Continuing the discussion of peace and prosperity being the greatest threat to a Republic, leading to its citizens tearing it apart, it’s as obvious as the nose on one’s face that the revolutionary power of social media is creating a situation that - while we can identify it from previous outbreaks through history - presents challenges never before faced.
We have always had inequities, whether economic and/or racial, etc. Currently the economic gap has grown huge again, as it did in the 1890s and the 1920s. The big difference now is the media, mass media, movies, etc., but especially beginning with TV shows, I think. Early movies were more of a peek into an unreal world, whereas TV shows seemed to show that everyone has more/better than I do. I should have that, too.
I keep thinking about stories told by people who grew up in the Depression. So many look back and say “We were poor, but we didn’t feel poor, because we were just like everyone else around us.” With modern media and now social media, there’s a constant comparison of self to others. I stressed to middle school girls that the perfect instagram shot posted by a classmate was probably the result of many other attempts having been discarded.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Agree. Impressed with your layout of the problem. Really must set aside time (new year’s resolution) to read carefully and think on it. Having lived from 1950 to now, I have felt and watched it happen. Watched, as Gullible and Greedy took firm hold. Here in Westchester County, NY stupid is on display in person and online by bullies with media megaphones. I decided to get off FB, after threats and fear of retaliation. But, one can’t shut down completely. Where I can show up and take a stand, or provide meaningful support, I’m in the struggle. As for the Holly Hunter quote: It’s the moment that I wait for when rewatching that insightful film. ❤️🤍💙
Darn, you have enlightened me again, TC. "immiserated" is a new, awful word for me. Our solution, though, may be to Un-miserate, which I believe is the point of Biden's Build Back Better effort.
I wish I could see it coming to fruition, I really want to see the voting rights bills passed, but I'm starting to doubt it will ever happen, we see the threat growing by the day, others see us as a mortal threat because we want to see the constitution fully implemented. So many americans have been misled into voting against their own interests, I find it astonishing. We, and I mean all of us collectively, can't even pull together and unite against a plague that has no ideology, it's just a goddamn virus that has killed over 800,000 of us. WTF let's kill this thing before it kills more of us, but no, a sizeable number of us seem to want to help it. I'm a combat vet, I was wounded in combat, even while wounded there was nothing I wouldn't have done to protect my comrades, so I don't get this. Getting a shot in the arm is not like getting shot for god's sakes, if you call yourself an american how about acting like one. Maybe I shouldn't complain about SM, after all I get to use it to go on my rants like I'm doing here, but for some reason I don't see myself as part of the problem, I see what most of us are doing is searching for a solution and there's nobility in that effort. Our Predident is doing everything in his power to lead us out of this mess and into a better world and yet there is so much hatred for the other that he's being stymied everywhere he turns.
I’m surrounded locally by Trump supporters who have refused vaccinations and have Covid variant. Or, who got vaccinated and still got it by refusing to wear a mask or take precautions. Either way, they blame Biden. Honestly, it’s sad and confounding to be dealing with such scientific stupidity. My current focus locally is learning how to deal with a specific type of moron, adult bullies. ❤️🤍💙
Very, very thoughtful letter today. Several thoughts came to mind as I was reading.
1) I am SO glad I do not have a Facebook page. I occasionally look at my husband’s so I can check up on my family and see photos. I don’t want to know everyone’s business, and I don’t want them to know mine. Most people didn’t use to blurt out everything in their heads. Now there are NO filters. 2) Things that can be very beneficial can be used for great harm. Automobiles and Walmart come to mind along with social media and other information technology. Ford and the assembly line, Sam Walton and his distribution chain, Zuckerberg and social media. These entities have allowed for BROAD distribution of goods and services, but the jury is out on whether cars and Walmart are more positive than negative. I think social media does way more harm than good. To prioritize making money over the good of the country and its citizens makes Zuckerberg equal to a wartime profiteer. Should free market capitalism be allowed to drive us as people and a country into the ground by permitting unconscionable inequalities?
communities of misery; such a sad commentary on our social systems. We have lost incredible amounts of energies to dysfunction. Too many people on a finite planet.
a state of final spiritual ruin; loss of the soul; damnation.
the future state of the wicked.
hell (def. 1).
utter destruction or ruin.
Obsolete. loss
I read the latest fine mess and then thought about it for awhile. I suddenly questioned, “what did TC title this one?” Somehow, my eyes did not allow the title at first. I scrolled back and saw which road this essay meandered on. Hmmm. I can remember thinking quite a ways back in the day now when college kids were just beginning to make a thing out of Facebook and challenging the users of My Space (more of a promoting music platform) to “come on over”. I didn’t exactly understand then why my grownup intuition thought that not a good move for young people. I didn’t exactly understand why I refused to get a FB page until a few years ago during a year writing a blog and then running a campaign for a school board seat. I get it now and have since deleted my account. One can feel the anonymous tendrils of scorn, ridicule, sarcasm, judgment, humor at someone’s expense…that emanate from anonymous contact. A surface connection without depth or remorse or sense of responsibility. Easier to hate when you do not have to use all your God given senses. And when it can be quick as a tap of a finger on a key. Love is messier and fuller and divinely complicated and delicious and fraught with experience and time. We are designed to live in love so that our soul is robust and glowing.
To revel in the algorithm of hate as easily as has been promoted by social media and then to use it as the playbook after four years of the former hysterically promoting it? That is loss of soul. Perdition coming soon to your locale.
No thanks. The alternative is just so much more…..well, wise. And I’ve never minded setting an example. I think that’s what it is going to take. All hands, eyes, ears, mouths, and noses on deck. C’mon over.
Beautifully stated Christine, I too have a FB page and if I look at it once a year it’s a lot, all of my friends from the film 🎥 business, friends that I worked with for 30 years use it to stay in touch with each other, my family does the same. I get 10-20 alerts every day, none of which I look 👀 at, has that diminished my life, I have no doubt, I miss all of the contact which you so eloquently wrote about, but I can be a hard man and enriching MZ is something I have been loath to do, even if it comes at a cost. I may change that stance, not to communicate like I do here and on Heather’s substack page, but to be able to share the work I’m doing which is some of the best of my life, my daughters both think 💭 I need to do that, they are helping me build a website to that end, and FB would help immeasurably despite my distaste, so as uncomfortable as it makes me it looks like I will be getting more involved with FB. I see it as dancing with the devil, as the song says “hang on loosely and don’t let go, if you cling too tightly you’ll loose control”, that’s how I remember it anyhow.
Understand. I had same feelings when my daughter and niece built my website and fb page for first my blog and then my website. I looked at it as , good, as long as I am using it and refusing to let an “it” use me.
Hope to see your new work. Isn’t TC something? Amaze Substack.
We have always had inequities, whether economic and/or racial, etc. Currently the economic gap has grown huge again, as it did in the 1890s and the 1920s. The big difference now is the media, mass media, movies, etc., but especially beginning with TV shows, I think. Early movies were more of a peek into an unreal world, whereas TV shows seemed to show that everyone has more/better than I do. I should have that, too.
I keep thinking about stories told by people who grew up in the Depression. So many look back and say “We were poor, but we didn’t feel poor, because we were just like everyone else around us.” With modern media and now social media, there’s a constant comparison of self to others. I stressed to middle school girls that the perfect instagram shot posted by a classmate was probably the result of many other attempts having been discarded.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Agree. Impressed with your layout of the problem. Really must set aside time (new year’s resolution) to read carefully and think on it. Having lived from 1950 to now, I have felt and watched it happen. Watched, as Gullible and Greedy took firm hold. Here in Westchester County, NY stupid is on display in person and online by bullies with media megaphones. I decided to get off FB, after threats and fear of retaliation. But, one can’t shut down completely. Where I can show up and take a stand, or provide meaningful support, I’m in the struggle. As for the Holly Hunter quote: It’s the moment that I wait for when rewatching that insightful film. ❤️🤍💙
Darn, you have enlightened me again, TC. "immiserated" is a new, awful word for me. Our solution, though, may be to Un-miserate, which I believe is the point of Biden's Build Back Better effort.
I wish I could see it coming to fruition, I really want to see the voting rights bills passed, but I'm starting to doubt it will ever happen, we see the threat growing by the day, others see us as a mortal threat because we want to see the constitution fully implemented. So many americans have been misled into voting against their own interests, I find it astonishing. We, and I mean all of us collectively, can't even pull together and unite against a plague that has no ideology, it's just a goddamn virus that has killed over 800,000 of us. WTF let's kill this thing before it kills more of us, but no, a sizeable number of us seem to want to help it. I'm a combat vet, I was wounded in combat, even while wounded there was nothing I wouldn't have done to protect my comrades, so I don't get this. Getting a shot in the arm is not like getting shot for god's sakes, if you call yourself an american how about acting like one. Maybe I shouldn't complain about SM, after all I get to use it to go on my rants like I'm doing here, but for some reason I don't see myself as part of the problem, I see what most of us are doing is searching for a solution and there's nobility in that effort. Our Predident is doing everything in his power to lead us out of this mess and into a better world and yet there is so much hatred for the other that he's being stymied everywhere he turns.
So right on all points.
I’m surrounded locally by Trump supporters who have refused vaccinations and have Covid variant. Or, who got vaccinated and still got it by refusing to wear a mask or take precautions. Either way, they blame Biden. Honestly, it’s sad and confounding to be dealing with such scientific stupidity. My current focus locally is learning how to deal with a specific type of moron, adult bullies. ❤️🤍💙
Very, very thoughtful letter today. Several thoughts came to mind as I was reading.
1) I am SO glad I do not have a Facebook page. I occasionally look at my husband’s so I can check up on my family and see photos. I don’t want to know everyone’s business, and I don’t want them to know mine. Most people didn’t use to blurt out everything in their heads. Now there are NO filters. 2) Things that can be very beneficial can be used for great harm. Automobiles and Walmart come to mind along with social media and other information technology. Ford and the assembly line, Sam Walton and his distribution chain, Zuckerberg and social media. These entities have allowed for BROAD distribution of goods and services, but the jury is out on whether cars and Walmart are more positive than negative. I think social media does way more harm than good. To prioritize making money over the good of the country and its citizens makes Zuckerberg equal to a wartime profiteer. Should free market capitalism be allowed to drive us as people and a country into the ground by permitting unconscionable inequalities?
communities of misery; such a sad commentary on our social systems. We have lost incredible amounts of energies to dysfunction. Too many people on a finite planet.
DEFINITION FOR PERDITION (1 OF 1)
noun
a state of final spiritual ruin; loss of the soul; damnation.
the future state of the wicked.
hell (def. 1).
utter destruction or ruin.
Obsolete. loss
I read the latest fine mess and then thought about it for awhile. I suddenly questioned, “what did TC title this one?” Somehow, my eyes did not allow the title at first. I scrolled back and saw which road this essay meandered on. Hmmm. I can remember thinking quite a ways back in the day now when college kids were just beginning to make a thing out of Facebook and challenging the users of My Space (more of a promoting music platform) to “come on over”. I didn’t exactly understand then why my grownup intuition thought that not a good move for young people. I didn’t exactly understand why I refused to get a FB page until a few years ago during a year writing a blog and then running a campaign for a school board seat. I get it now and have since deleted my account. One can feel the anonymous tendrils of scorn, ridicule, sarcasm, judgment, humor at someone’s expense…that emanate from anonymous contact. A surface connection without depth or remorse or sense of responsibility. Easier to hate when you do not have to use all your God given senses. And when it can be quick as a tap of a finger on a key. Love is messier and fuller and divinely complicated and delicious and fraught with experience and time. We are designed to live in love so that our soul is robust and glowing.
To revel in the algorithm of hate as easily as has been promoted by social media and then to use it as the playbook after four years of the former hysterically promoting it? That is loss of soul. Perdition coming soon to your locale.
No thanks. The alternative is just so much more…..well, wise. And I’ve never minded setting an example. I think that’s what it is going to take. All hands, eyes, ears, mouths, and noses on deck. C’mon over.
Love!
Beautifully stated Christine, I too have a FB page and if I look at it once a year it’s a lot, all of my friends from the film 🎥 business, friends that I worked with for 30 years use it to stay in touch with each other, my family does the same. I get 10-20 alerts every day, none of which I look 👀 at, has that diminished my life, I have no doubt, I miss all of the contact which you so eloquently wrote about, but I can be a hard man and enriching MZ is something I have been loath to do, even if it comes at a cost. I may change that stance, not to communicate like I do here and on Heather’s substack page, but to be able to share the work I’m doing which is some of the best of my life, my daughters both think 💭 I need to do that, they are helping me build a website to that end, and FB would help immeasurably despite my distaste, so as uncomfortable as it makes me it looks like I will be getting more involved with FB. I see it as dancing with the devil, as the song says “hang on loosely and don’t let go, if you cling too tightly you’ll loose control”, that’s how I remember it anyhow.
Understand. I had same feelings when my daughter and niece built my website and fb page for first my blog and then my website. I looked at it as , good, as long as I am using it and refusing to let an “it” use me.
Hope to see your new work. Isn’t TC something? Amaze Substack.
You;re such a flattering truth-teller, Christine. :-)