global village

It has been the illusion, even delusion, fostered by the media, and the manufacturers of technology that we are unified by it: that there is solidarity in it.

At one time, television, when we were all watching the same program at the same time--I remember this time, even if most of my readers don't--the effect was to create a common consciousness. There were innocuous results--the hula hoop, the yoyo--more interesting ones--Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly--and possibly more evil ones--creation of the mass market, and the mass market consciousness, and its manipulation. Though even here, there is still the potential for great, positive change--I am still naive enough to believe this.

We are told we have all the choice in the world--maybe we do, I leave that to the more net-savy among my readers--but if that is true, where is the common foundation for a common understanding? Where is the foot ing for common action?

We bemoan the loss of civil society, and we raise the image of the armed individual as the pinnacle of what we need to restore the golden age of our community. If there is no such thing as society, how can any village be anything more than a convenient fiction, a metaphor for nothing?

Now, more than at any other time in history, our entire lives are mediated by technology, as our civil institutions crumble around us--and, in all innocence, we wonder why. We do not look at the very thing in front of us, rather we requst, nay, panicky demand more, unable to fathom a connection.

William Gibson, in Neuromancer, in describing the net, has said

There is no there there.

He's right.

I always thought the idea of a global village was supposed to mean that the entire world could be seen as a single community.

In my experience, we are getting closer and closer to this every day. I remember meeting a kid from Thailand who was my a friend for a while. He taught me how to do liquid, although I now notice I do it a little differently than others in Pittsburgh, it is still liquid. House in Thailand is house in Pittsburgh, and if he had an email address I could still talk to him (he's back in Thailand).

Beyond raves, there are other elements of culture that are the same across national boundries, such as McDonald's (although without beef in India) and Nokia.

Language is one barrier to a global village, but many people are now learning English, so eventually we may all speak the same thing. Religion is another cultural discontinuity, but the number of atheists is also growing. A global village is thus a perfect world, and technology only plays a small part.