I’ve been pondering a feeling I have but cannot quite put into precise words. But it seems like our culture has less capacity, and desire, to think about and discuss ideas. Everything has turned into a politics of the putdown, and diatribes of denigration. In the late 90's to early 00's, I remember having lively discussions online and in real life about theological and philosophical topics with regular folks: From predestination, to the nature of God, to acceptance of LGBT persons, to capital punishment, to what goes on in the Sacrament.
I remember reading and responding to people’s blogs, and them reading and responding to me. A serious multi-person debate might erupt over Calvinism versus Arminianism, the efficacy of Drone Warfare, or the relationship of Creation to Evolution. I would go to coffee shop discussions of philosophy and theology and books we actually read. Printed books. On real paper. Now I have hundreds of books in my smart phone, and access to all the knowledge of the human race in my pocket. But it seems like all of that discussion is gone. It seems that precious few people ask the questions anymore, much less seek the answers.
The shift in my experience seems to coincide with the rise of the always-on smart phone culture, and totalizing nature of social media. I hate to be that reductionist about it. But everything else seems to be fairly constant except that. Politics and Secularization and Culture Wars and Corporate Consumerism have been a constant for the last half century. What has changed is the volume and frequency of these forces being able to intrude into our lives, and the lack of silence and reflection time to respond to them. And this frequency and volume is a direct result of the intrusive surveillance and propaganda propagation technology we live with, toilet with, eat with, work with, walk with, and sleep with. Is there any entity in our lives that is more intimate and spends more time with us than our smart phone?
And that technology is driven entirely by harvesting our attention for advertising revenue. After all: When the product is free, the product is me. Listening, silence, and reflection are really hard to find space for because of this technology. And without space to listen, it is next to impossible to create empathy and compassion for the other. We are spurred on to constant reaction, constantly carried along by a livestream of "feels" telling us who to love, who to hate, and what to buy. Check out advertising. How much tells you actual data about products to inform a purchasing decision, and how much of it encourages you to FEEL you need the product? Our media environment is based on two controlling phenomena: Constant engagement and stimulation, combined with anti-cognitive emphasis on feelings. It is the apotheosis of "feels over reals".
I hate sounding like a Luddite. Especially as I type this on a smartphone. But I worry that people have ceased to be able to read books, process complex ideas, or formulate thoughts longer than 140 characters. Let me put this another way: I worry that I am losing this ability, along with everyone else. I feel like we are witnessing the fulfillment of Huxley's Brave New World, or Nietzsche’s Last Man, or CS Lewis’ Abolition of Man, or Vonnegut’s Galapagos. The Devolution of Homo Sapiens into Homo Consumerensis.
Now that you made it through that long essay with all of those big words, you deserve a treat. So watch this...
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