Social Isolation

I listened to a podcast of an old radio program from 2004. It was talking about the phenomena of flashmobs that was briefly popular around the time Dean was the front runner for the Democrats. I remember Dean had figured out how to generate campaign contributions from the Internet and there was supposed to be a whole new era of social interactions based on contacts made on the web.

The program was interesting, because these two reporters decided to participate in this website that arranged group meetings between like minded people. Supposedly, if you liked Belgian beer or Dutch impressionists, you could sign up and you would be invited to meet with several of them to discuss your common interests. While the woman kept going to these bars and seeing no one there from the group, the guy kept going and meeting Irish Ex-pats at rowdy pubs and other fun things.

The program then morphed into a discussion of Social Isolation. This is supposedly something that is increasing either despite or because of the Internet. She talked about how people actually interact with less and less people and that they are feeling more and more alone.

Part of our isolation has to do with the polarization of America. The increase in political polarization has spread to personal rejectionism. On a personal level people aren't just polarized one of two ways, but are ready to completely reject others because of any one thing they don't like. In politics, rather than just disagreeing with someone over an issue, people now tend to listen until something is said that they don't agree with, then label their target and reject everything about them. The problem is that everyone is an individual and we will all have some trait that others don't approve of, so it's possible to reject everyone. It also seems easier nowadays to keep away from others than to interact with them. This leads to Singularization, or the isolation of the individual.

This even happens with friends, because everyone changes over time. What is it that makes friends drift away, and why is it so hard to keep in touch once you start to drift? I've been cleaning out my parents' personal mementos, and it is amazing how rich their early lives were of friends and acquaintances. It made me think about my own life, all the people I've known over the years and how so many of them are no longer in touch. Drifting apart is not always from rejection over some trait or offense at some act, sometimes it's just a lifestyle effect. You find yourself not doing the same things or available the same time anymore.

I listened to an essay from the series This I Believe where this guy talked about the assumption of The Basic Decency of People. It was interesting. This guy talked about how he would get mad at people in traffic for costing him half a second. He talked about his parents, who lived in Germany and had found a way to forgive the Germans for the atrocities of WWII. He operated under the assumption that people were basically decent. All his actions followed from this basic assumption. It was an interesting concept to wrap your head around, and really, when you think about it, probably well justified. Most people, if they are not decent, probably think of themselves as decent. There are few hard core criminals, chronically selfish people, or generally thoughtless people. Most people are just working their way through life and would like to be thought of as one of the good people. One woman remarked that when she ran into people in traffic that did something irritating, that she would make up a story about them. They were a doctor and they were rushing to the hospital, or something to make their actions seem reasonable and forgivable.

When it comes right down to it, wouldn't that be a good way to look at everyone in life?

False Choice Dilemma

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts this week, Logically Critical. They guy is really funny. His whole premise is that there are many things out there that everyone buys into that are not logical. The podcast I just listened to was about Logical Fallacies. This is when someone makes a conclusion from arguments that do not follow. In other words, the conclusion may or may not be true, the problem is that the facts or reasons they state do not have anything to do with the result. He was giving examples of Ad Hominum and Straw Man arguments when he reached a section on False Choice. In his example, he states that when a waiter comes up to you and asks if you want soup or salad, that is a false choice. What if you want both or neither? What if you want something else? He was talking about how it is often a mistake to believe that there are only 2 choices, good or evil, yes or no, etc.

I've thought of this often when you look at political arguments. Often times conservatives and liberals, democrats and republicans line up on opposite sides of a problem and blast away at each other. "We can't stop using oil to save the enviroment, it will wreck the economy." "Do you want all your freedoms, or do you want to stop the terrorists?"

Our most polarizing arguments usually are false choice arguments. Take the abortion stances, either you take away a woman's right to choose, or you kill babies. Both bad choices. Why not make it so only people that really want to get pregnant, will get pregnant. Then you get to make the choice of whether or not to conceive without any abortions. The same is true with teaching evolution. Many creationists see evolution as an attack on their religion. Why? Either god created the earth exactly and literally as it says in the bible or god is a lie? How about god created the earth and the people in them through evolution and gradual geological forces? School prayer, public displays of religious material? No problem. Don't mandate prayer or restrict it. If anyone wants to pray, they can, and if you don't like it, don't pray. Same with the nativity scene in the city hall. Don't sweat it. Or lobby your local government to put up a star of david or a notice celebrating ramadan or something.

This false choice thing, unfortunately, is deeply embedded in our government. Two parties, two choices. What if we don't like either choice? Unfortunately, in America, we don't get another choice. I used to think that multiple party coalition governments, Italy and Israel in particular, were stupid because the government is always being dissolved over the latest crisis. That is wasteful, to be in a state of perpetual electioneering. However, if you think about it, our country is full of people that are really voting based pretty much on single issues. There the anti-abortion and pro church people, then there's the small government, or pro environment people, but there are also lobbies based on certain industries or government workers or unions. There are people that seem to only think about inheritance taxes or taxes in general, and there are those that are passionate about health care or national defense. If you had to pick amongst many parties that all had narrow special interests, there wouldn't be a clear 50/50 split in American politics and there would not be such polarization.

Let's face it, the major parties don't serve anyone very well. You probably have a hard time finding many people out there that will tell you that they are staunchly one of the two parties and that they agree with everything that party stands for. I guess I would qualify that as saying they stand for everything that party stands for and actually follows through with.

LATER: Right after I finished writing this and posting it, I got a call from my wife. She had just read that Bloomberg was going to run as an independent. How's that for timing?