The
marked increase in rudeness and disrespect in the content
of our verbal communication suggests, if not predicts, that
the age of speech barbarism is slouching towards Bethlehem,
threatening to become a black hole from which -- with a knockout-nod
from human nature -- there may be no escaping. If true, why
now? What happened to the great and hopeful project of civilization,
or rather what is undermining, destabilizing those structures
upon which civilizations have arisen? What has rendered null
and void our manners, etiquette and time-tempered probity
that allow societies to form and flourish?
From
Wiki: “Civil, literally, applies to one who fulfills
the duty of a citizen; it may mean simply not rude, or observant
of the external courtesies of intercourse . . . “
Why
are we insulting, yelling at, hurting people with ever greater
frequency everywhere in the world? If the well-being of the
world is in part the first effect of orderly discourse and
mutual respect, why are we hastening the breakdown of those
twin pillars of stability? What is prompting the species to
act against its own self-interest?
For
one, the impunity or no-consequence clause has suddenly found
an environment in which it can thrive and multiply: cyberspace.
In our century, which has been like no other in respect to
the rapid development of state-of-the-art communication technology,
our discourse has turned ugly because we can get away with
it. In our autonomous digital bubbles there are no consequences
for speaking our minds. With all social restraints removed,
the first effect of which is tantamount to decommissioning
the cerebral cortex, the animal brain clicks in and raw feelings
and emotions that would otherwise be tempered by social convention
and its one-size-fits-all reward mechanisms are given free
rein.
The
great enabler is the Big Byte.
The Big Bang explains how we got here, the Big Byte (digital
technology) explains our current state of affairs that has
unleashed our presumably neatly tied up and tamed human nature.
The
self-contained universe of the automobile was the first environment
where language was turned into a medium of abuse that in our
century has spread like a prairie fire throughout the world.
We only have to examine the aggressive, vituperative content
of our speech during the dreaded commute that begins and ends
the day for billions across the globe: from Cairo to Kolkata
to California. Caught in traffic that advances slower than
the flow of sludge, in the protective bubbles of our vehicles
we are all too easily exercized and we respond accordingly:
we curse, we insult, we bang the steering wheel, we hammer
down on the horn, and we may even mutter death threats at
the delinquent other-driver whose only crime is to be headed
in the same direction at the same time as everyone else. We
understand that no matter how splenetic and bilious are the
mutterings we unleash or receive (the up yours finger), in
the protective bubbles of our vehicles we need not fear consequences.
In this “everything is permitted” climate, the
individual is reduced to the sum of whatever spews out his
mouth.
What
has changed in the current century is the worldwide proliferation
of cyber bubbles where, unlike inside the automobile, most
human beings spend most of their time. Globally, the average
Internet user spends 40%
of his waking life on-line.
The
decent into language barbarism is directly related to the
ethos we encounter inside our digital bubbles in which we
are happily ensconsed. Under the protective cover of whatever
user name we fancy and guaranteeed physical unreachability,
we can hate and hurt and humiliate whomever we want. The best
of civilization is proving to be no match against the impertinence
and insolence let loose by the impunity clauses that derive
directly from the conditions that characterize bubble life.
Enjoying
freedoms that only dedicated isolation can provide, we are
choosing to live like monads, self-contained units of self-sufficiency
whose space and time coordinates are no longer geographically
but digitally anchored in the continuously expanding largely
uncharted byte universe.
Seen
from afar, beneath the worldwide cloud-cover of autonomous
digital bubbles, the real world, if not disappearing, is threatening
to become inconsequential, and it is happening as quickly
as abandoned civilizations are eaten up and disappeared under
tropical growth.
There
was a time when our core institutions (banks, defense, health),
with the bare minimum of security, were safe from outside
threat. Today, facing an unknown enemy that is simultaneously
(bytographically), here there and everywhere, every major
and minor institution is now vulnerable to cyber attack and
cyber blackmail.
There
was a time when parents of school-aged teenagers did not have
to concern themselves with sexual predation because the predator
was encumbered by his body, which served as an effective,
albeit imperfect, deterrent to deviant behaviour. Today, that
is no longer the case. Under the safeguard of anonymity, the
world’s population of disembodied digitized sexual predators
has multiplied exponentially to the effect that every teenager
has to be schooled on the dangers of ‘non-standard’
adults posing as children or teenagers in chat rooms and social
platforms.
Closer
to home, why are more children daring to confront and talk
back to their parents? Could it be because they are simply
repeating the rudeness and vulgarity encountered in their
cyber environments or the language used by their parents when
they push themselves away from their screens? Physical
bullying has always been a problem, but cyber-bullying, which
can happen anywhere to anyone, has taken on epidemic proportions.
In
short, the volcano has erupted, and now billions of autonomous
Internet bubbles hover over the planet like a haze, and there
is no returning to the days of yore: analog Arcady. The concept
of freedom has been severed from responsibility, and the venerable
notion of doing what is morally and socially right counts
for next to nothing against the wave of everyone doing what
s/he feels feel like doing. It could very well be that the
most misunderstood (least examined) yet prevalent characteristic
of our age is that when we give someone a no-consequence pass
to say whatever s/he wants -- it will be said. And there will
be no stopping that runaway train until there is a price to
pay, or until the price one is already paying is identified
as such.
Monadism
is the new paradigm that promises unprecedented autonomy (often
confused for freedom) that few can resist. It is where the
individual shrinks the size of his universe to fit his every
whim and desire.
In
the cozy confines of bubble life, unrestrained free speech,
that is speech unmediated by the ethos that once governed
civil discourse, has become the new norm. With the clique
of the mouse or a vocal command we can terminate friendships,
relationships, memberships, or can cancel whomever or whatever
it is that displeases us. Why fight to maintain a relationship
when our cyber contacts number in the thousands? We lose someone
or someone loses us, and a click later we have found a replacement.
Everything and everyone is turned into a place holder for
something or someone else; nothing need endure. The bonds
that used to link human beings to each other have become as
ephemeral as may flies, meanwhile we are hooked on repeating
cycles of self-gratification that never seem to satisfy.
Going
forward, we can only speculate on what lies ahead in human
relations in environments where civil discourse has turned
barbaric. How many hurt and damaged people can a society handle
before it collapses? And what form of government is best suited
to deal with multi-national breakdowns in manners and common
courtesy.
Bleak
house scenario notwithstanding, it is still not too late to
decide to make the implications and consequences of monadic
life and its cherished impunities that which is most worthy
of our attention, knowing that if we refuse to act and allow
current language trends to become the new (barbaric) normal,
the species may rudely discover that some of its vital machinery
is so broken down that repair is no longer an option because
the mental muscle that once distinguished humans beings from
the great apes has turned flabby -- and where there is no
willing there is no way.
Meanwhile
the byte universe turns and the world churns.
