Bacon Scrapins – “Where did talking, thinking and listening go?”
© by Barry S. Wolfe
Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They’re tasty, but the ‘nutrition’ needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin.
For the long-term “public good”, some forms of “communication” must be regulated and even restricted. Some people should not be allowed to communicate in some ways with others. Stay with me to the end, please.
A conversation used to mean the exchange of ideas when someone, talked, and someone listened. Then the listener became the talker, and the talker became the listener. It was a fair exchange, and each took their turn. Social skills were required to continue communication.
Conversations were verbal, and they were also written. I could write a letter to you, and you could write a letter to me. We took turns. Waiting for the other to finish their idea, allowed the listener and reader time to think about what was being said. We could process the information. We could consider and put into perspective what was being said. We could even “imagine ourselves in the other person’s shoes”, so to speak.
A verbal conversation and a letter were personal. Even when reading a letter, from someone you knew, addressed to you, was almost like being there. It was a conversation that was face-to-face, and thus required discretion, self-discipline, composure, and respect for the other. Social interaction skills.
The ‘wait’ while we listened and read, allowed us time to think, to ponder, to deliberate the meaning and maybe even the feelings behind the message and the ‘weight’ of the argument being presented before we responded. The ‘wait’ allowed us to avoid reacting badly – if we chose.
Over time, technology provided the telephone, with a wire connecting us. You had to be somewhere specific, where someone knew they could take a chance and get you on the line for a one-on-one conversation. Both knew where the other person was because each wired phone had an address.
Then we moved to cell phones, and you never knew where the other person might be. This freedom to move and still be connected also removed the context of knowing where the other person really was, and they didn’t have to tell you. That’s why we get phone calls from people who have a caller ID that shows they are in our known calling areas but could be in a basement in Timbucktoo – faking it. It diminishes trust. Is this person really who they claim to be, and where they claim to be? We start to doubt reality and motives and don’t want to receive communications from any except our ‘closest known allies’.
TV allowed folks to send messages one way, and we could not respond or become involved in how communication evolved because we had no part in it. Viewers were recipients, and the message became a massage to our intellect. We became passive vessels, without access to verifying truth along the way. Our thinking became pablum.
The computer, the internet and social media augmented the effect of the one-way messaging of TV. Now we have folks who can sit in a small, closed space, with no face-to-face access to any other living beings and send out messages without anyone responding to them in real-time. Someone can spout the most false, derogatory, vile, inflammatory messages and there is no one able to respond in real-time, to put a ‘reality’ check on their myopic thoughts. These folks can get inside a vacuum of myopic thinking, or sit in a closed loop of like thinkers, without any other perspective about what is ‘real’.
It is now possible to send mass emailing to thousands or millions of people with the click of a keyboard without the recipients knowing who really sent it.
The power of the individual to influence a conversation, one-on-one, face-to-face, has been overtaken by the dark web of Google spiders tracking electronic connections and financially rewarding those who tally the most – regardless of any validity, truth or social value.
All these developments place challenges on an individual’s ability to speak, think and listen coherently. Each step away from face-to-face limits our ability to communicate with reason.
But there is also one method of sending a message that removes all opportunity for two-way communication and removes the recipient’s opportunity to respond forever. It allows the sender to have the final say about whatever is going through his or her brain. It is the ultimate source of power and control over others who may disagree with them. It is being used more and more, to devastating effect on societies.
A gun.
NOTE: Except for the first person singular, the characters’ names in the Bacon Scrapins tales are fictional, maybe.
Click the boldened link to a CBC.ca entertainment article titled, “The Little Mermaid’s review bombing is just a sign of what’s to come“ by Jackson Weaver. It is an example of a partisan minority attempting to sway the majority by manipulating mass media communication techiques.
You may send appropriate email comments to the writer at thisiswilmot@gmail.com OR TO
Jackson Weaver at jackson.weaver@cbc.ca