defining problems....

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

the other day, I walked into the breakroom at work, there were
6 people in that room when I walked in… and every single person
was looking at their cell phone… not one person was engaged
in any type of discussion or talking to anyone else…

walk into a restaurant and notice how many tables are filled with
people engaged in their cellphones…not engaging with each other…
the very essence of being human is humans connecting to one another…
the question becomes one of, is this a problem?
and what sort of problem? is this a psychological problem?
is this a social problem? is this a technological problem?
is this a political problem or is this an economic problem?
has technology increase our isolation from each other?

look at human beings, really look at them…

when a group of people are in a large room, do they separate themselves
or do they congregate into a fairly small radius…being social creatures,
we congregate together into a fairly small space… we huddle together,
as we have done since the beginning of time… look at very large countries,
the U.S, Russia, Australia… and notice that people will crowd themselves
into a fairly small space leaving millions of miles of land empty, alone…

and yet, we isolate ourselves when together by technology, in defiance
of what it means to be human…

Personally, I isolate myself, but that is because I am, basically deaf…
I hate to talk to people because I can’t hear them… I avoid conversation with
people… so what is your excuse to avoid talking to people?

and what do I miss when I isolate myself in this way?
I miss the connection that people have and must have…
we are social creatures, and we must, to maintain our
very sanity, maintain a social connection with other people…
the worst thing that can happen to someone is not death,
but in prison, when people are put in solitary confinement…
they suffer from anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and
psychosis… and when we place ourselves in isolation,
run the risk of those illnesses, we have to connect to others,
as human beings… but modern life is arranged in such a way to
avoid having social connection with other human beings…
with technology, with the single driver going to work,
with personal computers and writing as I am, alone,
isolated…connecting to others via an impersonal method
of text and e-mails and websites… for many, this impersonal
method of websites and text and e-mails, are the only
connection we have with other human beings…

and I ask you, is that a problem?

and if so, what are possible solutions?

Kropotkin

2

the conservative will state an answer such as,
the problem is people not holding to “traditional”
beliefs such as belief in god or belief in heaven and hell…

as usual, the conservative is fighting the last war…
the problem lies in our ability or better said, our inability to
connect with other people…

the problem lies within our creation of our own personal prison cell…
we have created our own prison cell within our interactions with other people…
how often do you talk, really talk to people?

Few if any actual engage in real conversation with other people…
conversation that means we connect with others, conservations in
which we discover other people… women are far better at this than men…

I can “know” someone for years and my wife in 5 minutes of conversation
can learn more about a person then I can in years of knowing someone…
she attempts to “know” someone, whereas I don’t… I don’t care that much…
but like a ‘‘true’’ intellectual, I am very much a narcissist’s… I am engaged with
my thoughts to the point of ignoring other people…

by separating myself from the “crowd” I can gain some separation… and this separation
allows me some perspective on what it means to be human…but is disengages me
from any “real” or “true” connections with people…
my being an intellectual comes at a cost, a cost of my being
able to connect with other people…I gain my separation at the cost of
connection…and it is a price I am willing to pay for my better understanding
of what it means to be human…

at its heart, philosophy is the payment of understanding against being real
by any type of connection to other human beings… I “practice” philosophy
at the cost of any type of connection to other human beings…

I pay a high price for my understanding what it means to be human…
I lose that connection that makes us human… the connection we
make with other people… I lose that in my attempts to gain
distance from what it means to be human…

Kropotkin

3

another “problem” lies in the roles we are forced to adapt…

I am a worker… I am forced to “play” that role at work… I cannot and I can
get into real trouble if I were to engage with a customer in some way outside
of my role as a Checker… I have to be “impersonal” and “professional”
which are really two ways to describe the exact same thing… to be professional means
to be impersonal… to react to someone else on a professional/impersonal fashion…
to disclose something personal is a violation of the code of being “professional”

maybe that is why we like music so much… it can disclose the “impersonal” without
us actually saying the words… we hide us from our “real” self, our real beliefs, our
real being by being “professional”… and it is expected of us…who among us
holds to the concept of allowing “TMI”… Too much information…

and what is “TMI” at work, I can be written up for discussing anything
like religion, politics, social causes… I must keep the conversation
“impersonal” and “professional” so work loves it when we talk about the
weather or the values of buying meat on sale… god forbid I might talk about
what it means to be human or how I hate IQ45… that would be “TMI”

I notice that especially for conservatives, they want, in fact demand
that sports be about the impersonal, be about sports and not made political…
sports must remain “professional” “impersonal” especially when sports is talked
about… why this “fear” of sports or the dinner table or at a bar not being
about what is real in our lives… every bar I have ever been at, has it, either
in writing or as a spoken truth, in bars, it is said that we patrons cannot discuss
anything political, religious, or have some engagement with is “real” in our lives…
discussion in bars are meant to be “impersonal” indeed “professional”
at least in America… it might be different in other countries, but here,
one can get tossed out of a bar if we engage in political or social or religious
conversation… the conversations that define us as human beings…

I am tired of being forced to hold to “impersonal” or professional
conversations with people… in order that they don’t actually have
any emotions about something… we hide our conversations to protect
others from facing realities or truths they don’t want to hear…

notice that swearing is still being banned from local TV stations…
because we might “OFFEND” SOMEONE… god forbid we ''OFFEND SOMEONE"

If you are not offended by what is happening in the world, I suggest
you take off your rose colored glasses and take a real look at the world…
if you aren’t offended, you are simply not paying attention to the world…

my goal is to offend people… because maybe, maybe they might wake up
and engage in a real search for what it means to be human… to become
personal and to become less “Professional” to go into being as far from
being “professional” as it is possible to be…to escape from being “professional”
means to become human… for we human beings are not “impersonal”
or “professional”… we are messy and personal and quite “unprofessional”
and we should embrace that about us… for that is what makes us human…

Kropotkin