Synthetic Reality

Synthetic Reality
by Karen Beth Pike, Columnist

"Taking Care"

August 14, 2009

It seems that the tweens through the thirtysomethings have completely lost their grip on what it means to be human. The loss of civility might come from a lack in our educational system that has to play "nanny" rather than getting much teaching done in the classrooms. While pitiful enough, the time outside the classroom is what concerns me today.

Interestingly enough, people are playing more games with their computers than with other human beings. Perhaps that is the curse of electronic gadgets that surround us as a society. Meals in front of the television, snacks at the computer and online chat rooms and blogs have taken the place of meaningful face-to-face interaction. Being able to pay bills and do business in one's underwear seems to be the siren song that is leading us to our social doomsday.

As the younger set communicates more electronically and less verbally, language skill deteriorates and grammar and spelling become positively atrocious! A book I've recently read about just this topic is Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music in America and Why We Should, Like, Care by Dr. John McWhorter. He spends some of the book chronicling the reasons behind the degradation and quite a bit on why it really cannot go back to the old way of public oratory style of speech and gracious handwritten letters on rose-scented paper. Much has changed in the way we interact with each other, most of it on the negative side of the ledger in my opinion.

With the loss of personal, side-by-side, close enough to touch another person kinds of communication we are truly depriving ourselves of some of the greatest pleasures of life. To see a smile flicker across someone's face when something we've said amuses them, or to notice the brief crease of the brow in someone who has just received some bad news used to be considered a path to helping another person through the joys and pains of life. The ability we have as humans to empathize with another human soul is lessened to nearly zero without the ability to see and hear each other. The computerized cameras are weak simulacrums of the reality of conversation that we used to enjoy as we sipped lemonade on our porches and waved a friendly greeting at passers-by.

It is truly chilling to me as I notice that in just a few generations we've traveled the distance from the great oratory of people like Abraham Lincoln to the meaningless, meandering drivel that passes for speeches from the leadership of the current time. Alongside that, the written word has declined to text messaging and emails full of typographical errors and shorthand. We have become so accustomed to wallowing in the mire of the lower classes of writing and speech that we seem to have forgotten that there is any other way to communicate. As much as I'd like to have stirring rhetoric issuing from the hallowed halls of education and government, I doubt that it would ever happen. People seem satisfied with mediocrity at all levels, even praising the descent into sloppy language and shabby dress.

Perhaps it is just another sign of the times… people are flocking to the Wii electronic system for gaming (and it seems everything else!) for their entertainment, education and fitness. I guess if you can learn to play a violin without ever touching the instrument itself, then somehow it counts for something in today's twisted version of reality.

Computer synthesized music pours out of the speakers and you never even have to leave home. It makes me shudder to think that such things can truly satisfy the soul. Perhaps whole generations will wax and wane without hearing the glorious swell of sweet classical melodies from an orchestra of live performers who have spent years perfecting their skills and learning to play well with others. How tragic that electronic gadgetry is replacing the things that used to matter most - time spent with family and friends, conversing with kindness and courtesy to all we meet.

As social deviance and peculiar communication tears away the things that make us human and whole, the current generations applaud with wild-eyed glee. The more depraved the entertainment, the more dangerous the sport, the higher the adrenaline rush can be pushed… these are the things that seem to captivate the public attention. And yet, there is more public outcry for an animal athlete that must be euthanized on a racetrack than for the scandalous behavior of media stars and professional human athletes.

We have met the enemy, and he is us… ***

Photo of Karen Beth Pike courtesy of the Konopa Photography