Not So Obvious
I got a long and thoughtful message from Dave
Rogers which deserves
a public answer, with Dave's permission:
Much as I enjoy your weblog and as many of your thoughts as I'm
capable of comprehending, I'm wondering why you think the Obvious Society
will
be a good thing
I've read The Lucifer Principle, though I haven't read
Bloom's latest book. I think he flogs the meme past all rationality,
but I think social organisms
(he calls them "superorganisms") are a legitimate phenomenon
that deserve greater study.
It is in that context that I believe the Obvious
Society that you outline, and I agree that is likely to be the way the
technology will go, is going
to be one of the worst things ever to happen to human beings.
I wonder,
have you ever lived in a small town? I have. It's not exactly fun when
everyone knows what you do, especially if you do anything that
isn't
in strict conformity with the "norm." Small towns can be
oppressive for people who are "different."
And what about
parenting? How do we nurture notions of "trust" and "responsibility" with
our children? I was an intrusive parent for my oldest daughter.
I often kept the things I learned to myself, I just wanted to make
sure I had
some idea
of what she was up to. But there's no way I think I could handle
knowing everything, and there's no way she could have grown into
the wonderful
young lady that she is, if I had.
And what of citizenship? How do
we nurture quaint notions like "trust" and "faith" and "honor" among
ourselves as citizens? Why have any of those when we can simply
rely on our technology to intrude into people's lives and ensure
they're not doing anything
we wouldn't approve of?
The Obvious Society is the authoritarian's
wet dream. Knowledge is a form of authority, as I'm sure you're
aware. Giving people
greater
knowledge
of what their neighbors and children are up to is giving them
a form of
authority
without any real understanding of the responsibility that must
attend that authority.
In superorganisms, or social organisms,
people try to use authority to advance in the pecking order, usually
at the expense of
others. The world
you describe
is undoubtedly a better one for social organisms, they will
be much more efficient at ensuring their constituent members'
efforts
and
activities are consistent with the aims of the social organism.
But I'm very certain
that
it will be a terrible world for creating healthy individuals
with a strong
sense of individual identity, and a knowledge of the values
that make life worth living.
I'm no luddite, but the world
you describe is not one I welcome, nor one I would wish to inhabit. I
am afraid we are already
too far down
along
that path, and the rate is accelerating with the likes
of Attorney General Ashcroft
in control.
Earlier, on 2/25, Dave had written,
...let
me point you to this little piece at Escapable
Logic [The Obvious Society].
If there is a more
frightening vision of the future, I can't think of what it is.
Britt
seems to believe human beings will use all of this particular technology
in good ways. I'm not sure he's ever lived in a small town. What he
describes would enable the very worst of human nature to oppress and enforce
conformity
within the community. Suicide rates would sky-rocket. Hopefully, it
will never happen; though I'm sure some fraction of it will to the extent
that it will convey an advantage to one group. I can think of a half-dozen
Twilight
Zone episodes set in Britt's vision of the future. I sure would hope
I was Rod Serling...
Well, to kind of return to the religious theme:
I suspect that technology is going to compel us to confront our spiritual
problems in a way that
nothing else could.
Irony is the fifth fundamental force of the universe.
David and I seem to agree that these technologies are inevitable and probably
imminent. Is there any other information that might bring us closer to agreement?
Let's start with the expectation that Peer Brother will drown out Big Brother
in a flood of personal video information that we'll sort out among ourselves
without
government
intervention.
I've got
my
private
web space here and David has his. We share what we choose to on our site, but
not everything. Our captured video will reside in a similarly
controlled repository. We can share whatever we want with whomever we want,
when we want. As Personal Flight Recorders (PFRs) proliferate, as David agrees
they probably will, our collective record will dwarf the records captured but
ghettoized
by the
competing
organizations using the cameras we see today.
The other softener in our disconnect is that none of us has any obligation
to do any of this. At parties and locker rooms and home and perhaps church,
our PFRs will be off. So we'll be public when we're out in public and otherwise
I bet we'll observe the kinds of limitations now accumulating around
cell phones and smoking.
The Values Worth Living For
Let's
look at David's core (I think) concern:
In superorganisms, or social organisms, people try to use authority
to advance in the pecking order, usually at the expense of others. The
world you describe is undoubtedly a better one for social organisms, they
will be much more efficient at ensuring their constituent members' efforts
and activities are consistent with the aims of the social organism. But
I'm very certain that it will be a terrible world for creating healthy
individuals with a strong sense of individual identity, and a knowledge
of the values that make life worth living.
Which are the values that make life worth living? If I had that answer,
I might be a lot more decisive. Values seem to vary with the respondent
and for each of us over time. John Ashcroft knows he has the
values that make life worth living, but David and I don't agree with him. I
don't know which values of the last two presidents I want to embrace, if any.
What I can say with confidence is that there is nothing more human than being
certain that one knows the "right" values, and that one's "knowledge" of
their rightness is unwavering. The value we both want to protect is
our right to our own choices, discoveries, rituals and mysteries.
But within what framework might our choices be made? With no help from the
Obvious Society, we've already abandoned a lot of freedoms. Our non-obvious
society has done nothing to slow Mr. Ashcroft's absurd crusade against the
real America he so obviously hates. In an Obvious
Society, the video record would have laughed that sorry Bible-thumper out
of the confirmation hearing. In an Obvious Society, we'd see Dubya arrested
for his DUI and snorting coke
rather
than reporting
for
Air Guard duty as ordered.
In an Obvious Society, youth will probably be a little more restrained. Perhaps
it won't ruin them for life.
David and I may have already lived in such a society.
David is a retired Navy Commander and I was briefly in the Air Force. The visibility
in an Obvious Society may be a lot like the visibility in the military, especially
in combat, when you all live and work and horse around together. Like behavior
on base, people in an obvious society are likely to be more formal out in public,
but
perhaps
no more formal than people in the 1950's.
Confronting our Spirit
I'm certain that the Obvious Society will, as David suggests, "compel
us
to confront our spiritual problems in a way that nothing else could."
Now there's a profundity I wish I'd thought of! What is our spirituality?
My shorthand is that it's our authentic self—the sum of thoughts, feelings
and urges which spring from a deeper source than the face we put on for others.
It's the place we go when we give up being someone we're not. What
better outcome could we hope for than confronting our spirit?
Perhaps we'll even discern the distinction between spirituality and religiosity—how
quiet and meek is the former and how petty and domineering is the latter.
Will it play out
that way? I haven't a clue, but I think so. I believe that deep
reflection concludes that only closely held knowledge is "a form of
authority"
and then only if it's owned by the authorities. Truly open, public knowledge
is more like yesterday's news—boring and toothless. To be effective,
tyranny must hide reality rather than expose it. It's likely
that the
Obvious
Society is one where we collectively cancel government's franchise on secrets
and shame.
Further, our shared sense
of fair
play
is
more
strict
than
our private
ambition, else why would public officials work so hard at spinning their
character? Being on stage brings out the best in us, if we can stand it.
The stink of money in politics is caused by the need for politicians to buy
media time to present a false persona to the electorate. In an Obvious Society,
it's a waste of money and effort, since we'll be clear about who each of us
really is.
The Death of Privacy?
The question is whether we can stand being exposed to
the rest of us while in public. It's easy to forget that privacy
is a recent invention, an
artifact of the industrial age. It's sometimes liberating but it's not the
usual human condition. All people through history and most people today live
in full view of their family, clan, tribe, village. We'll not abandon privacy
though, since our living spaces sequester us far more than is possible in
history and the third world.
But is the non-private life so bad? If you've
ever
seen third world villagers interact, you've noticed how cheerful
they
seem
to
be. Is
it possible that our attempt to hide ourselves is a source of anguish?
Here's John Perry Barlow on life
in Kabale, Uganda:
I also wonder how
much of our world I actually wish on these people. They are desperately
poor by our standards, but I don't see any of them starving, and, taken
as a lot, they sure seem a whole bunch happier than most of us Northerners.
People we see along the road smile and wave. I see them waving even
from the distant fields, genuinely glad to see us. Their little gatherings
are
often doubled over with laughter at something someone has just said.
Imagine
average Americans smiling and waving at a carload of passing Africans
and you begin to appreciate how different is the vibe. Do I really want
to endow other people with such blessings as we endure? At one point,
we
stop
to take a picture and a boy walks past me, coming up from the fields
with hoe over his shoulder.
"Hello," he said brightly. "How is your life?" "My
life is good," I said, meaning it. "How is your life?" "My
life is good, too!" he said, meaning it every bit as earnestly.
He had no shoes. He was very dirty. He had probably been working for
about 10 hours.
Altogether, his family makes maybe 500 bucks in a decent year.
His
life is good.
How is your life?
It's a chilling prospect to be truly public in public, but it
may be the best way to build ourselves a more
liberal
environment than the small towns David has escaped—the places that
can paralyze its inhabitants into a lockstep conformity. Why might our world
be more liberal? Because every voice will be heard, not just the voices of
people
who want to control others through politics and the religious wrongs. The
current morality is skewed by and for those who have grabbed the lectern.
Their values are broadcast by media whose members require access to the
lectern, which they purchase with their complicity.
Most of our society has become more open than the little towns we remember,
judging by the audience for the values and humor on film and in the video
store. This blog tries to be a serious (not solemn) series of essays, but is
anyone
concerned when
I proclaim the occasional holyfuckingshit for anyone to see?
Not really.
Further, I'm convinced that small town morality and judgmentalism is as much
a function of economics and boosterism as of firmly held mores. As
access to online work penetrates those societies, your neighbor's opinion of
you loses its grip on your wallet and frees you to dialogue widely, as we are
here. Interestingly, messaging lets you connect with like-minded, perhaps open-minded
others a few blocks away, who may outnumber the self-righteous but,
like oneself, are invisible.
I suspect there are are so many of us normal, red-blooded, slightly zany folks
out here that, like the music collectors laughing at the DMCA, we'll thumb
our collective nose at the pathetically self-righteous minority and go have
a beer, surf the web, play with our kids, do some yoga and not take ourselves
as seriously
as we're told to.
We'll learn together, Obviously, that an inquisitive, open-hearted, juicy
and spontaneous humanity is the natural human condition, not the arid purgatory
of artificial,
fundamentalist "values".
12:49:21 AM 
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