What’s becoming of us? Can’t we just talk anymore?

Excellent article.

https://gwinnettmagazine.com/whats-becoming-of-us-cant-we-just-talk-anymore/

David Greer
July 2020

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I know the heart and soul of general goodness is out there. But some days I have to ask, where?

It’s a pandemic. Nope, not the COVID19 pandemic. No…this one stems from another kind of virus I’ll call the 2020 Doomsday Communication Virus.

All too often, the material discussion over solving problems keeps getting hijacked with runaway, absurd communication. Doom. Nastiness. Judgement. Hypocrisy.

I think this virus is real, and I think it stands to cause as much real harm, if not more, than the Covid19 Virus. When you consider the violence, stress, lack of grace and loss of compassion stemming from the vile, inflammatory communication habits of today’s world, the impact is huge.

Words hurt, and right now we’re in a season where I don’t think our culture is using them as responsibly as we should.

I see three major strains of this lethal virus working against us.

1. Social Media. A Window Into Us.
2. The Loss of Journalism in News.
3. The Weaponizing of Words and Hidden Agendas.

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First stop: Social media.

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Don’t look for mercy and grace if afflicted. But count on a rapidly spreading viral tendency to cast blind judgement.

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Social media is like a window revealing who we really are as a society. It’s not that we’ve suddenly gone crazy. It’s just that social media has exposed us.

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Practically all of our “Professional News Media” is now more like tabloid news rather than dependable information sources.

I used to stand in line at the grocery store and while I deciphered which candy bar I wanted, (You know how that is. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.)

I’d read tabloids for humor and entertainment. It was kind of fun to see which tabloid had the most ridiculous, absurd distortion of the truth on the cover. And of course, a lot of it was completely made up with no roots in the truth at all.

They were good for a cheap laugh and entertainment, but not facts.

Nowadays, with a few exceptions, most of our so-called news is nothing more than hyped up BS aimed at getting ratings, shares and likes, rather than disseminating facts.

•••••

We now capture and store audio, video and the written word like never before. The technology to research, store and repeat off the cuff comments from a person’s entire life has enabled a ridiculous amount of selective, amplified, distorted, out-of-context judgement. Oftentimes it’s also shallow judgement, without full understanding.

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And how about this? If somebody in leadership said something 20 minutes or 20 years ago, we’ll string those together to fit our own current agenda and argument. It’s like none of us ever said stupid things when we were younger, or last year or last week. Even our “news journalist” will selectively edit and practically rebuild a conversation and the context of a story to prop up a preconceived agenda.

Turn that microscope around on most of us and we’d fail the test we’re trying to hold others to.

It seems our understanding of the right to free speech has also granted us the impression that we have some sovereign right to pass judgement on everybody but ourselves.

If only we’d turn that same criteria and process on ourselves and look long and deep in the mirror.

•••••

One of these days, when the anthropologists do their study of 2020, I hope they look back and find that in the latter part of the year there was a turn in communication.

A turn in the soul of our culture. A turn towards kindness, empathy and authentic compassion.

I hope it reads that grace, love, commonsense and positivity found their way back in our society and onto social media.

I hope and believe it will show the true state of our character and heart had been there all along.

We just forgot to focus on it for a while.

Let’s remember, life is good.