I
cannot help but wonder how differently history would have played
out had a young girl in Saigon or My Lai had the ability to
share a daily journal of her life with the entire planet in
real time. How would the protest movements of the 1930s or the
1960s have benefitted from the ability to create flash mobs?
What would folks back home have thought – or done –
if soldiers from wars past had documented their own atrocities
so thoroughly as ours have at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay?
And made photos of said crimes so instantly accessible to boot.
Not so long ago burning one library to the ground would rob
the world of centuries worth of literature and information,
and battles were fought to protect (or destroy) data that we
now hastily click past to get to Fox News or obese midget porn.
Who
could ever have guessed that the portable personal telephone
would be the most crucial and all-encompassing component of
our lives?
Here we are in the midst of the Communications Revolution,
what I hope is simply the first wave. Here we are. Instantly
connected. Perpetually and willfully isolated. Working through
the growing pains of a completely new and strange mode of
human interaction. Here we are, with unprecedented access
to vast amounts of information (some would say too much) a
mere finger click away. Virtually unlimited potential for
education is right before us (see above Fox News and midget
porn). Instant global communication is commonplace (see above
Abu Ghraib). Speaking strictly for myself I have very dear
friends with whom I am constantly conversing, and yet I have
not heard their voices in over a decade. And I’m fine
with that. Camera phones have the capability of giving the
owner the opportunity to record the activities of perfect
strangers without their permission or even knowledge. That
is not a secret feature, it is a main selling point as advertised.
No one seems to mind. My neighbor’s husband is not only
able to watch, via his cell phone and from across the globe,
the same television shows she is, but he is able to switch
the channels as well. And she finds that not a bit odd. These
are not computer scientists or billionaires, but average,
blue collar people. That same neighbor recently helped the
FBI catch a kidnapper by tracking the perp’s cell phone.
It took him all of five minutes. Just another work day at
Sprint.
Even a relative Luddite such as myself would be left wailing
in the wilderness haplessly jabbing a half-sharpened stick
into the encroaching darkness were it not for email and Google.
And as for word processing? I can barely sign my own name
anymore, let alone write longhand (or even bash out anything
coherent on a typewriter).
But as I ask myself the above questions regarding how folks
from the past would have handled the technology that is part
and parcel of daily life at the start of this new millennium,
it occurs to me just how academic such musings really are.
For I have no idea how these issues play out today. How is
our use and access to electronic media ultimately affecting
the common sympathy? Are these breakthroughs in communications
technology truly altering our thinking and development as
a whole? Or will basic human nature remain ultimately unchanged?
After all, putting a chimpanzee in a waist coat and wingtips
does not make him an investment banker. And I have found that,
after the initial giddy thrill of being able to converse in
real time with someone from an entirely different culture
thousands of miles away has subsided, saying:
“Howzit goin?”
“Aiight. You?”
“Aiight,”
gets just as old as it does face to face.
So here we are. Gil Scott-Heron was only half right, for The
Revolution has been televised AND it is live – in streaming
real time video. And I remain, for now, cautiously optimistic.
For I ultimately feel that there is no such thing as too much
information, and that the more access everyone has to it the
less opportunity those who wish to keep us ignorant have to
fulfill their ambitions. I ultimately feel that dialog between
people will ultimately yield greater understanding and possibly
even greater compassion, no matter how ugly or coarse the
language may seem at first. There will be bruises and hurt
feelings along the way. But greater control over our own destinies
is the reward. Enlightenment and deeper understanding of our
world comes through more talk, more thought, more access across
the board. And, of course, as long as humongousasses dot com
continue to update their pix on a consistent basis, what a
wonderful world it will be.
Nathan Singer November 2006
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