Something Around to be Loved: Information Access

An evaluation of modernity led a prominent culture critic to conclude: “the present age is an age of advertisement, or an age of publicity: nothing happens, but there is instant publicity about it.” I am not on any social media platforms, yet still worry about my relationship with information dispensing machines. Was that my phone that just buzzed? I wonder who reached out and what brilliant, life changing insight that vibration portends. News from around the globe feels eminently accessible and anxiety-inducingly urgent. That above quote, by the way, comes from The Present Age written by Søren Kierkegaard in 1846. None of this is novel.

Two literary theories, when taken together, carry this argument to its logical conclusion with devastating consequences. The first comes from Neil Postman’s brilliant, dense, perceptive Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman argued that inventing the telegraph started a chain of technological advancements that created a massive capacity for information travel. While this flux potential proved useful for emergencies like the attacks on Pearl Harbor or 9/11, it also created a new demand for information previously deemed unnecessary to daily life. The day to day political jostling in 1700’s Philadelphia or London, for instance, would not have been considered relevant to the life of a rural farmer. 

In a key example, Postman characterizes the dystopias of 1984 and Brave New World thusly: “Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance…In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.” The two novelists considered language dangerously flawed, but in different ways. Orwell’s tyranny has proven easier to identify and thus combat. Postman connects television and Brave’s soma, both tools with awesome potential to solve problems. Instead, we created happy dolts satisfied by a thoughtless, lazy, upbeat fineness. Culture became not a shining thing to aspire to, but the shiny thing right here to consume. These concerns seem quaint by comparison to the hollow, #positivevibes of social media. When every banal thought is available without gatekeepers in a package professionally optimized for maximum entertainment, drowning “truth in a sea of irrelevance” becomes an inevitability. 

None of that would surprise someone familiar with Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull’s brilliant, jaunty, 1960’s-American-businessman-mysoginistic The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong. The book posits that any hierarchy of people — in a manner similar to the economic concept of the tragedy of the commons — one will continue to get promoted within the structure until they reach their level of incompetence. This argument leads to a realization that “sooner or later, man must reach his level of life incompetence.” Humanity will ultimately be “doomed by our cleverness and devotion to escalation.” Communication and language clearly being the clever tool that elevated humans above the rest of the animal kingdom. Thoughts need vehicles and language has proven an effective one. That is until our ambition hits the ceiling created by our level of incompetence.

Here I am reminded of an art exhibit I did not understand until internalizing these two books. The exhibit featured physical pieces, like sculptures, but with a specific throughline. These pieces were helpful, everyday objects that had the useful properties expanded (in the same direction of usefulness) past a point of reasonable utility. For example, a fork with so many prongs that it could no longer easily shovel food into a mouth or a tea kettle with so many handles that it became unwieldy to handle. A cautionary tale of the spiffy, modern pursuit of betterment.

Progress cannot continue in any direction ad infinitum. What wins wars rarely helps in times of peace. What got us here may prove futile in helping us go anywhere else. We developed fantastic communication skills to outflank mammoths or defeat invaders. Language became a weapon unmatched within the animal kingdom. The ease with which ideas could spread became the only limiter. Cuneiform, Johannes Gutenberg, Samuel Morse, Auguste and Louis Lumière, Mark Zuckerberg and the like have all helped widen channels of communication past any real survival need. 

Good enough really should be good enough. Knowing when to stop is vitally important. One handle is good enough for the tea kettle, stop there. This of course runs contrary to concepts of modernity and progress. We have barreled past good enough communication into harmful advertisement and publicity. When capacity outpaces need, someone has to make up that difference. We cannot have dead air. Thus, the irreversible, noisy, dizzying bombardment of entertaining nonsense. We may have identified problems worthy of our potential (protecting an environment that will sustain human life, feeding people, healing the sick, loving our neighbors, you know all that Jesus stuff), yet our cleverness provides an illusion that all this is within reach. Why spend time pondering heft when the sound and fury signifying nothing is so much more fun? How can you even identify importance when everything is packaged the same way?

Peter provides the grim path forward in this conundrum. Success, of course, is just “final placement at the level of incompetence.” Congrats! We did it! Welcome to the epilogue. Peter recommends substitution as “far and away the most satisfactory adjustment to final placement.” Working to break through perceived obstacles will only lead to frustration born of the knowledge of our incompetence. Embrace the bright futility. Loop videos of marketed dances, dunk on tweets and share pictures of how great your trendy clothes look. Strike up the band and lip sync your favorite songs or TV scenes. Feel good, relax and carry on.