I’m sorry that I don’t have statistics for this, because I know that impressions can be inaccurate. Even so, it seems to me that I am detecting some important and troubling society trends that need the immediate attention of an increasingly inattentive society.
It is my impression that in my youth, there were a great many people here who could not only make a phone call to get directions, and write them down, but also follow them successfully to the destination, and then show up on time, ready to be a functioning part of whatever group was meeting.
Today, however, it seems increasingly rare to find a human who can successfully follow a hyperlink to your About page and read it for comprehension. Rather, they will message you with the questions that occur to them, but it does not occur to them that they should naturally need to know the general information you have written for all your customers to know.
A Bad Shift
I think that this represents an important shift in our society, and in a bad direction. I think it used to be more common for people to believe that there is some standard packet of information one ought to know on any given topic, and to be in the practice of setting one’s mind to receive that information. There was a time when it was more common for one to have the attitude, “OK, I’m new here, so please tell me what all I need to know.” We used to think it was the common-sense think to do to “get with the program”.
Today, however, fewer seem to have that attitude, and to be willing to undergo that process of becoming duly informed. The modern attitude seems to be more like this: “When I think of a need to know this or that, I’ll ask and you can tell me then.” No longer will they submit themselves to an initial period of informing. No longer will they take the time to read that webpage that you painstakingly wrote to inform all your customers once for all. Instead, they expect to be able to ask you questions piecemeal, and then to have you compose custom responses for them. And just as they will not volunteer to give up their time to read for themselves, they seem naturally to expect you to volunteer to give out the information to them all over again on demand.
“Not My Responsibility”
This seems to signal yet another change in psychology: People used to be more inclined to think it was their job to make themselves ready for interacting in society in this or that way, where now, it seems they’re more inclined to think it’s somebody else’s job to prepare them―and to do it on a custom basis, on their own timeline, at their own convenience
And if you do not adjust sufficiently to them, they seem to go dysfunctional. For example, when they write, “when do you meet?”, you’re likely not to hear back from them if you respond like this: “You’ll find all that information on this webpage: whendowemeet.com.”
If a human cannot manage to follow a hyperlink and to find and read the meeting timetable, are they really going to be able to manage to plan their lives such that they can successfully leave home every week and make it to your location on time for a meeting?
Not Even a Phone Call
I’ve noticed another trend with many such low-information customers: If they signal that they’re interested in joining, it’s often not effective to write back: “Great! Give me a call at the number below, and we can talk it out!” More often than not, that’s the end of the conversation. And it has, in fact, become a test that I use for some people, to determine whether they are the old-school standard human who has two-way informational skills, or the new-school sort who can only handle the information they’re actively seeking. (I run an organization that requires high-information members with strong two-way communication skills, so we have to be careful in the recruiting process, or it ruins it for the existing members when we make bad choices.)
A Downgrading of the Standard Human
I suppose there are multiple contributing factors to this societal decline, and I’m not inclined to try to document all of that in this present piece. Fundamentally speaking, it seems to be a dysfunction in caring. That is, where I might think that the standard human comes equipped with the capacity for taking care to learn about the organizations he joins, it seems that fewer and fewer humans are coming equipped for that at this present time than before. Perhaps they are also less equipped with training in communicating and interacting, but it certainly seems that the spark of caring is missing with many, such that they can just barely manage to ask at all, and much less, to read thoroughly about the very thing that supposedly interests them.
Are their brains functioning at a lower level than the standard brain functioned at a generation ago? I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this is true.
What Will Be Done?
If I’m right, though, that there’s a downward trend in the caring (and perhaps, in the mental function), then what should we expect such a compromised society to do about this troubling trend? Should we expect them to read about it for comprehension? Should we expect them to care deeply about it? Should we expect them to communicate robustly about it? Should we expect them to go out of their way to solve it? Should we expect them to consider it their own responsibility to become well-informed about it?
By all appearances, the answer to all of this is trending toward “no”. And if this trend were to continue, it would seem to be leading toward the collapse of our society―for all these things are required somewhat for a society to function. So if we’re shutting down at the individual level, then the society we form altogether will certainly be downgraded, too.
An Emergency of the First Order
I would say this constitutes an emergency of the first order. But who would I report this to? Whose job is it to fix this? If it is getting rarer and rarer for individuals to take responsibility for themselves, then what entity is going to step in and do that for them? Neither government nor organized religion seems competent at helping here, for it has all evolved on their watch. Meanwhile, industry seems only naturally interested in what will earn profits―so why would their turn their attention to helping consumers become deeply-caring, robust communicators who are deeply responsible and will go out of their way to solve problems? What’s in it for them? And wouldn’t this tend to lose them business in this economy where it’s easier than at any time in the history of Planet Earth for the consumer to find goods and services?
As an analyst, it seems quite obvious that the core of the problem lies with the individuals themselves. And having spent over twenty years writing as the alarmist and activist, I can tell you that the people are generally not listening. So, what good does it do to report on the emergency when the audience doesn’t care to read the report?
Out of Their Hands
If the trend continues, however―if people keep getting worse and worse at caring about themselves and interacting with the world around them―then it stands to reason that they’re going to quit being effective employees. And this means the eventual downfall of the very companies who make their profits from catering to what the individual wants. Even if they replace all the employees with computers and robots, there’s still a huge problem, for they’ll have to fire all the dysfunctional employees. And these dysfunctional humans won’t have income anymore with which to buy the goods and services that companies like these provide.
In what universe does such a scenario turn out well?
If people don’t decide to do whatever it takes to start caring again, it’s going to collapse. And if it plays out like many collapses do, it will be ugly, and the goods and services consumers have come to expect will become unavailable. This will force them either to make other arrangements, or to do without. And the doing without will bring about at least some manner of good change in their mentality.
So maybe it’s a good thing, all things considered, if it does all collapse. But even so, would it not be better for us to be proactive now, simply based on the trends we see at work? Of course, it would! But this would require us to start choosing to care about matters that are quite inconvenient to care about. And that does not seem to be what kind of people we are―nor want to be―at present.
As much as I would hate to see the collapse of our society, and all the suffering that would surely come with it, I’m more and more inclined to think that this might actually be very good for us―all things considered. What would be better, of course, is for us to decide to wise up beforehand. But I’ve been the activist/alarmist for over twenty years now, pushing against this lethargy to no effect―tracking our problems first to religion, and then to politics, followed by human cognition, and now focused more fundamentally on human caring, which brings me back again to religion. It’s as if almost every one of us were stupefied by some mind-altering drug, or as if we had all entered into some sort of mutual destruction pact to uncare ourselves to death, body and soul alike.
A Realignment of Hope
I should say, however, that I have learned to put my hope less and less in human institutions, and more and more in the freedom of the individual to choose personal change. While I still think this world could do considerably better (even if never perfectly), I now understand that this world was not meant to be fixed. Rather, people were meant to figure out how useless is the way of this world, and to reform themselves to a higher philosophy―to that of the heavenly world that God also created, where we may go when we are done here, provided he wants to let us in.
This has a lot to do with why I’m less and less worried about a societal collapse―since I think that God knew this world would always be somewhat chaotic. What we’re really talking about here, then, is a change of degrees in that chaos. We could certainly work together to make it substantially better in various ways, but the truth of the matter is that there will always be too few people pulling in that direction to get very much good done, and far too many people pulling in the other direction.
Even so, I will not throw up my hands in defeat for as long as I am here, because I know that some appreciable level of improvement in our society is certainly possible. If it were not, how is it that things were indeed better a generation ago? Why, then, would it be simply impossible to revert to a previous standard?
It’s not impossible, obviously. But it’s impossible without a bunch of individuals learning how to be responsible for themselves.
So I keep writing this message, with hardly ever any discernible response. But then, I’m no longer writing to change the society, but to help those individuals who are wanting to improve themselves. And even if there were no such people, I’d still keep writing, because this is my way of processing what I’m learning.
And even so, just as my life is but a mist that will dissipate in time, so is all my writing―for who will keep all this accessible online once I’m gone―and for how long? It, too, will vanish, being kept permanently only in Heaven (if anywhere at all), where they know better than me anyway!
It seems to me that up there, a writer would only be considered great for putting his finger on an already-existing truth―for merely observing how things actually are, or how they actually could be. The writer does not own the facts. Nor does he create them. (OK, some writers do! But those aren’t the honest, rational, caring, and responsible people that I wish were the standard human!)
The Root of the Decline
I’m not smart enough to understand it all, but I wouldn’t be surprised to discover someday that this decline I’m noticing is largely the result of this:
God put man into this world to determine if he will become fit for the next world. But not everyone is disposed to a life of self-improvement, and some just don’t want to be that deliberate in this life. Even so, man has needs that must be met while he is here. So, a great many industries have sprung up to profit from catering to his needs. And they have gotten so good at it (for the most part), that as long as he has the money, he can get almost anything he could want delivered to his house within a week. Meanwhile, a great deal of information (both true and false) is doled out to him for free, whether by activists, or by those looking to sell him something else. And man has let that pendulum swing too far, so where he has not only forgotten to do for himself, but has forgotten somewhat even to care about the quality of his own self.
Surely, that’s part of it. And whether man has become mentally dysfunctional to some degree, whether by way of psychological conditioning (whether deliberate or accidental) or of malnutrition, or of toxicity―these are all excellent questions, too.
