I’m watching the world deteriorate before my eyes. Reading the morning headlines is enough to send you screaming back to the hide under the covers like you did when you were a kid and the thunder crashed above the roof and the house shook beneath your feet. Sure, COVID 19 is decimating the planet and there seems to be no stopping it. States take one step forward and open up to normalcy, then take two steps back as the virus hits again and the numbers spike and the ICUs fill beyond capacity…..again. But we’ve become so accustomed to that situation we just take it as the cost of doing business. But the other headlines are what’s more frightening. We, as a nation, have lost our humanity; our compassion; our respect for one another, and there’s no sign on the horizon that is going to change. There was a time when, no matter how much we disagreed with the opposing viewpoint, we did so with kindness and respect and a basic understanding of the opposite view, regardless of how much we may deny its validity. Now we attack each other. Literally. Local school boards require the presence of armed police officers to keep irate citizens from storming the stage and attacking board members for proposing rules they disagree with. Flight attendants are routinely assaulted in the aisles by passengers who have no regard for the rules in place for safe flight operations. So much so, the FAA fines have reached over $5 million and have documented over 3000 such events in 2021. Restaurant hostesses are punched for requiring customers to follow mask protocols. Fast food workers are assaulted because there wasn’t enough fries with the order. Drivers are shot because they committed an imagined offense on the highway that caused another driver to go ballistic. Teenagers are shot on city basketball courts because they got in the way of somebody else’s fight, or they were targeted by rivals who wanted their new Nike Airs. Wives and girlfriends are killed by spouses and boyfriends who can’t take ‘no’ for an answer or by stalking exes who are so deranged they have no conscience and believe their violent actions are justified. Women disappear at an alarming rate and too many of them are found murdered, if they are found at all. Granted, murder is murder and every case deserves the full attention and effort of the police. But there is something different about the murder of a woman. Most times they are exceedingly violent. Most times the killers are men, and most times it is men they know. There is something deeply affecting about that. Something unfair….That goes beyond the general unfairness of death at the hands of another. I wonder how men would live if they knew that in every moment of their lives their size and nature made them vulnerable to the opposite sex.
‘Social Media’ has taken control of the minds of millions of young people for whom the ‘like’ is the Holy Grail. The more outrageous the stunt, the more likes they accumulate and the more status they have. Their self esteem comes from the reactions and acceptance of people they don’t know and will never meet, rather than from within. The herd mentality rules over whatever personal moral compass exists. They will do that with the collective they would surely shun if alone. Forgiveness trumps permission. The force and the power of the social media platforms far exceeds anything their creators envisioned. I’m assuming Zuckerberg, along with his cronies, while sitting in their dorm room creating their platform had no idea the box they were about to open on the world. Perhaps the original goal was to make some money, or create a forum where people could communicate or perhaps even to enhance society. Whatever the original objective, once the money began raining down the focus shifted. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and the host of other platforms are suddenly so rife with cash, cash is all they see. There might as well be ‘Show Me The Money’ banners streaming from the top of their respective corporate headquarters buildings. They seem to be oblivious to the trail of broken, humiliated, bullied, suicidal and desperate souls adrift in the wake of their super yachts as they sail to their private islands or their million dollar gated communities. Granted, some good comes from the platforms. How many people have tackled a project after watching a YouTube video showing how it was done. How many people are entertained watching someone forge an anvil or restore a hundred year old clock or watch what happens when you fire a 50 caliber rifle round into a bowling ball at 100 yards. (I actually watched that one. It was pretty cool). But that sword has two edges. For every edge that informs and entertains, the other threatens, hates and assaults. The platforms are used to intimidate; to spew venom and spread lies and conspiracy theories and push false claims of stolen elections and advocate the killing of political rivals. One Facebook page all about the silly things cats do while another is designed to bully and humiliate a middle school girl the ‘cool kids’ don’t like. The cat goes on to do more silly things. The middle school girl hangs herself in her bedroom closet. Is this the society that built the American Dream? And what will society become when these middle schoolers are 30? What values will they bring to the world table? Blaming social media for the ills of the world may seem one-sided and unfair, and there are surely other factors from the degradation of the family unit to the failure of society to ensure all people are treated equally. But the narcissistic. ‘look at me’, ‘like me’, ‘follow me’, ‘adore me’. ‘be like me’ threads that run though all the media platforms have these kids looking inward instead of out. Who they are as people is predicated upon the opinion of others, who, for the most part, they have no contact with. Social media ‘influencers’ have become the yardstick with which their followers measure their own self worth, and more often than not, they come up lacking because they are not as pretty, or exciting, or as rich, or as adventurous or have as many friends and followers. The truth is, sadly, nothing is going change this. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. The monster is out and it is ravaging the villages. Even if every social media platform that currently plies the planet were to cease operations this morning, never to be seen again, there would be a hundred more up and online before noontime. Progress. Be careful what you wish for..
