Start Date: July 22, 2023
“It is an old expression. The internet suggests it is meant to connote aloneness. I can imagine that. Make a reservation for a restaurant. How many in your party? Well for me it might be “me, myself, and I”.
A little solitude can be constructive. Time to reflect.
But the 21st century seems to be more about Me, Me too. ME, ME, ME. It’s all about ME
Consider these popular phrases and ideas and what they seem to have in common;
“Selfie” is now a word.
For over a century cameras required film and it cost money and took time to get the physical photographs. So amateurs would take a few dozen pictures on a trip or at social occasions. Now it is not unheard of to take a few thousand photos on a trip, most of them being some form of self-portrait. What to do with them all? Even your best friends will be weary at some point.
Much more catastrophically, some people are literally dying for a selfie. Cliffs, waterfalls, high-rises became must-be-seen-in backgrounds. Given the ability to PhotoShop anything these days it is even more of a tragedy for someone to die in the pursuit of being seen at all the cool places. In India a man climbed into a lion enclosure at a zoo to take a selfie. He was dead within 10 minutes. I guess the lion was not amused [1].
Why the obsession with publishing documentation of our lives? I can only imagine that it lends the sensation of celebrity. Movie stars and royalty are followed by the paparazzi who photograph every move. The selfie seems a way to generate the illusion of demand for the anonymous every man to be known.
“Friends” are internet audience members.
Friends are among the greatest gifts of life. When a daytime news anchor interviewed a psychologist about friendships they discussed different kinds of friends. The doctor mentioned that we have childhood friends, work friends, college friends, maybe friends from religious groups, or the military. The interviewer added. “And Facebook friends”. The doctor’s response was, “No, They are your audience, not your friends”. To be fair they may be both. But the dynamic of someone following your pronouncements is not the same as the intimacy and bond of sharing the ups and downs of careers, relationships, and family challenges through interpersonal conversations in gatherings, phone calls, or letters.
“Like” is a noun, something that can be enumerated.
These e-friends are viewing your content on what is known as “Social Media”, though it is often anything but social. These forums allow for someone to give you a “thumbs-up” indicating they “like” your content. That is not at all a bad thing in itself. It can be comforting to learn that people appreciate your ideas. But in the end it may be better to be truly cared for and loved by a few for the long run than to be liked by the masses. Isn’t that the lesson of high school? The prom queen or cheerleader probably isn’t a movie star. Let’s just hope she has a nice life. Maybe you weren’t “like”-ed by so many. But over the years you found the friends that stayed with you mean the most.
“Influencers” and “Followers” are not Socrates and Plato.
If you do anything performative you will want followers. If it is a business you certainly need to have “Followers” to sell to your advertisers. That is a sensible model for online commerce. But in historical and philosophical terms one thinks of the followers of great leaders. Perhaps the Dalai Llama or Martin Luther King, Jr. So be selective when choosing to truly follow someone in your life. And if you wish to lead in a way more spiritual than e-commerce, don’t let the size of your brigade change your path. I once told a pastor, who I thought was demoralized by the small number of bodies in the pews, that she might not know how much effect she had on those few, while others speak to masses who may be making a grocery list in their heads.
“Identity”
Identity is sometimes a legacy of your ancestry. But for many of us identifying ourselves has generally meant sharing our selected groupings. You are a fan of a team, a resident of a community, a member of a profession. Paths you choose to pursue.
But these days it is like an item in a wardrobe that can be swapped out like daytime attire and evening wear. Non-binary, Infinite genders. Pansexual.
People are now choosing to identify with what has historically been deemed as intrinsic.
Until recently our the idea that sex/gender is based on chromosomes was accepted as fact. With very rare exception, humans are either born with 2 X chromosomes (female) or an XY chromosome pair (male). Of course there have always been people attracted to the same gender, designated homosexuals. There have been cross-dressers, a term for men who choose to dress in women’s garb. There have also, very rarely, been people who felt they lived in the wrong skin, the wrong body. But they did still know what body they had. Some developments have allowed people to take on some characteristics of others. But altering biology is not without risk of medical jeopardy, particularly in early development. There are some facts of life that simply cannot be undone.
Yet now it seems that you can allegedly change gender by the season or by the hour. There may be an infinite variety to choose from. You may claim more than one, or some claim none. Some even seem to claim alternate species. It is deemed acceptable to have people suspended or fired if they don’t keep up with your endless self-defined metamorphoses.
“MyTruth”
Most destabilizing is the notion that truth is no longer an object to be sought, but a personal subjective entity that can be shaped and manipulated and imposed on others.
Step back and think about that. It isn’t “my opinion”, “my perspective”, “my belief”, or “my feelings”. It is “my truth”. Truth has always been an unwavering objective standard. It may well be that what we think is the truth will later be found to be in error. We believed that the Earth was flat. We believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth. That was so “true” that Galileo was imprisoned by the Church for being the first great Earth science “denier”. It was obvious to all that the sun rose in the east, and set in the west. So our perception, our belief, can be wrong for a very long time, longer than a lifetime. But “The Truth” underneath it all was unchanging.
To suggest that truth is a subjective thing, different for each person, is the same as saying there is no truth. It is everything and nothing all at the same time.
In cultures of faith people may instinctively comprehend that there are very many different belief systems whose adherents all believe are the truth, with others in error. That is the nature of pondering God, what came before, what comes after. But in the physical realm of here and now it has been accepted since the earliest civilizations that there are truths that define the physical world. The challenge is to discover them, in particular in math, physics, chemistry, and biology. The goal is to find universal statements of fact.
I find myself wondering about certain quarters choosing to teach that the laws of physical science are all subjective notions which you can bend to your beliefs. If so, will this induce someone to jump off a building to prove that in “my physics” gravity is a repulsive, not attractive, force and hence I will float up and not fall down? If you are thinking, that is silly or extreme, you are correct. We are surrounded by all manner of truths that don’t care about our feelings or well being.
“The Ultimate ME”
There is an aphorism that “There are no atheists in a foxhole”. The premise is that if you are facing dire threat or imminent death you will cry out in hope that there is a higher power that will save you.
Others suggest that there are no atheists because everyone worships something: be it money, fame, power, or success.
Now we seem on the verge of taking the trajectory of “self” to a perilous conclusion. Judeo-Christian heritage teaches that God, known as “I-AM” made man in his image. Is our culture now reversing this notion and making God in our image? If we are the definers of truth, identity, and facts, is it possible that we are no longer atheists because we believe that we are God. We are each of us a unique “I-Am” worshipping ourselves.
Somehow, all I can think of is, “God help us”
REFERENCE
[1] Stimson, Brie, “Man killed by lion after entering enclosure at zoo: ‘The Animal Attacked’”, Feb,17, 2024, https://www.foxnews.com/world/man-killed-lion-entering-enclosure-zoo-animal-attacked