This afternoon I got an email from David Byrne — well, I’m on his mailing list. He sends interesting and compelling essays and today’s was called “The Echo Chamber,” about the schisms in both big parties and he posed the question, “What is to be done?” (i.e., about the anger and constant negative/scary/mean-spirited drumbeats of the campaigners, the media, the warmongers, et al.).
I thought it was a very strong, persuasive study and it also had some funny cartoons and illustrations. It really caught my attention and so I decided to write a quick reply, knowing that David Byrne wouldn’t read it but maybe the “reader response” metrics would go up a notch and his team might appreciate a salute.
So I dashed this off and sent it.
“Hello David Byrne, this is a remarkable essay. I ask that question, “So what is to be done?” practically every day these days. And although I feel powerless outside my own little sphere of influence (family, close friends, maybe a handful of professional colleagues) — I feel very sad to say that I’ve accepted that I can do very little…
The tremendous avalanche of attacking, angry, threatening and downright vulgar (or as my mother would have put it, “unseemly”) commentary is rumbling faster and faster and cannot stop. That the world is flat (cf. Tom Friedman), that we all reached out and touched someone, that all of us who choose to have smart phones and Facebook and WhatsApp accounts are inextricably, cleverly (and maybe even a little sinisterly) bonded is this enormous convulsion of civilization, as (maybe more?) dramatic than the industrial revolution and the original digital revolution.
Linked In, all its counterparts and zillions of apps are big, snoopy electronic busybodies! But so many people are in their thrall, cheerfully and willingly submitting and committing their privacy in the name of professional commitment “got to have a profile” (or an easier way to correspond with Grandma. Or elude mother and dad’s scrutiny. Or think you’re telling secrets…) Yikes.
So what can be done (vs. what is to be done) is to try and maintain a modicum of personal privacy, refuse to listen to the blather, attempt to be a good citizen, even if passive (i.e., pay taxes, keep your sidewalk clean, refuse to gossip or perpetuate the prattle, support the arts, be kind, etc., etc.), and speak out against cruelty, unfairness, bigotry. That goes for people for all ages (and parents especially really struggle with this, I know). I think it used to be called “The Golden Rule.”
Don’t ask me what to do about tyrants in Syria or ISIS (or, for that matter, right here in the US) though, because I truly cannot understand how they became so rich, so powerful and so evil in (seemingly) so short a period of time. Perhaps if they all continue along their particular path of regression there will be no Skype, PlayStation or presidential campaigning, just foraging for food and desperately trying to figure out how to find family and friends the old-fashioned way. What a profound shame that life is so futile for some, so unbearable for many, so selfish for those who wield power in an unspeakably cruel way to others, so short for those of us lucky to have health and live in a safe place.
Well, anyway — your article really made an impression on me as you can tell! I admire your writing and pov and send you my appreciation.”
And this is what I got back:
Add comment