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Torn-Down Fences
This paragraph from Chesterton is dear to the conservative heart:
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
I was thinking of these words just now as I walked down the street and saw what’s now a familiar sight: hundreds of people looking at their phones. The advent of the Internet, coupled with our ability — every one of us — to maintain a non-stop connection to it, really is a massive revolution in human affairs. One of the biggest in history.
It’s changed the experience of being human — socially, intellectually, politically. And there’s no going back, is there. In the next few decades, people who can even remember the pre-Internet, pre-iPhone world will become increasingly rare.
As we get older, we’ll become the last living connection to a world most people can’t really understand: to a certain conception of privacy, for example. To a world full of physical artifacts such as maps and books. People will still know what those were, of course, but they won’t understand how we really depended on them in our day-to-day lives, how there was once a time where if you lost the map, you lost the ability to figure out where you were going.
It’s a cliché to say this election is a huge rupture from past elections. How much of this can be explained by the way our cognition has been changed by the Internet?
Any of it? None?
If so, how?
Published in General
Uncomfortable flash of self-recognition there.
Ha. I’ve seen my daughter and her friends sitting in my family room, all next to each other on sofas, texting. And they are texting each OTHER. Instead of looking each other in the eye and talking.
It’s always been that way, at least for my family (there’s that lemme alone bit, right there). It was “I’m trying to read the paper,” and then “Hold the noise down, I’m trying to watch the news.”
Eric Hines
I know that as recently as 1995, I could spend a few months in India and not have a clue what was happening in the rest of the world. I sent my parents a fax to let them know I was alive and well when I passed through cities where they had fax machines. When at last I flew back to Bangkok, I was stunned when someone told me that Jerry Garcia had been dead for months.*
This was obviously not how most Westerners lived most of the time, but it was a possibility. Many people had experiences, sometimes long ones, of being cut off from the rest of the world.
Now that would be unthinkable. I’m too superstitious even to go out of phone or e-mail range for 24 hours; I figure I’d miss warning of an imminent thermonuclear war or an extraterrestrial invasion.
*Another example: I didn’t learn Diana was dead until maybe a day or two after the fact. I was in a rented summer house in northern California. A friend mentioned it casually. I put on the radio after that, but otherwise, I’d have gone the rest of the weekend without knowing.
Claire,
Interesting that you bring this up. Orthodox Judaism observes full Shomer Shabbat. This means that you can’t use electricity, tv, phone, internet, even the light switch, for a full 25 hours. Now with the increased connectivity people are very stressed by this and it requires great discipline. I used to cheat a little. On the way to the Synagogue, there were two newspaper boxes (put in your two quarters and the door opened so you could grab a newspaper). You can’t use money on Shabbos either but I would read the headlines on the front page through the glass. I referred to this as my Shabbos News Network. What’s really funny is that people who have never kept Shabbos full Shomer and give it a try, now report that not looking at their phone for 25 hours is a great blessing. They find this a huge plus and want to do more Judaism because of it.
Go figure.
Regards,
Jim
That was about the time I downloaded, for my first time on the Internet, a file from the University of Krakow while sitting in my house in Las Cruces–over my lightning fast 1200 baud telephone modem. And then ran statistics analyses at NMSU from my house and got the answers in just a few minutes.
I’ve been unable comfortably to be disconnected for any length of time since, but that’s a personal addiction and not at all a general population trend.
Eric Hines
@curiousjohn posted a TED talk, the last 2 minutes of which hits on this topic.
http://ricochet.com/375333/homework-for-monday-night-how-to-spot-a-liar/
I think it’s a general population trend, actually.
People you meet on the net can turn into friends in real life. I’m having dinner tonight with two people I know only because of blogging.
Yes, my orthodox friends and relatives do swear by this and take the benefits of doing it as a sign that just maybe, Hashem might have known what he was talking about.
Maybe, maybe not. I can only speak for myself.
Eric Hines
Claire & all of Ricochet,
This brings up the subject of taking a break from the week and connecting with Hashem. (And you thought only Lileks could do a really good segway.)
It’s time to tune your harps.
.
.
I’ll talk to you in 25 hours my lovely Dr. Berlinski.
Good Shabbos,
Jim
Think of how many Seinfeld episodes would be ruined by the characters having cell phones?
Excellent point. Earlier this month I hosted a Rico MeetUp: a physical get-together of virtual friends. The Divine Help thread brings real help into virtual friends’ lives.
Even if we never meet in the flesh, some of my virtual friends are indeed friends in real life.