This other comment is just bitching, really, spurred by something you said here. I was born at the end of '55, and my family were the only ones in our neighborhood without a TV. My mother refused to get one, until I was 12. I thanked her many times for this (not when I was a kid, but later). Likewise I refused to allow a TV into the home my kids grew up in, and they have thanked me for that. But now--my son has two kids, aged 6 and 3, and they have a TV, and each kid has a tablet. When I visit, they spend a fair amount of time tuned into inane little stories, with songs usually. The fake-child's-voice grates on me, and I mind very much that the kid culture of yesterday has been replaced by this commercial culture manufactured by adults. I don't object to the lessons imparted, but the fact that it's all imposed by adults, faceless adults who do it for a living. And this is what takes up quite a bit of today's kids' time. Add in that most kids even of my kids' generation had their time fully scripted by their parents, and that adults are spending an enormous percentage of their free time in artificial worlds or checking their phones every few minutes, and I think we see a part of the reason there has been no revolt--people aren't fully clear on the difference between THIS world, the only real world, and their various fantasy gaming worlds, and we've been led into competing identity-clusters, pumped up with emotion around us-good/them-bad, and it blocks any chance of the 99% working together to force change.
I question two of your theses. One, that ALL of us have a deep, intense longing for belonging. I think most of us do, and I agree that it's inchoate, that people don't recognize what they're feeling and it manifests in various, often destructive ways. But I think it's possible that sociopaths, who have inordinate power in the current society, may not have this need.
Secondly, the notion that we will shortly have a massive eruption of either heaven or hell, either we'll finally get it together to move as one out of the illusions that have us competing instead of cooperating, or we'll have a horrible fascist dystopia...that sounds like what I said for years and years, until I finally saw that IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. Things always continue getting both better and worse. I'm attracted to the binary, fork-in-the-road scenario but that doesn't make it real. The possibilities are there for an enormous variety of trajectories for humanity's path into the future. We can't predict it. We can reject some scenarios as implausible, but what WILL happen and when we can't predict. Caitlin Johnstone says people are waking up and getting enlightened. I sure don't see that--if anything I see less wisdom.
I FULLY agree with all of your points, and was well aware of these potential criticisms (quite important and valid ones) when I cast the scenario as I did. I deliberately oversimplified the situation, with the intent of (hopefully) revealing something not commonly mentioned about the general social dynamic at play, in which the pervasive 'loneliness' is being characterized by mainstream media and mainstream institutions in an absurdly narrow light. I had hoped that people like yourself would chime in and reveal my narrow and small vista as inadequate, as well. But I thought it important to point out, first and foremost, that the usual baubles and comforts offered by mainstream politics and culture cannot possibly address our (for most people!) deep, primal need for face-to-face human connections in which caring for one another is the natural response. Yes, some people are too traumatized, or too narcissistic or sociopathic, to know what we're getting at when we insist, as we ought to, that the usual trinkets will not heal the wound of our loss of 'community' (belonging) within our neighborhoods.
If there is any chance of us pulling out of the nosedive our collective is presently in, it will have to emerge within a shared ethos of mutual care for one another, as it seems to me.
I think, honestly, that there are slim odds for this happening, for all of the reasons you have provided. But I have not one thing to do which is better than this very conversation, and so we are having it.
This other comment is just bitching, really, spurred by something you said here. I was born at the end of '55, and my family were the only ones in our neighborhood without a TV. My mother refused to get one, until I was 12. I thanked her many times for this (not when I was a kid, but later). Likewise I refused to allow a TV into the home my kids grew up in, and they have thanked me for that. But now--my son has two kids, aged 6 and 3, and they have a TV, and each kid has a tablet. When I visit, they spend a fair amount of time tuned into inane little stories, with songs usually. The fake-child's-voice grates on me, and I mind very much that the kid culture of yesterday has been replaced by this commercial culture manufactured by adults. I don't object to the lessons imparted, but the fact that it's all imposed by adults, faceless adults who do it for a living. And this is what takes up quite a bit of today's kids' time. Add in that most kids even of my kids' generation had their time fully scripted by their parents, and that adults are spending an enormous percentage of their free time in artificial worlds or checking their phones every few minutes, and I think we see a part of the reason there has been no revolt--people aren't fully clear on the difference between THIS world, the only real world, and their various fantasy gaming worlds, and we've been led into competing identity-clusters, pumped up with emotion around us-good/them-bad, and it blocks any chance of the 99% working together to force change.
Oh, am I ever so much with you in these insights, friend!
More later on this, perhaps. Time constraints.
I question two of your theses. One, that ALL of us have a deep, intense longing for belonging. I think most of us do, and I agree that it's inchoate, that people don't recognize what they're feeling and it manifests in various, often destructive ways. But I think it's possible that sociopaths, who have inordinate power in the current society, may not have this need.
Secondly, the notion that we will shortly have a massive eruption of either heaven or hell, either we'll finally get it together to move as one out of the illusions that have us competing instead of cooperating, or we'll have a horrible fascist dystopia...that sounds like what I said for years and years, until I finally saw that IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. Things always continue getting both better and worse. I'm attracted to the binary, fork-in-the-road scenario but that doesn't make it real. The possibilities are there for an enormous variety of trajectories for humanity's path into the future. We can't predict it. We can reject some scenarios as implausible, but what WILL happen and when we can't predict. Caitlin Johnstone says people are waking up and getting enlightened. I sure don't see that--if anything I see less wisdom.
Hi again Mary.
I FULLY agree with all of your points, and was well aware of these potential criticisms (quite important and valid ones) when I cast the scenario as I did. I deliberately oversimplified the situation, with the intent of (hopefully) revealing something not commonly mentioned about the general social dynamic at play, in which the pervasive 'loneliness' is being characterized by mainstream media and mainstream institutions in an absurdly narrow light. I had hoped that people like yourself would chime in and reveal my narrow and small vista as inadequate, as well. But I thought it important to point out, first and foremost, that the usual baubles and comforts offered by mainstream politics and culture cannot possibly address our (for most people!) deep, primal need for face-to-face human connections in which caring for one another is the natural response. Yes, some people are too traumatized, or too narcissistic or sociopathic, to know what we're getting at when we insist, as we ought to, that the usual trinkets will not heal the wound of our loss of 'community' (belonging) within our neighborhoods.
If there is any chance of us pulling out of the nosedive our collective is presently in, it will have to emerge within a shared ethos of mutual care for one another, as it seems to me.
I think, honestly, that there are slim odds for this happening, for all of the reasons you have provided. But I have not one thing to do which is better than this very conversation, and so we are having it.
Thank you!
Much love to you, sister and friend.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3aIQuMWJCA