“I lived when simply waiting was a large part of ordinary life: when we waited, gathered around a crackling radio, to hear the infinitely far-away voice of the king of England… I live now when we fuss if our computer can’t bring us everything we want instantly. We deny time.
We don’t want to do anything with it, we want to erase it, deny that it passes. What is time in cyberspace? And if you deny time you deny space. After all, it’s a continuum—which separates us.
So we talk on a cell phone to people in Indiana while jogging on the beach without seeing the beach, and gather on social media into huge separation-denying disembodied groups while ignoring the people around us.
I find this virtual existence weird, and as a way of life, absurd. This could be because I am eighty-four years old. It could also be because it is weird, an absurd way to live.”
~ Ursula K. LeGuin, Interview by Heather Davis
This reminded me of something I read, quite a while ago, pre-social media, about an American traveling in some foreign country and observing people in that country sitting for hours in some sort of government waiting room, and not appearing agitated or acting like their lives had been totally disrupted. Or, another is a song, I’ll try to find it, with a line about how a train being late isn’t the end of the world, that we’re supposed to spend time hanging out in train stations, we might meet someone who ends up being important to us.
OTOH! I’m 30 years younger than Ursula, and saw global communication do some great things. Hawaii was a place that pushed its early use in universities because they were cut off from all of those face-to-face conferences. I moved from a city to the country in 1999 and loved how it kept me in touch with friends and family. Then, around 2012 or so, it started to divide some of my family.
I just heard something last night, that the science is clear on unstructured conversation, it leads to tribes being formed, misinformation being spread within those tribes, and battle lines drawn. Dialog needs structure, rules, guidelines, and agreement on enforcement. To me, I see it work best when it’s the people in the dialog that remind each other of those rules.
I took a class in college on small group communication. It began in an empty room, no chairs, because the professor wanted to make the point that we would create the structure of the class. There were readings, but like most of my college years, I didn’t take it very seriously. Wish I had those readings now.
Republicans don’t want structured conversation. It goes against their version of free speech. See Kamala trying to talk in her FAUX interview? I don’t like the them and us paradigm yet I have a hard time pretending to not see the reality.
“They” have entirely different definitions of words. How do you structure that?
I just spent a few days with my sister on facebook. She posted a JD Vance garbage comment and I asked what he meant by “open border”. She responded with “google it”, which is like, something I do every couple of hours for just about everything. How do I make non-dairy Al-Fredo sauce, where is the scenic Highway 163 in AZ, you know. Anyway, eventually, she said it means an uncontrolled border with a lack of safeguards. Surpisingly, that’s what the Wikipedia article on it starts with. When I first googled it, I saw some longer things on the more subtle arguments of what it means to have an open border, but I was comparing more to a completely closed border, like the Berlin Wall.
I don’t really know if Vance wants to be East Berlin or not. I think he just wants to frighten people into voting for him. Thing is, there are different definitions for terms. Another one is “catch and release”. Google that and you’ll see it’s not a policy, it’s even not a set of rules, it’s a reference to a bunch of practices and consequences of the laws and programs we have. But Trump uses it as if it is done by design and Kamala has a “Catch and Release” playbook somewhere.
Structured conversation would sort that out. Instead of being allowed to say, “you think ‘catch and release’ means X, and Trump would fix that” or “Trump doesn’t know what ‘catch and release’ means but you believe him”, a guideline would be to not make a claim about what the other thinks or believes. That is, state your truth. Either party could then drill down on what the words mean to them, which could lead to agreements to look into the complexities, or in the short term agree that it is complex and their ideas are based on feelings about the matter. Feelings aren’t wrong and are usually based in something that’s real. Once acknowledged, you can build back up toward policies and solutions that match the reality of where those feelings come from.
It’s easy to design a system that has rules to structure debates (and possibly discussions) in a sterile environment.
Republican politicians won’t accept fact checking as a part of a debate. Their points hit home with their constituents when they invoke fear and hate, or admirable genitalia. Truth is irrelevant. The audience wants tribal entertainment, not structured, factual discussion. Sure, the debates could be structured properly but they won’t be viewed by the audience that needs to learn. Facts bore them and often piss them off.
Yeah, I’m sure I sound hopeless. I guess I am right now. I might cheer up in a couple of weeks.
That’s the good news. Nearly those exact words were said by a participant in my Braver Angels red/blue workshop. The rest of what you say depends on cause and effect. There was a time when Congress people socialized with their opponents and John McCain defened Obama’s integrity to a voter in one of his rallies. I think it works in that direction, and if it’s not working, we have to fix it. We are at the preamble of the Declaration of Independence again, except this time, King George needs our votes and there are way worse weapons than muskets.
And I don’t just mean Trump. Democrats won’t get the “not Trump” for long. If Kamala wins, she has to actually turn that page.
I found my inner child,
but someone else’s inner child beat him up and stole his lunch money.
I saw my missing humanity on the back of a milk carton and noticed the expiration date had passed.
I long for that feeling of security when I step from my brand new vehicle and the closing of the door makes that sound . . .
. . safe.
You know I bet somewhere out there it’s somebody’s job to make a new car sound that way. When you close the door. . .
. . safe.
The car alarm only adds to the experience . . .
. . Whoop.
Sometimes I think I need a bigger Whoop. . .
. . WHOOP.
Yet still, I have this nettling dread that somewhere out there. . . there are angry, underclass, urban black people that want to steal my lawn furniture and pool toys.
We need more security.
We need more cops on the streets. Higher walls. More bars on windows. We need more handguns. We should be able to carry concealed weaponsbut ONLY WE should be able to carry them. We need more bullet proof vests. We need more therapists.
We need more driver side airbags. We need more passenger side airbags. We should have pedestrian air bags. We need more vigilant right winged talk show hosts. I need a better car alarm.
Whoop! Please step away from the vehicle.
We need more urine tests. We need more latex. We need more tamper-proof packaging. We need more wax on fruit. We need more DDT, no, less DDT.
Whoop! Do not penetrate the shrink wrapped vegetables.
We need more plastic surgery to protect us from time itself. Time is a thief, and I want to see it number one on America’s Most Wanted.
Time should not be allowed to speed up
during moments of excitement, nor to slow down during moments of tedium. Time should be ordered to arrive on time.
Finishing school should be a requirement for negative entropy.
In the remote chance that a snowball ever does have a chance in Hell, heads should roll.
We need tougher and more mandatory sentencing laws. We need more prisons. We need more death penalty statutes. We need more electric chairs. Hell, we should have electric sofas. We should have electric dining room sets. A lethal injection happy hour, two for the price of one. And an all you can eat hemlock salad bar and buffet. We should banish all uncertainty.
All spontaneous utterances should be memorized in advance and submitted before a select subcommittee for approval.
Whoop! Please step away from the vehicle.
All sports events should follow the exemplary model provided by professional wrestling. All final scores should be posted prior to the start of each contest to avoid possible anxiety regarding the game’s outcome.
Whoop! Please step away from the vehicle.
All flights of the imagination should be grounded and searched for dangerous and smuggled cargo.
Whoop! Please step away from the vehicle.
All monsters should remain under the bed and not fraternize with skeletons in the closet.
Whoop! Please step away from the vehicle.
Whoop, protect me - whoop Whoop, WHOOP, PROTECT ME!!! I have a vile of Prosac® in one hand and a handgun in the other.
MY THERAPIST IS A CARD CARRYING MEMBER OF THE NRA.
STOP!!!
Is that what this country was founded on?
Wasn’t this country founded by people who were willing to sail across the known horizon in search of unknown land?
It was the risk takers that went. The meek ones stayed back in Europe saying, “You guys go ahead, really I wanna come-- but I’ve just want to finish this last Victor Hugo novel. We’ll be along as soon as you get settled, as soon as you tame the wilderness-- as soon as you get cable.”
So they went, and this country was founded on the spontaneity of thievery. But today, only the thievery remains. For we are run by demagogues who run on campaign promises and say they can make the trains run on time. But don’t you see, that’s the point, the trains are not supposed to run on time.
We’re supposed to spend time in train stations, hanging out, looking at total strangers, making eye contact with total strangers. . .
. . falling in love with total strangers.
What we need is protection from all this…
…safety.
Credits:
Whoop was written by Phil Rockstroh and Chris Chandler
This Ursula Le Guin is right. It is a bizarre, dysfunctional way to live.
I had to look up “structured conversation”. What a dorky term. We already have that. It just doesn’t give you what you want – which is others agreeing with you.
Ursula Le Guin was a great scifi writer. Her Earthsea fantasy series was excellent.
I love her works.
I have begun to read her again.
She has written about genre, in 1969 with The left hand of darkness, and so on.
Most of the people of Earthsea are described as having brown skin.[1] In the Archipelago, “red-brown” skin is typical; however, the people of the East Reach have darker “black-brown” complexions. The people of Osskil in the north are described as having lighter, sallow complexions, while the Kargs of the Kargad Lands are “white-skinned” and often “yellow-haired”. Le Guin has criticized what she described as the general assumption in fantasy that characters should be white and the society should resemble the European Middle Ages.
Not bad in 1968 !!!
Thanks for the in depth analysis. I know we have it, that’s why there is data about it. It’s not used, it’s not possible on facebook, and it’s been abandoned in some Congressional hearings.
Agreement is not the goal. That assumes someone is right and others just need to get it. A conversation draws out knowledge and experience from many, creating something new.
In political conversations you’re always trying to convince others. That is always the ultimate point.
I’m not convinced that’s true and the OP is not about politics anyway.