Lost art of the lost race
ONCE upon a time, long, long ago there used to be a species on earth that had almost perfected the art of communication. It’s true – these beings actually used to talk to, listen to and debate with other members of their race.
They had evolved to such a degree that almost everything they did would involve some form of interaction. Older members of this species would have regular gatherings; getting together to share stories, relate amusing anecdotes, discuss the best way to repair a Vauxhall’s gearbox and of course dish out some good old juicy gossip with each other.
“What’s the deadliest poison you can get,” one being would ask a gathering, leaving them a few moments to scratch their heads, to consider whether it was arsenic, cyanide or biting into a cardamom seed.
“Aeroplane poison!” he’d eventually announce. “Just one drop and you’re dead!”
Even their offspring would often be seen sitting in parks, walking together or simply standing a few metres apart lobbing a ball to each other, and they’d be speaking of their plans, dreams and desires … or of the cute girl living in the next street. Look, these beings were not saints, but the point is, they communicated.
Tragically either by accident, disaster or design this species has all but been wiped off the face of this planet, and with them the art of communication and interaction. “Conversations” these days are made up of protracted, ego-inflated lectures about things learned whilst watching shows on cable TV. Other “conversations” are dominated by people showing each other that must-see cute video, picture or meme that someone sent them over “social media”.
The other day I walked past a family restaurant in the city, and a group of young people had been taken out for a treat by (I assume) one of the youngsters’ parents.
They were sitting outside on the restaurant’s patio and the adult was in conversation with someone who had stopped by the table … the young people however – all six of them – were thumbing their devices, oblivious to the fact that there were other humans within earshot of themselves.
The other day someone showed me a short passage in a book he had read.
What I saw made my blood run cold – so cold in fact that I received an SMS from the South African National Blood Service telling me to take some sherry. I immediately called Sherry, but her brother said that she was doing her nails and couldn’t come to the phone … but I digress.
In the foreword of his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman writes something that made me think of what could have “killed” the beings that used to live on this planet. Postman contrasts George Orwell’s 1984 with Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World.
According to Postman, Orwell had warned that mankind will be overcome by external oppression, but Huxley suggested that no Big Brother would be required to deprive people of their autonomy – rather people would come to love their oppression, and adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
Postman writes: “Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.”
“Wow,” I thought, whilst sending Sherry a sad-faced emoticon. “Humanity seems to be embracing its own demise.”