Dancers (2010)
“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” ― Thomas Jefferson
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Social media has evolved very quickly and at this point it is almost easy to forget that a mere seven or eight years ago we were all on MySpace rather than Facebook, loading our profiles with too many things that blinked and photos that were too large and videos that took forever to load. One of the peculiarities of that application which now seems rather absurd was the ability to not only see someone’s friends, but to dig down and see their friends’ friends and even their friends’ friends’ friends. I’m sure the concept in the beginning is that it would help people with similar interest find each other. No one really thought about the stalking aspect, or that employers would actually use that against people.
Yes, you read that correctly. No, I’m not kidding. I saw it happen. I was hanging my photos for an exhibition in a coffee house and a group of three ministers from a nearby church took a table near me and began talking about a fourth colleague, the church’s youth minister. The primary focus of the conversation was that the senior pastor had gone through the youth minister’s list of MySpace friends and then gone through the lists of friends of his top ten friends (creepy, no?). Within that second group, the friends of friends, was found one young man who had posted a photo of himself holding a beer bottle. That was all the senior pastor needed to see. Obviously, by his judgment, the youth minister was not sufficiently careful in whom he befriended and, therefore, must be fired.
I’m not sure what bothered me more: that the pastor would dig so very deeply to try and find an excuse for firing his young minister, or that neither of the other ministers present rose to the youth minister’s defense; they both very quickly agreed with the senior pastor that the youth minister would have to be gone before the next Sunday, which was only two days away. Such shallowness, such cruelty, and such absurd reasoning struck me as not merely non-Christian, but a severe level of Authoritarianism that was not only unreasonable among the clergy but in any employee/employer relationship.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]We tend to think of independence as something defies our need of anyone else. Yet, as Jefferson intoned, we need friends and allies who are equally committed to make our independence actually work. While it is admirable to think and do things for one’s self, realities of life require some network of colleagues or friends, no matter how loose it may be, who might offer assistance when reasonable and necessary. Part of being independent is choosing exactly who it is we wish to have standing with us, and for whom we ourselves might choose to stand.
When I was a child, my parents very carefully chose my playmates for me, cautious to make sure that neither the child nor the child’s parents might prove to be an improper influence. Almost the instance I moved away from home, however, I took no time in expanding my circle of acquaintances to those with whom my parents would not have approved. Over the years, my circle of friends has included witches, drug dealers, shamans, a whole host of LGBTQ people, strippers, prostitutes, and yes, even Irish Catholics. While not all of those ultimately upheld that friendship, a surprising number did and there are still several within that list that I could call for help right now and know they’d come running.
Independence is to not be under the authority of someone else, but it does not exclude the need for friends, and even friends of friends. The test of independence comes not in who we choose as friends, but in our ability to not let our friendship become an encumbrance upon anyone else. Not only must we value our own independence, but that of our friends. Among those with whom we might pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our honor, there are no labels nor any form of moral judgment, for when they are genuinely friends any other title is irrelevant. [/one_half_last]
Most of the intelligent world, and by that I mean the portion whose reasoning is not polluted by mythologies, understands the necessity and general concepts of evolution, especially in regard to human development. While true evolution takes place slowly at the DNA level over hundreds of generations, one need not look back much more than a couple of generations to see the more immediate environmental impact of changing conditions. As a species, we are generally taller, more sedentary and therefore, more obese, and living longer. We have largely eradicated the diseases that killed our great-grandparents but succumb to autoimmune diseases that were once quite rare. How this might all balance out on the evolutionary scale remains to be seen, but without question the actions we take today affect what our species is tomorrow.
Independent Thought
Tied To TV (2006)
“No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.” ― Henry Miller
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Our obsession with media was predictable, and widely predicted. Even by 1964, when television was allegedly in its Golden Age, children’s author Roald Dahl saw the enslavement factor so obvious as to include it in one of the characters in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Saying matters have only grown worse since is a severe understatement. Not only have we become more enslaved by media, but we continually create new forms of media to keep our minds, and our opinions, closely tied to whatever output mechanism manages to keep our highly unreliable attention for more than five seconds. We know we’re addicted and that our habit is bad for us, but we are absolutely unwilling to even attempt to break the cord, firm in the belief that we are better off with the knowledge that media imparts.
Granted, there was one a time when media such as printed pamphlets and newspapers were beneficial. In fact, one can reasonably argue that our country’s Declaration of Independence from England would never have happened if not for the influence and information distributed by Thomas Paine is his Common Sense pamphlet. Since 1837, the press has wielded sufficient influence as to be referred to as the fourth estate (a reference to pre-revolution French society divided into the estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners). As the reach of the press grew, so did its influence. In 1897, Francis P. Church validated the presence of Santa Claus by telling little Virginia that, “If you see it in the Sun, it must be true.”
As the reach of the press grew, so did its influence. In 1897, Francis P. Church validated the presence of Santa Claus by telling little Virginia that, “If you see it in the Sun, it must be true.” Edward R. Murrow was the voice of all that was true in the 1950s and following him Walter Cronkite became known as “the most trusted man in America.” Not that everything in the field of journalism was always reliable, but there was a basis of trust and expectation of honesty that allowed people to ingest their information with a sense of security.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The media monster to which we are now tied has no sense of security to it at all. We have gotten to the point that we allow the media we consume to do all our thinking for us. If something is not validated by our preferred source, then it simply cannot be correct. That multiple sources are never in agreement doesn’t seem to bother us. We choose sides and assume that one is always wrong while the other is always correct, when often the truth of a matter is nowhere near what we’re being told by any major source.
Thomas Paine said something that I think is poignant:
Notice what is missing from that definition: external influence. Not that Paine expected people to just automatically know everything, but rather he expected that they would take information, such as what he produced, and use that to think, reflect, and come to a reasonable opinion of one’s accord. There’s not accommodation here for allowing any external party to make our opinions for us. In fact, Paine and his peers would find the degree to which we’ve surrendered our thought process to be quite alarming.
Declaring Independence from media is difficult. One has a need to be reasonably informed and the expectations of today’s society are such that one’s need for information is almost immediate. At the same time, though, we should never allow that media to do our thinking for us. Talking heads spouting opinion rather than fact need to be severed from the public arena and not fed their diet of shares and likes and hashtag mentions. We need to take time to step away, to reflect on what we’ve been told and form our own opinion, then see what thoughts might bolt into our minds of their own accord. [/one_half_last]
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