The View In The 21st Century

Here's an interesting article:

Sales of mobile phone jam devices soar

This is itself is an interesting article, and many of you are probably wondering right now, "how do I get one of those??" Included in this, however, is a gigantic nugget that eloquently tells of one of American society's biggest problems today:

James Katz, director of the Centre for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University, told the New York Times: "If anything characterises the 21st century, it's our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people.

"The cell phone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights."

Can anyone seriously argue against that simple yet profound statement? Think on the implications of this, and think how often we see it today. I would argue that not a day goes by that you don't see at least one example of that statement in bold. This is an unfortunate thing, but a lot of the issues we have today come from that very concept. Civility, manners, and courtesy have essentially flown out the window, as "looking out for number one" has become the prime product of the 1960s "revolution" with its emerging culture of victimization and entitlement that was heavily reinforced in the 1990s. We constantly complain about everyone yakking on cell phones, and yet it only becomes an issue when others do something about it. Not too long ago, I posted about the ridiculous utopian ideals behind New Urbanism, which might be fine if I had any faith that my neighbors could be trusted to consider my welfare and the welfare of others before he made his decisions. Instead, anyone who has lived in an apartment knows exactly how thoughtless other humans are on a regular basis. Loud parties/sex/anything, bad or illegal parking, toxic-smelling food, regular police visits, all sorts of situations and disputes that go with apartment-style living...all originate with this attitude of "it's all about me." These are really just symptoms of the bigger issue.

Everyone screams about rights without even mentioning responsibilities; indeed, we teach everything about the Bill of Rights in school, freedom of speech, freedom of (or to some people, from) religion, due process, right to counsel, human rights, civil rights, all of that. Yet how much time do we spend teaching the responsibilities that go with those rights? Those rights mean individual, personal freedom. Freedom might be an inalienable human right, but isn't it also one of mankind's most potent powers? Why then do we ignore the old quote from Peter Parker's Uncle Ben: "With great power comes great responsibility"? But you can't say that...that really bums me out, dude, to have to be held accountable for my choices or face the consequences of my actions. So many issues today:

1. Abortion: if everyone would accept the fact that pregnancy and having to raise a child is the consequence of thoughtless, casual, unprotected sex, abortion would not be an issue. It's really more about dodging consequences, and the whole "is it life or not" debate is secondary to the fact that we allow it at all.
   
2. Free speech: yes, it's a great thing, and yes, it's up to the listener to tune out if possible or simply, grudgingly accept your opinion, but sometimes opinions should be kept to yourself for the sake of others. We have removed any consequences for the wild, thoughtless utterance of ideas in any place, at any time. Does this REALLY help us become better as a society?
3. Lack of human courtesy: cell phones in cars and everywhere else, road rage, holding doors open, please and thank you...use of these had steadily gone downhill. Our society has taught that these are useless, vestigial trappings that we are better sloughing off like old, dead skin.
   

What all these values really brings us is not the wondrous glory of some hippie utopia of universal justice that once prevailed form that old time. In fact, I would argue that society is LESS just today because of this prevailing attitude that people can do what they want and everyone else has to just deal with it. The lack of civility today comes from the idea that anything is acceptable because life is all about the differences between people, and that no point of view is ever really wrong. The idea was to break down walls and eliminate the social stigma attached to anything, which is what anyone considered discourteous had to deal with. Social stigma made people feel badly about themselves. There are advantages to the open-mindedness that this philosophy brings, but there are substantial drawbacks that run much deeper. These crazed liberal ideals of the '60s were designed to make us think, and to make us smarter, more enlightened. So many of these people crow about the beauty of human interaction and human relationships, and that these relationships are what will lead humanity into a new Golden Age.

The actual results are that we do ponder everything...except our fellow man. We consider the bigger issues on everything...except how our neighbor might feel about what we do. You might pooh-pooh common courtesy, Emily Post, and all that as artifacts of a different time best forgotten. However, what those artifacts forced us to do was THINK about others, not about issues. It was never useless and never will be, because it forces you to focus on your neighbor, not ignore them when it's convenient for you. Sometimes, we need to think about others beyond what we can get from them. And sometimes, everyone needs to be told that they are acting badly or behaving badly, and that's such a no-no. Thanks, Baby Boomers...the constant cell phone yakking, road rage, loud motorcycles and cars, and general lack of thoughtfulness toward others....these are your greatest gift to us. Our society is so much the better for your efforts.

And here we are today with cell phone jammers, another symptom of and our only line of defense against your utopia.

This is a bit disjointed, and I'd love to clean it up a little. Thanks for reading along.