In honor of E.B. White, the inspiration for this column and perhaps the first cultural blogger (One Man’s Meat), way before there was such a term, I’m starting a new column to run when I am inspired. It’s called “Rimunations. ” It will appear when something strikes me that is of interest to other people, my long-suffering and loyal readers. These are no winter warriors; they have lived through the best and worst of me.
I was thinking this morning about the addictions that have spread and are providing me and millions of others with an almost daily string of rudeness, ignorance, and irritation. I am no luddite or fool. I am witnessing the rotting out and devolution of our culture. I never thought I would miss the idea of the Judeo-Christian Ethic, but as it vanishes, so does the very concept of truth, civility, or honor. I pledge that I will never accept or give in to these things.
There are lots of people and things to blame. One of them, at least in my mind, is the cancer and corruption of social media, a lightning-quick order and devour of honesty, guilt, and kindness.
I understand that these sad addictions will never go away, only grow; they seem to be ingrained in the DNA of computer writing and the creepy disease we call social media. Almost single-handedly and instantly, social media has destroyed the work of millions, if not billions, of mothers and grandmothers who hoped to teach their children some manners. Please give it up, noble women, if you haven’t already.
It is a crime that this culture was permitted to degenerate this way, a loss and a shame.
Manners have gone the way of friendly people who answered the phone and wanted to help. Corporations, now firmly in charge of our nation, aren’t into manners of any kind; they want us to buy their stuff and stay away. We are increasingly being cut off from people while the CEO hides behind AI.
I pledge to avoid every single one of these smelly addictions until the end of my days and ignore and reject the hordes of infectious users growing by the day and abusing our children. Cell phones are one of the most significant enablers of addiction; if I have any one of these, it is my Iphone addiction, now something I cannot live without. God Bless my little farm and remarkable wife. We hold the fort, clinging to interaction and civility for as long as possible. My hero, Steve Jobs, if you are watching, be humble.
The Addictions:
1. First, one of the most odious is the Addiction of never minding your business. These are the social media parasites, people who are addicted to feeding off of other people’s business, peering into the lives of strangers, and abandoning the very idea of privacy, something my mother and grandmother told me was rude. Mothers and grandmothers have given up on manners and moved along, trying to figure out their iPhones and find a way to talk to their children face-to-face. They’ve lost that struggle. I love telling people to mind their own business; it feels good. It is now pointless.
(I have never told a stranger online or anywhere what to do.)
2. Telling strangers they know nothing about what to do, think and feel. I love hearing about my work from readers with thoughtful things, even criticism. I love listening to them and talking with them. They know me, and they know something about me. There are countless meatheads out there who don’t know me or anything about me, to run their mouths all the time in unwanted and often offensive ways. After years of struggling, I’ve found a way of dealing with them. I delete them instantly.
3. Correct other people’s spelling and grammar as if anyone asked them. As a Dyslexic, I am sensitive to this addiction; if I had listened to the people who insulted or laughed at me for making mistakes, I would have tossed myself in a nearby river rather than publish a successful blog or written best-selling books.
4. The addiction of Unwanted Advice. Expressing extreme and often ignorant opinions to strangers who did not ask for their views or care what they were. Note: actual conversations are valuable and a lot of fun. Unwanted advice is almost always obnoxious and undesirable, in my experience. Oh yes, and often wrong. It was considered rude and offensive before social media. Pssst. It still is.
5. Hordes of trolls. There is no penalty for weak or aggressive people to attack strangers viciously or people they disagree with. They often sent messages that would have gotten them beaten up or jailed not that long ago. There is no longer any penalty in social media to be paid for being cruel and offensive. It gives meaning to the weak, cowardly, and helpless.
6. The Addiction of Shameless is a rapidly spreading social media addiction. Lying is okay, and so is stealing, abuse, and even crime. Things that cause people to apologize and hide for years are now efficient and instant ways of raising money, gaining support, or even getting hired. Just a couple of decades after organized religion’s influence began to disappear, lying and cruelty became a virtue. Social media fanned this flame and kept it burning. Anyone can look into your bedroom, and there is always support for dishonesty.
7. The Addiction of Big Brother. A woman wrote to me because I overstated the temperature in an early morning blog post. Social Media has become more Orwellian than George Orwell ever dreamed in his book 1984. One day—perhaps tomorrow—we will awaken to a world where this new and empowered generation of Big Brothers will see our every thought and movement and report us to our handlers.
Think about it: a stranger I don’t know has the gall to monitor how cold I thought I was. Something like that happens every day. You don’t need to read about the Orwellian world. He didn’t imagine half of it. I tell some of them that I share my life on my blog; I’m not turning it over to you. I don’t wish to be a Democrat or a Republican.
8. My social media feed is choking on appeals for money from non-profits, politicians, and any company I have ever purchased anything from. Every morning, I spend a lot of time unsubscribing from companies I didn’t want to buy from, many of which I have never heard of.
9. The addiction of avoiding people and speaking to them or knowing them. Young members of my own family have given up speaking directly to me or anyone else, including their friends. They only text.
Companies no longer allow customers to talk to salespeople or “customer support,” a pointless phase of their ever was one. I fight to speak to people. This may make me another old fart, but I see it as a fight to be a human being who was not raised or meant to avoid other people. It has never seemed healthy or “normal” to me.
Every time an animal on the farm gets sick, Maria and I are both inundated with amateur and untrained “vets” telling us what we are doing wrong and outraged when we prefer to go and talk to somebody who wants to get paid and who has gone to school for six years to learn. I can count on the advice being wrong, and how could it not be? They don’t know me or my animals; people once went to jail for this.
Years ago, when I was a writer for Wired Magazine, I remember a magazine meeting where we discussed the future of the growing Internet. We nearly drowned in our naiveté; we all thought this would free corruption and make information free for everyone. When I turn on my computer, I see more unwanted and unsolicited messages from people wanting money, political and corporate, than any talk of freedom and democracy. I rarely, if ever, see that. Politicians are still asking me for money. For What?
The addictions to social media range from opinions we don’t want to advice we don’t wish to get, cruelty, and ignorance we don’t like. The new norm is that millions think they have the right to enter the most private parts of their lives, thoughts, writing, and experiences without a thought or civil word. Social media has almost wholly obliterated the very idea of manners and civility; I tremble to hear what it’s doing to kids.
The language of social media is cold and heartless. Social media is not a cesspool of hatred, lies, and misinformation.
Okay, that’s my rumination for the morning. It had to come out. It was great getting it off my chest. If you read my blog or know me somehow and have something thoughtful to say or add, please jump in. Everyone else, please think about it.
My faith is the truth.
(Ruminations will appear regularly. It will always be free.)
