Our Collective Consciousness in the Digital Era
As we near the end of 2018, I thought I might share a remix of W.H. Auden’s poem “September 1, 1939”, which I wrote this summer after visiting the Whitney Museum’s exhibit Where We Are. The poem reflects so much of what has been weighing on my mind.
June 9, 2018
I stand in this grove
In this open Mendocino land
Promising, but unclear
As the clever question implores
Of a bizarre & extraordinary year:
Waves of uncertainty yet hope
Hovering over the lights of Vegas
And darkened corner of North Korea,
Ubiquitous are our digital lives;
The unmentionable creep on privacy
Offend our rights.
Cyclical view of history may
Unveil the whimsical changes
From Lincoln’s address until now
Our culture matured and moved forth,
Yet we flounder across the lands
What imago bred
The latest power mongers
Putin, Xi and Trump
What our kids will learn,
Those who claim they are not evil
Are evil in every claim
Exiled Mandela knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what the world’s crooks can do,
The rich elderly guffaw
When young Occupy protesters break the law
Zumas, Maduro, el-Sisi
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming cycle,
Revolution, change, corruption and repeat:
We must suffer them all again.
Into our polluted air
Where soaring skyscrapers point
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of collective humankind,
Each country neighbor pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror stares
Populism’s face
Brexit and nearly Frexit
Scrolling faces in Newsfeed
We cling to the average day:
The lights must never go out,
Spotify must always play,
All this music, art and laughter conspire
To make this fort and
Makeshift tents our home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Spun out of the digital vortex,
Unsure of the day
When we have ceased to be zen or grounded
The ISIS militant thrash
Elsewhere opponents defy
This the crude result of our wish:
What mad W said
About Hussein and WMDs
For the error sprung a leak
Now each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have, perpetual security
And to be loved alone.
From the conservative leanings, right
To the liberal leanings, left
Millennials’ instagram stories come,
Posting a morning view;
“I will be true to myself,
I will find my forsaken path,”
And helpless mayors wake
To resume their partisan game:
Who can cut taxes, but boost the economy,
Who can develop faster, but help the homeless,
Who can cut spending, but improve education?
All we have is but our collective voice
To undo the muffled cry,
The dogmatic lie to the soul
And the senseless control of The Donald
Our buildings grope the sky:
There is no exit from this dream
And no one exists alone;
This era allows no choice
To everyone of us;
We must love one another or die.
Defenseless under the blight
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Guiding points of light
Flash out wherever the just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Move us forward
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Speak with me now
Let us show our affirming flame.
I end my remix of Auden’s poem with the same refrain, for all we can do in the face of negation and despair is to show a resilience through “our affirming flame”. Back in 1939, the U.S. faced the looming threat of fascism and the outbreak of World War II. Today, we have a very different set of circumstances. Our country is confronted by a rising tide of populism, an insidious growth of strong man politics around the world, a shift in communication led by advancements in technology and a resulting threat on our data security and privacy.
In light of the growing polarization of our political parties, the lamentable sense of disenfranchisement from not being able to tangibly affect the situation, and the gut-wrenching feelings we may feel when POTUS lambasts immigrants and alienates our country’s closest allies (including Canada!?), I have wondered continually what we, as people of this country, can do. The secondary title I gave my poem was Our Digital Collective Consciousness because my answer to this existential feeling of nowhere-ness is to say collectively we can find our voice and power online. In other words, one of our greatest tools is still the ease of organizing collective action through social media platforms like Facebook.
Did I just say Facebook? I know what you must be thinking on the heels of the past few months of scathing coverage they’ve received. Amongst my inner social circles I have tried to defend Facebook, primarily as someone who has used the platform for the purposes of organizing community and not one, but several. When friends initially threatened to delete their Facebook accounts after the Cambridge Analytica debacle, I tried to persuade them that for all the failings of Facebook, it was still a platform that offered us the best tools to stay in touch with our friends, near and far, while allowing us to create communities with disparate interests. I argued they were just another tech giant that had grown too quickly for their own good, but that I had faith the execs would steer the ship and do the right thing… and then of course, The New York Times unearthed the cover up of Zuckerberg and Sandberg and their initial failure to shut down fake accounts and of their disavowal of warnings from their security chief, Alex Stamos. After that report, I could not refute the enormity of their errors. People are pissed and yes, they have a right to be.
So what now of Facebook? There is a broad swathe of people who don’t trust the platform, but it remains the most robust social media platform for organizing communities to collective action. I see this current period of time as a growing pain in the transitory cycle of technological advancements. Large tech giants are being confronted with public dissent of their questionable practices. Either a Facebook competitor touting far greater data privacy and security will emerge and slowly take over or a few years will pass and Facebook will signal to the world a real change in course and commitment to privacy and people will forgive and forget.
In the meantime, while we watch events unfold around us, collective action continues to form online and specifically on Facebook. If you live in California, you know what I’m talking about. This past month was a rude awakening whether you lived in northern or southern California. Horrendous air quality affected us all. As we were literally enveloped by the issue, those that truly suffered were the families that lost their homes and belongings. Several Facebook groups like Paradise Adopt A Family, have sprung up to bring over 20,000 people together to help victims of the wildfire. The collective, grassroots action of such groups are part of the answer to the doom and gloom of national politics and chaos. While we can’t solve the nations problems easily, we can help each other locally or regionally. Maybe in the end, that is what matters most.
