Month: May 2018

Value in visible impacts

It must make a difference when the implications of what we do are immediately apparent: when unkind attitudes are mirrored by another’s face or careless actions evidenced within our environment. If we had to live through the personal and natural consequences of all we do, it’s conceivable we would quickly learn to keep ourselves in check.

Maybe, in a way, that’s one of society’s functions: to provide that sense of meaning, regulation and self-restraint which is arguably quite essential for any community to exist harmoniously (see Notes One). These days though, it’s rarely the case. So much is almost completely invisible, while our own experiences are being dialled up and possibly further drowning out our ability to notice what’s really going on.

It’s challenging to grasp the reality we’re involved in creating, to see how everything fits and where our choices are hitting home. Ways opinions and attitudes are being conveyed: interactions playing out, affecting others and those around them in personal realities we’re often now a part of. Then the complex socio-economic networks we may partake in without understanding fully; bearing consequences that are nonetheless very real.

I wonder sometimes to what extent “all that’s going on” would be tolerated if it had to be done directly, without the convenient mediation of technology. Having to go out of your way to say something to someone’s face, then face up to the social context of it all, presumably used to be a reasonably effective deterrent to antisocial behaviour: you saw the personal impact; you felt the disapproval of your community.

The internet seems to be empowering an awful lot of activity that communities previously used to curtail in the earlier stages (Note Two). It’s obviously something that’s getting talked about a great deal – how technology is changing modern society – and maybe because we sense it’s fundamentally important while also being incredibly hard to get to grips with (Notes Three).

To me, life is about humanity and how we’re choosing to live in relationship to one another and the world around us. It’s the thoughts and intentions we bring to bear within those spaces and the realities we’re now weaving across the globe as our lives intersect in all these countless ways. It’s the values we prioritise in that, the worth we assign to life and the ability of the planet to sustain it.

And in so many ways modern living seems to be threatening that; undermining the threads that make up society and the foundations of our shared existence. Technology seemingly encouraging us to live at such a pace where we must limit our focus in order to manage: where ignoring our impacts, disregarding so many and so much, and justifying it one way or another is becoming ‘normal’.

Is it normal? Has humanity ever lived so carelessly of its social and environmental impacts? Is it wise to do so? And what would it mean to ‘stay human’ in a world that’s almost inviting us to turn a blind eye?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Mirrors we offer one another
Note 1: Human nature and community life
Note 2: People, rules & social cohesion
Note 3: Technology & the lack of constraint
Note 3: “Response Ability” by Frank Fisher
Note 3: Reality as a sense check

Looking in a slightly different way at living within troubling times, there’s Dealing with imperfection.

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Power in what we believe

The word belief can be seen as having less weight than ‘know’, but in some ways it’s starting to seem more important. These days it’s as if facts and knowledge can be reframed to suit many different worldviews or opinions. And, if that’s a true reading of the situation, what power does fact then retain?

It’s a strange situation, because it used to be that knowledge carried power: people would familiarise themselves with specific trains of thought and generally accepted premises, then the conversation would broadly progress along those lines. Now, personal perspectives and preferences have apparently stepped into that chain of reasoning.

Maybe it’s not so unusual, in that there always needs to be some overarching sense of meaning within which knowledge can sit: the firmament into which we slot our facts and see how things relate to one another.

In that case, maybe the main difference is that this backdrop is now personally constructed rather than collectively accepted? So, instead of our sense of meaning being imparted by the traditions of religion, state or some other source, we’re seeking things out for ourselves. Presumably, that personal meaning may then be informed to varying degrees by culture, education, unexamined assumptions, or life experiences (see Notes One).

Which is interesting to consider, because how can we be sure? Recent centuries have had these robust dialogues around the nature of knowledge, as they applied logic to extricate human understanding from the oversight of those authorities; but that tradition of inquiry seems to have fallen by the wayside. Often, for some reason, we’re being encouraged to simply decide it all for ourselves.

Whether or not that matters is then a philosophical or spiritual question, I would’ve thought: whether beliefs about reality matter, at the end of the day. But also a social or interpersonal question, in the sense that our beliefs about life must impact how we relate to one another and the world we create together (Notes Two). If people all carry significantly different ideas as to what things ‘mean’, conflict’s also fairly likely.

It’s obviously something I see as important. What we believe influences so many aspects of life: how we view ourselves and the power of our words, ideas and actions; how we approach others, accepting or respecting their own ideas and experiences; how we understand society and ways we shape it through communication, relationships, patterns of behaviour; then the global ramifications of all these things.

Belief – the trust, faith or confidence we have – finds it ways into all that we do, creating countless consequences that will take time to unravel: our attitudes and actions may trap others in economic, social or emotional realities they’re then almost powerless to extricate themselves from. The moral implications are arguably no less weighty than they were considered to be a century or so back.

Beyond facts then, there’s this overlay of ‘meaning’ and of understanding where things may lead. Whether we call that belief or something else, it’s conceivably an important reality.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Complexity of life
Note 1: Learning to be human
Note 1: Meaning in culture
Note 2: What are we thinking?
Note 2: What if it all means something?
Note 2: What is real?

In terms of how best to stand within all this, The idea of self reliance explored some of Emerson’s thoughts around how we could live.

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