Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. - Ehrmann
While I was traveling in South America I stopped by the Xul Solar museum in Buenos Aires. When I left, and after pondering the generation of Solar and Borges and their peers, I was amazed at the lack of progress we have made as a people. Even taking the large jump of ignoring the bloodletting of the 20th Century, we still have yet to generate the person-to-person connections that would suggest a flowering peope. Individuals still feel as individuals, as islands, and feel the pressure to live up to that ideal. Millenia-old sociological rules still dictate the responsibilities of being a man, as well as the “dishonor” that is derived from a faultering path along those dictums. Secrets exist among loved ones, but nothing can be done to extricate and palliate. We have to face truths about modern society, among them that we no longer live for food but for emotions: we don’t bloodlust for hunting our meals, we lust lust for acceptance and approval. Families, coworkers, friends, and any other people don’t live like this, nor can I say I do all the time either.
Despite this, I am generally a meliorist. It may be fighting against my nature, but I think it has to be a necessary viewpoint if one wishes to keep their head held high. The rules of economy have forced something of a revolution, with partly this philosophy, in the methods of product development and dissemination. The democratization of so many aspects of life - computing (legal and illegal), experimentation, knowledge - all represent an inherent and definite level of trust in the fellow man. I recently watched a video of a brilliant distributed power project that retains this idea as a central tenet - no matter who you are, you know your life, what it needs, and generally how that might be achieved. On the larger scale, this revolution is slowly happening and, thankfully, possibly, taking its shape on society.
I feel that these two ideas are intricately intertwined. How can we trust a stranger to inform us on the entire body intellectual of humanity, yet not look into the eyes of our mothers and fathers and understand their tumult? The ligatures of a family are a complex and varied beast, to be sure, but what a world we could live in! To this end, do the products shape society or does society shape the products? That is, will these products bring about a world where a man can look to his family and tell the unadulterated truth about his feelings, emotions, and perspective on life? Or, since the public has demanded these products but not yet embraced this core principle, is it rejected, prima facie? Possibly I am simply looking throgh the lens of these products because I don’t want to face the simple truths in life of pain and hurt, as these cannot be democratized. Despite what anyone else might hope and pray it is a solitary path we lead. All I can hope is that families should not have to face undue trauma. I use the products as an indication of a certain level or recognition in people that the current model does not work for life, but the more important meterstick would be a reduction in pain, struggle, suffering, and strife among the plastic but everlasting bonds that I think of in a family.
