Vol #1, Col #13: You Can’t Handle the Truth

I think things must have been easier in the Wild West. If you had a beef with someone, you called a duel, and whoever could pull their gun out of their holster with superior lightening speed well…problem resolved. But it wasn’t merely this method of “social control” that proved more effective (and straight to the point, I might add), but further the nature of the conflicts that emerged between people seemed to be largely based on more “tangible” concerns (ie: limited resources, whether in the form of food, water, territory and/or women).

In contrast, these days, and I propose it’s because we, as North Americans, have SO much (tell me when’s the last time you worried about whether or not you’d be able to find drinking water untouched by arsenic? Oh right, such a thing has never occurred in your lifetime!), we CREATE conflicts and social categories intended to enhance divisiveness (something I like to term “human-made drama”), that in reality don’t have very strong feet to stand on (sound familiar? 9/11 perhaps?).

A more down-to-earth example can be seen in the case of “internet flame wars.” I mean, honestly, can someone please explain to me the purpose of such juvenility, let alone the cause? As always, an instance from my very own life proves illustrative -- don’t you love it when real life serves as inspiration? I know I do! So here goes:

For absolutely no reason and without any provocation on my end, just the other day, some random chick posted up big and bold for the whole world to see, that she apparently hates me, in her Facebook headline (something I only learned about because it would seem we have some mutual acquaintances). Seeing as I’ve NEVER met NOR conversed with this individual in my entire life, I find it hard to believe that she could harbour such strong emotions toward me. I don’t know…maybe I’m crazy, but I am selective when I use said term, and you best believe that if/when I do employ “hate”, it’s for good (pardon my French) f-ing reason.

I guess I’m just of the belief that if someone has a grievance, they should have “the balls” to confront the other person to their face. (Talking trash behind peoples’ backs is underhanded and vicious. More importantly though, it also fails to solve anything! Oh yeah, and for those of you who think this is the more “polite” approach, I hate to break it to ya, quite the opposite is true.) Not only would this, I’m sure, prevent a whole hell of a lot of long drawn-out affairs that arise entirely from miscommunication (ie: it would give “the accused” an opportunity to explain him/herself), but further it is the respectful and mature way to broach said situations.

Perhaps my “flamer” was having an exceptionally bad day, but rather than host an introspective investigation into her own psyche in order to ascertain the underlying cause(s), she decided to project her negativity onto me to scapegoat any sense of personal responsibility. Or maybe…more simply, her actions were fuelled by jealously? In either scenario, I maintain that her animosity in my general direction was and remains unjustified.

There are a lot of individuals out there, in both the real world and cyberspace, with whom I don’t particularly mesh well (to put it lightly), but I don’t have the time nor do I wish to waste the emotion on creating hate postings. For what purpose? To put someone else down so that temporarily I can feel grandiose? I’d like to take this moment to send a personal message to my flamer: If the only vehicle through which you are able to develop a sense of confidence and self-worth is by putting others down, then my darling, you’ve got bigger problems than just me. But I digress…

To bring everything full circle, what this story so aptly demonstrates is contemporary humankind’s obsession with negativity (and yes it is an obsession, NOT a natural inclination - as they say, happiness is a CHOICE). Because we no longer have to direct the vast majority of our intellectual and physical faculties into acquiring the bare necessities of life, we have time for gossip, we have time for “flame wars”, we have time to bully – all instances of “human-made drama”.

We have forgotten that every word, every action, and even every thought that we put out there affects others. We have become so caught up in our own selfish individual existences that we tear each other down, without giving it a second thought, just to get ahead. We care about our lives now, instead of planning for the future. We externalize our desires, and blame everyone else for our failings. So, is money then the root of all evil? No, money is merely a medium of transaction. As for the aforementioned negative and obsessive line of thinking? Yeah, I’d say so. The truth hurts. Deal with it.

Modern society’s issues are indisputably human-made, but in the ever-so-slightly paraphrased words of Jason Mraz, “The remedy is [in] the experience.” We can AND should learn from our mistakes. And while I may be undertaking a “dangerous liaison” by pointing all of this out, “the truth” as another famous quote suggests, “will set you free.”

Vol #1, Col #7: Electronic HandShaking & the Technological Divide: More than Just Smoother Business Practise

The term “net” implies a device of capture and/or constriction that possesses enveloping properties. When used in reference to that little old invention known by html hypertext coders as the world wide web (www, for short), this is a rather apt analogy considering that few of us can live without it, and online addiction isn’t as rare as one may think. For that matter, I’m sure many of you can’t even begin to recall a time in your lives when the internet did NOT exist (though I still remember the days of typewriters, word processing and Ataris – shut up, I know I’m getting up there!) – when you weren’t able to conduct all of your research for school projects via the web, when you couldn’t maintain long distance friendships/relationships without racking up the phone bill, when you couldn’t check the status of your bank account(s) from the convenience of your living room sofa, when you couldn’t find out about the latest fashions and pop culture from around the globe, without having to ‘leave on a jet plane’ (as they say). The advent of the internet has literally changed lives – there are no two ways around it – but whether its life changing properties are for the better or worse is still largely up for debate.

Like any ground-breaking innovation, it too has some serious downfalls: the commodification/de-valuation of music and consequent stealing of tracks (a phenomenon to which I personally relate and to which I’m strongly opposed) merely scratches the tip of the iceberg. Child porn rings, white supremacist message boards, organized crime solicitation, online instructions for bomb and drug manufacture, pro-anorexia websites, and services to aid in eliciting extramarital affairs are just some of the web’s more “fantastic” (note the sarcasm) offerings. But with that said, all of this stuff already existed in the REAL world. It wasn’t that the web corrupted humans. Rather, it merely has served as a MEDIUM through which our corruption has become concentrated.

While I would never discount that the “digital web revolution” has aided tremendously in terms of conducting business (for that matter, much of my own entrepreneurial efforts would not be feasible economically if it weren’t for email) and has led to a more international perspective in terms of world issues among the general populus, when it comes to the business of personal relations, I gotta tell you, I maintain a vastly different view.To me, in the age of globalization and technological advance where academics and suits alike postulate the “interconnectedness” of our globe, it would seem, in fact, that we’re more disconnected than ever before.As knowledge of each other, different cultures, and “the underground” has become increasingly more accessible (albeit still highly oriented around the perpetuation of stereotypes), our relationships have moved into progressively more superficial terrain.

Case and point: I was recently “dating” (if you can even call it that) a gentleman who refused to pick up the phone in order to have an actual conversation with me. He’d spend hours texting me and then several more hours apologizing for the miscommunication and arguments that resulted because of texting’s limited capacity to capture the emotion and intention behind one’s words (when you’re a sarcastic bastard like myself, this is particularly difficult to convey). Yet, he couldn’t seem to understand why perhaps actually speaking may be more suitable in this scenario. His excuse was that texting was more “convenient” for him, allowing him to engage in a multitude of other activities, while socializing. Like any woman with self-respect, I read this (both literally and figuratively) as essentially his desire to half-ass a so-called “relationship”. Suffice it to say, it was short-lived. I’m not here on anyone’s convenience and as “old-fashioned” (pardon the pun) as it may sound, I’m NOT actually capable of forming a deep emotional bond with someone merely by reading words on a screen. I don’t know – in-person engagement, hearing a person’s voice, and experiencing them in a three-dimensional capacity tends to work a little better (but only just a little, of course, again note the sarcasm) – but, maybe that’s just me?

It is of my humble opinion that our technological OVERstimulation has led to intellectual AND importantly, emotional UNDER-stimulation as we battle to attend to everything at once, but NOTHING in its entirety. Everything is now seen as “fleeting” or “transient”, and we can establish intense passionate love affairs as quickly as we can end them. In sum, we’ve somehow managed to convince ourselves that wishing one of our so-called “friends” ‘Happy Birthday’ via Facebook upon receiving notification that it is so and so’s special day makes up for the fact that the other 364 days a year this person’s existence remains unacknowledged in our lives.

Then there are some – more extreme tech supporters we’ll call em - who would rather be immersed to such a degree in a virtual made-up world that they’ve gone to the extent of creating fake profiles, fake bank accounts, and yes, you've got it, fake relationships via “interactive” (and I use that term loosely) programs such as SecondLife, to which membership does not come cheap. One needs to ask themselves what is wrong with society when people would rather formulate and maintain their identities and interactions through a computer screen, than actually endeavour to intermingle the good old-fashioned way?!

If you don’t want to take my word for it that the net has led to the above-described “social ill”, I hate to break it to ya, but the social scientific research is in my favour. As I recently learned in my Sociology of Deviance class, hardcore net fanatics and individuals who were raised in “wired” families tend to socialize less (and when they do, it is within smaller social circles), suffer from increased loneliness and depression and often lack a strong sense of personal identity (the net leads to a phenomenon known as “de-individuation”).

It is built within our genetic and evolutionary codes that humans are a social species – we are naturally compelled to flock together with like-others. In this way, the idea of the “technological divide” can not only be applied to differences in accessibility and use based on socioeconomic and demographic factors, but moreover said term can be used to designate how social relations have become significantly altered as a result of the net’s introduction.

Like any major change enacted upon society, characteristically there are those who are pro and those who maintain firm positions of staunch opposition. Call me a Luddite if you will, but I look back fondly on the days where conversing meant talking in-person not through MSN, cultural education involved the incorporation of ethnographic methods and phones had not yet transmutated into all-inclusive entertainment units equipped with their very own home recording and playback devices.