the language. It started with the LOL's and OMG's of chat rooms, but it is now replete. Get on board or get left behind.What else has the Internet provided us? I do not deny that there is plenty of good done and plenty of good yet to be done, but I doubt with all my dubious doubting ability that the compartmentalization of which I speak is good for anyone. The Internet has also brought courage for the fearful and an outlet for the outraged. The power of anonymity is scary. In my opening paragraph, I mentioned informed and civil debate. There aren't very many places one is going to find that out here in cyberspace. Put your opinion on a news site or a political blog and you're sooner or later going to get: $#@@%$##% you! (-username-) and the flaming and personal attacks begin. No one is held accountable. Do you even know who's attacking you? Ah ha, compartmentalization suddenly starts to show it's failures. I haven't gotten to the big problem yet, here it comes.
We're social animals. We have been ever since we found out that two of us can wrestle food away from a saber toothed tiger better than one and that we need the other gender for baby making purposes. That whole "language basis of culture" thing had to kick in so we could learn to get along. Now, recent research has shown that social needs are far more basic than originally posited by the good doctor Maslow. We get lonely, so where do we turn for companionship? yep, the Internet can provide that too. Am I the only one hearing little alarm bells? Go ahead--post your profile online, on MyFace or SpaceBook or Twitcher or whatever. Or, get more specific, there's plenty of fish in the cyber sea and they're all swimming in a lava lamp waiting to meet you and me! Honestly, I'm not hearing alarm bells for people here, I'm horrified. The most recent research I've read on social psychology, which mind you is only research and can still be disputed, suggests that up to 3% of the overall population of adult North America are sociopaths. Yay! That means, if you are wondering, that out of every 100 people you know or may meet, 3 could watch you drop on the sidewalk in front of them and walk away not caring if you live or die. I had to address a group of young people last year about the dangers of sexual exploitation. A group of about twenty between 10 and 18 years of age. A quick show of hands and sure enough, everyone had a Facebook page. Facebook, the company that happily sells your information to advertisers. I told them from the point of view of someone trolling for victims, Facebook is a wet dream come to life. Go ahead and screen those people that respond to your profile (or your ad) do you really think they're going to put on their profile: Hi I'm a sexual deviant who can only find arousal by chaining you up and slowly carving you to pieces? Probably not, probaly wouldn't get a huge response that way. If you really are lonely enough to want to meet a date on the Internet (where over 20% of modern day relationships start! they happily brag, they don't talk about how quickly some of them end) then I suggest you think about that 3%. Not all sociopaths are sadistic killers like on Criminal Minds. But all the sadistic killers are sociopahts or psychopaths ( a distinction that won't matter to you after the fact), they're predatory. Where do predators go? Where the prey is. Your choice, our world has become a smaller colder place for sure, but maybe breaking out of that compartmentalization is something people might want to start doing in person. Remember when friends used to introduce friends to each other at social gatherings and not with a tweet? yeah... or cast your line out there in that ocean of availability. It no longer smacks of ostracism as it once did, to most, because we've all ostracized ourselves already. It's kind of like working for the bomb squad, there's a unique job, you only get to be wrong once though. Don't be shy about sharing your thoughts here, I get to read them whether I publish them or not and so far I've published them all and you're protected by the anonymity of the web.
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