Backlash

Amy Wright

Progress can really be a mixed blessing. For every great leap forward in terms of advancement comes with some downsides for at least some in society. A concept based on the non-cliched use of Nietzsche's sad but true observation that there is no gain without some pain. That doesn't mean we have to take it though. You don't have to “keep calm and carry on”. Transformation is possible. Both in the active, “be the change” way so often misattributed to Gandhi the Elder, as well as a subtler, create-your-own-reality form. There are volumes written and songs sung about the first approach. Both why it is absolutely vital that it be done by everyone right now lest the world be thrown into an apocalyptic nightmare and how to go about it. So I figured I would focus on the second approach.

The most obvious example of a world-changing development is the evolution of the internet from a niche curio exclusive to the academic realm to the dominant cultural force of Western civilization. The entrance of the internet into the public realm really has changed at least in terms of how things are done if not exactly what is being done. For all the rhetoric and baseless claims about the alleged negative effects of the internet, particularly on children, there are some legitimate concerns when it comes to the modern internet, particularly in terms of social media. There is a body of research done by actual scientist, as opposed to rumours and projections of their worst fears, that indicates, “prove” is not a word actual researchers tend to use, a link between the overuse of Social Media and issues such as increased procrastination, lack of motivation and anomie (fancy Social Science talk for a low-level socially caused depression).

Not all the criticisms in terms of the affect on culture entirely off-base either. There have been various impacts particularly on traditional broadcast and print media as a direct result of the move online, not all of them good, at least depending on one's perspective. Which is one of the biggest aspects. Not only does everyone now have an opinion which has always been the case, they now have the ability to tell the world about it leading to a fraught, complex social/cultural climate that can be really overwhelming, particularly for those who did not grow up in it. It can be enough to make someone want to give up entirely, particularly if one belongs to one of the groups routinely vilified in the more politically motivated quarter of of the new media kingdom. Though like I said there is a way out that does not involve the most currently popular method of “opting out.”

While often dismissed as so much New Age woo-woo, the idea of creating one's own reality is not as ridiculous as it sounds. Another bit of research produced by the Lab Coat Brigade has shown that while there is such a thing as a “concrete world”, perception of it is entirely individual, which is why people can have such different opinions based on the same objective facts. A fact that can be used to help as much as to make problems. Something else that can really help is to realize the fact that all technology, no matter how different, new or exciting, has the same purpose behind it. To make it faster and easier to to what people are doing anyway. Keeping this mind, what I do is basically pretend that the developments of the past thirteen years or so never happened and use 2005-level digital technology (I am writing this on a white Macbook with a new harddrive) to do the same basic things I would have been doing in the late-1990s that I still do now. Examples of this include email, which has changed shockingly little since 1998; listening to music, the main difference in a practical sense being format now coming in terms of MP3s files rather than CDs and buying books through mail-order which is basically all Amazon, as indicated by the fact they have been business since 1995 and were among they very first commercial public web-sites.