OK….this one’s a little “stream of consciousness….” Bear with me.
I find the virtual world we live in compelling.
Not because I have a virtual Library of Congress at my fingertips, and not because I can find 50 different recipes for coq au vin. Not because I can easily find others that share my affection for Aprilia sportbikes, and not because I can buy virtually anything I can even imagine online….including a kidney.
It’s compelling because it gives us a glimpse of what’s possible. It connects us to people thinking and doing amazing things, and occasionally it gives me hope that I might accomplish something amazing, too. Not amazing in the sense that someone else would ooo and aah, but amazing in the sense that I could never have imagined it possible.
My mother was a talented television broadcaster for many years. (She’s still a talented mom!) I used to accompany her to “the station”, and sat in the director’s booth mesmerized by all that had to happen to get a broadcast to the masses. These people were geniuses, and their expertise seemed inaccessible to me.
Just this week., after listening to some really smart guys I work with dream a little, I decided to create an online live broadcasting site.
It took me less than an hour.
Don’t get me wrong…..content is still king, and my ability to broadcast something doesn’t make me compelling enough to garner an audience. Still, think about it….think about the aspiring filmmaker in Cameroon, or the political theorist in Tajikistan. These folks would never have had the opportunity to share their thoughts with the masses, and now they do.
I think it’s pretty cool. You?
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Interesting. As you point out, “content is . . . king, and [your] ability to broadcast something doesn’t make [it] compelling enough to garner an audience.” You ask we we think about the “compelling virtual world”, which you think is “pretty cool.”
Hmmm. I agree with you that the thoughts and dreams and amazing exploits of others can be wonderful, and that it’s way cool to be able to witness those and maybe even interact with them and those people. To the extent that such stories inspire us to go out and achieve – great! I am of a more pessimistic outlook, however. I have seen a dearth of consistent meaningful thought and/or discussion in the virtual world. It is frequently pretty trivial stuff. Content may still be “king”, but what kind of content?
Neil Postman’s 1985 book Amusing Ourselves To Death presents the downside of this phenomenon. It apparently started out after a 1984 talk Postman gave considering whether we should look at the imprisoning effects of pleasure on us as a culture [Huxley’s Brave New World] rather than congratulate ourselves for having escaped the totalitarian violence pictured in Orwell’s 1984. Again, you’ve already pointed out that there is a big difference (little noted) between the ability to produce something that is said and actually saying something [worth saying].
Postman takes this one step further and describes the deadening process that takes place with the flood of unconnected information, “art”, tragedy, “news”, exhortations, rantings, etc. that we are daily subjected to. As I recall, he traces a gradual inertia of inactivity that weighs on us more and more with each new ‘story’ of events we can’t really do anything about (whether by distance, time, or other limitations). He argues that eventually we just stop thinking about it – and about most things. . . .
Unfortunately, I think these increased so-called capabilities have led to an increase in things like “reality” TV. Makeovers, family feuds, lottery-get-rich-quick schemes, scandals, love affairs, conspiracies and other ‘mysteries’ are the more usual ‘things being said’.
This is not to say that ‘good’ things are not going on, and valuable voices not being given an opportunity. I just don’t think that the ‘virtual world’ was (1) necessary for that and (2) promotive of it. . . .
Quoting at length from the Postman’s Foreword:
“Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions”. In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
“This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
Wow, queenie. Bringing Orwell and Huxley to the table…I love it! I have read and enjoyed both, but Postman’s analysis is something I had never seen. Thanks for sharing this!
I agree that the glut of content we find in our current culture can numb us completely. It’s fair to say, I think, that more videos of “Charlie bit my finger”, while entertaining, can also obfuscate the finer arts of parody, irony and even caricature.
While it may be true that the virtual world was not necessary to promote a globalization of good content, I DO think, given its egalitarian nature, that the level platform helps. The key is that those of us who engage in social networking need to promote those things that stimulate, not anesthetize.
I appreciate Huxley’s point of view, and I won’t put my intellectual capacity anywhere near his….I would be the unarmed man in the popular cliche. =) Still, I think Huxley was cynical, and believed that people were generally stupid enough to be duped consistently. While I believe that is true in the micro (and I am chief among those who can be duped), I have confidence that the cream will eventually rise to the top in the macro, and that the content that eventually wins will be worthy of our glance.
Thanks for the comment….VERY thought provoking!