There was a time when I thought having discussion on hot button topics on various social media platforms was a good idea. Over the last year or so, I have realized to my horror what a wrong notion this was. One would believe that in our age of vastly improved communication tools, that information sharing would bridge the chasm of differences between us all, and bring us closer together as a people, as a society, as a culture, and as a nation. I believed in that notion firmly. I was wrong and I admit it freely.
In our age of superior communication capacity, the underlying technology has only driven us as a species further apart. There are many reasons for this, excuses mostly. The most fundamental actual reason is that as a species we have by and large lost the ability to accept that other people have valid perspectives on any given issue. We have allowed ourselves to become a polarized, dare I say balkanized society in which we have separated ourselves into whatever camps of association we deem to be important.
This split manifests itself in a myriad of ways. For some the split is political, others it is doctrinal, others it is philosophical, and others have more fundamental ways in which this split is made manifest. We have allowed ourselves to become a shattered American that only barely speaks a common language. Each instance of the nation has its own separate and distinct values. Its own common beliefs. Its own common villains and scapegoats.
This makes uniting the common whole as it were nearly impossible. It guarantees factionalism and division on almost every topic. It ensures that no single entity can govern effectively. It makes every item that comes up a zero sum gain debate. In essence for someone to win, someone else has to cede defeat. It makes it harder for the United States to fulfill the promise of the founders in each successive generation.
With this being true, it makes it easy to divide and distract us. It allows the powerful to instigate fights over trivial things that consume weeks of news cycles that fully consume the body politic allowing zero bandwidth in the fifth estate to cover the other things they might be doing in the background. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself what else was going on while we were fighting over the confederate flag? The final rules for the Trans Pacific Partnership were being hammered out in secret with no transparency, and zero scrutiny. With the ‘We the People’ embroiled in a trivial fight over something that at most is trivial and at worst is a total waste of time, it left the media with little time to devote column inches or broadcast seconds to anything else.
This pattern has played out many times over recent years. Serious issues are being subverted and turned into window dressing, so that we can be distracted. As long as we tolerate this divide and conqueror methodology ‘We the People’ will continue to be divided, distracted, and disillusioned.
We need to wake up, and realize that our differences are being used against us. We need to recover our ability hear our fellow Americans, and recognize that the opinions of others are equally as valid as our own. We need to find a common language in which to communicate with each other. We need to find a way to bridge the chasm that divides us, and return to a united whole. We need to find a way to disagree without being disagreeable. And somewhere in all of that we will be able to fulfill the promise of American for the twenty first century and make effective use of the communication tools at our disposal.
Until then, I don’t plan to talk about sensitive topics on social media. Even if the bait about the issue is tempting as heck, I plan to keep my mouth shut. Until then it is a waste of time, and effort. And both of those things are limited commodities that I do not plan on wasting. There are other things I could be spending them on that stand a much better chance of a positive return and not the hollow echo of my own words bounding off someone else’s hardened heart and closed ears.
In our age of superior communication capacity, the underlying technology has only driven us as a species further apart. There are many reasons for this, excuses mostly. The most fundamental actual reason is that as a species we have by and large lost the ability to accept that other people have valid perspectives on any given issue. We have allowed ourselves to become a polarized, dare I say balkanized society in which we have separated ourselves into whatever camps of association we deem to be important.
This split manifests itself in a myriad of ways. For some the split is political, others it is doctrinal, others it is philosophical, and others have more fundamental ways in which this split is made manifest. We have allowed ourselves to become a shattered American that only barely speaks a common language. Each instance of the nation has its own separate and distinct values. Its own common beliefs. Its own common villains and scapegoats.
This makes uniting the common whole as it were nearly impossible. It guarantees factionalism and division on almost every topic. It ensures that no single entity can govern effectively. It makes every item that comes up a zero sum gain debate. In essence for someone to win, someone else has to cede defeat. It makes it harder for the United States to fulfill the promise of the founders in each successive generation.
With this being true, it makes it easy to divide and distract us. It allows the powerful to instigate fights over trivial things that consume weeks of news cycles that fully consume the body politic allowing zero bandwidth in the fifth estate to cover the other things they might be doing in the background. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself what else was going on while we were fighting over the confederate flag? The final rules for the Trans Pacific Partnership were being hammered out in secret with no transparency, and zero scrutiny. With the ‘We the People’ embroiled in a trivial fight over something that at most is trivial and at worst is a total waste of time, it left the media with little time to devote column inches or broadcast seconds to anything else.
This pattern has played out many times over recent years. Serious issues are being subverted and turned into window dressing, so that we can be distracted. As long as we tolerate this divide and conqueror methodology ‘We the People’ will continue to be divided, distracted, and disillusioned.
We need to wake up, and realize that our differences are being used against us. We need to recover our ability hear our fellow Americans, and recognize that the opinions of others are equally as valid as our own. We need to find a common language in which to communicate with each other. We need to find a way to bridge the chasm that divides us, and return to a united whole. We need to find a way to disagree without being disagreeable. And somewhere in all of that we will be able to fulfill the promise of American for the twenty first century and make effective use of the communication tools at our disposal.
Until then, I don’t plan to talk about sensitive topics on social media. Even if the bait about the issue is tempting as heck, I plan to keep my mouth shut. Until then it is a waste of time, and effort. And both of those things are limited commodities that I do not plan on wasting. There are other things I could be spending them on that stand a much better chance of a positive return and not the hollow echo of my own words bounding off someone else’s hardened heart and closed ears.
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