Informal and spontaneous conversations are going the way of the hand written letter to the folks back home. The consequences of this change is not as fully understood because we see them though the lens of our personal experience. Our individual circumstances allow us to rationalize the absence of this, once very common, practice that most elderly people can remember engaging in.
More in depth analysis of the consequences of the reduction of informal conversation on individual and societal social development needs to be done.
The intensity and frequency of our daily informal interpersonal interactions are systematically and continually being minimized. The emotional and psychological value of these interpersonal interactions to the healthy development of one’s personality is not given serious attention. The experience of informal interpersonal relationships lays the foundation for the development of more sophisticated and complex social interactions.
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I.S.S.B.
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The I.S.S.B.(Individual Social Sensitivies Bubble) is my attempt to analyze and explain the way current processes for communication do not result in significant activities that solve or resolve the seemingly ever expanding sources of societal distress and social decay.
For the sake of understanding my position, I will use the metaphor of a man in a bubble, Within that bubble are a lot of smaller bubbles that account for his “social” character. The size of each interior bubble represents a degree of influence it has on the total character of the individual.
Our society has social norms. In recent times, behaviors that would not have been acceptable, less than 30 years ago, are now being presented as normal. Societal norms can be “bad” or “good”. Unfortunately, the default position for normal is assumed to be “good” In years gone by, there was a broad range of “group affirming”, rituals that were culturally agreed upon as being “good” points of social engagement, by a sizable portion of the population. These rituals may be national, Christmas and the Fourth are examples. More regional adopted “rituals” can be seen in the embrace of sports, religious affiliations, recreational pursuits and other freely engaged in associations that provide the basis for framing interactions with other individuals. Quite often, the myths associated with the engagements far out weigh the actual redemptive value of the interactions. (Redemptive Value will be further explained) The a fore mentioned rituals come down on the “good” side of social rituals in that they promote feelings of comradery among individuals and groups. It is relatively easy to negotiate your way through such encounters because the perimeters for engagement are commonly known and agreed upon. One can engage in these types of rituals and receive feelings of happiness, contentment, satisfaction, etc. Simultaneously, a subconscious need to interact with other people is satisfied. An overall sense of social comfort is validated through such encounters. Our “instinctive” notion to exist as a social animal is redeemed; this is the “redemptive value” of an interaction.
Every attitude that a person has with respect to any topic or situation is a separate “social sensitivity” bubble contained within each individuals’ “Individual Social Sensitivity Bubble”. The size of the internal bubble varies to the degree of influence that this activity has on a person’s individual character. Additionally, many points of agreed on sensibilities can be traversed within a single or on going engagement. The broader the field of mutually agreed on sensitivities, the more comfortable the engagement. Intensity of interest in a particular area of engagement can also determine the strength of engagement. This might help to explain, in part, why some engagements produce deeper friendships than others.
The value of the “group affirming” becomes more apparent when you consider more and more “self centered” rituals are becoming more prominent in the range of “social sensitivities”.
As I mentioned earlier, what is considered normal/acceptable behaviors have changed dramatically in recent decades. Violence as a recreational pursuit, obsessing on personal advancement, and the acceptance of non traditional values are standard operating procedures now. These changes in individual attitudes have been ushered in under the banner of individual freedom. However, when you consider this push toward a focus on the individual is coming from a very specific agenda, the consequences of this new direction become more apparent and help to explain why our quality of life seems to be on an uncontrollable decline.
Technology has given us, here to before, unimaginable choices in the ways we interact with each other and our environment. While we have more choices, I don’t think that the consequences to our social bonds, that have resulted do to the nature of these choices has been evaluated by the general public and not unforeseen by the promoters of the new technology. Although we have more choices, the nature of those choices come from a very small group that decides for us, what choices we have. In the past, the social norms served to strengthen the social bonds that keep us working together towards a, nebulous, though generally, mutually agreed upon notions of “the common good”.
Recent options that develop our Individual Social Sensitivities overwhelmingly and consistently serve to undermine and diminish the social bonds that are necessary for a society to function in healthy social and emotional manner. In a 21st century metaphor of the carrot and the stick, the focus must move from trying to get the carrot, to who is controlling the carrot and to what end.
Popular culture is toxic! Popular culture is the main driver of our social norms and popular culture comes from a very narrow segment of the population. The information being supplied via popular culture is loaded with useless information, to the recipient; and arguably of critical importance to the collectors of users response data. A wide variety of points of engagement provide very valuable feedback to the purveyors of the choices. These options provide all sorts of motivations to induce engagement on the part of the general public. The cost of engagement with respect to social cohesion is astronomical. If we have a better understanding of the process, I’m sure we would no longer be willingly to continue to pay the cost.
Here is where I believe your thought processes have been primed to more readily appreciate the concepts of “Social Bond Affirming”(SBA) and “Social Bond Undermining”(SBU) interactions.
Our technology induced options/distractions can largely be separated into two categories; Presentations ride on a bed of SBAs or SBUs. The conscious knowledge of these categories becomes necessary to evaluate the significance of the choice to embed messaging on a SBA or SBU in forming a person’s overall, individual social sensibilities. More and more of our communications become mediated through some sort of electronic medium. The actual content of the communication is the "primary" stream. Less and less considerations is given to very valuable, “secondary” streams of information that are lost with the loss of physical presence. A handshake, body language, the look in a person’s eye, along with dozens of sensory stimulations in any given environment serve to enhance the total value of the engagement. More fundamentally, our basic need for positive associations with other human beings is more effectively satisfied with direct contact. Now that we are thinking in terms of “primary and secondary” communication levels, let’s look at the significance of the decision to embed messages on a SBA or SBU on the development of social sensibilities.
Let’s look at some examples of secondary communications informing social sensibilities towards unfamiliar subjects:
1. I got into a conversation with an elderly woman, from a firmly upper middle class environment. She was reading a Vanity Fair (VF) magazine, so I commented that I was surprised the magazine was still in print. I further inquired as to whether or not it was primary a fashion and cosmetics magazine. She responded the magazine has a lot of good articles about current events. She went on to mention an article about an American journalist that is being held captive as a spy in Russia.
Vanity Fair is validating their target market’s interest in fashion and cosmetics, while also providing them with specific perspectives on current events that their audience may not come across as a result of their limited interest in current events. In VF the primary stream of engagement is an elevated interest in fashion and cosmetics. That interest can be the origin or continuation of engagements with persons of shared interest. However if the conversation turns to a discussion of geopolitics, the engagement may become uncomfortable if a point of view that is not consistent with the VF take on the subject. The subconscious favorable alignment with the VF perspective of the “Russia” story with favorable reaction to VF fashion and cosmetics views can cause discomfort with views that have a different perspective than the VF view. VF primary messaging comes in on a bed that is SBA. The secondary messaging comes in the form of an article about a subject(secondary) that does not occupy the same degree of concern as the primary subject. The VF perspective on the story probably paints the Russians as super villains and any other perspective is dangerously close to treason. This is SBU in that a tension between “us” and “them” is set up with no other basis than a casual exposure to the unfamiliar subject(Russia) via involvement with a desired engagement.(An interest in fashion and cosmetics)
2. After a rally in Washington DC commemorating the four year anniversary of Julian Assanges’ being held in custody while fighting extradition to the U.S. to face espionage charges, I had dinner with some of the rally attendees; which included an elderly gentlemen, I’ll refer to as Skip, that has made a comfortable living as a freelance journalist. It was brought out by another guest that “Skip” was an active member of The National Writer’s Guild or some such organization of professional writers. An example of an experience that characterizes his work environment is seen in his description of having been assigned to go on a $24,000 safari to write a series of articles for a travel magazine. There was mention made of the fact that Skip had written a number of articles that were critical of the mainstream media’s seemingly, total surrender to corporate influence on the way they present the news. I’ve had an interest in photography and film making since high school and I wonder what train I missed that would have given me access to Skip’s career path. During our conversation, several art galleries and museums were suggested to me as places I might enjoy visiting. I eventually told him that I don’t find art galleries and museums interesting, much the same way that I’m not interested in playing golf.(environments influence social sensibilities) We walked together for a good distance in the direction of my hotel until he came to the bus stop that would carry him to his home. In both instances, we had good and varied conversations. In both of these instances, the Individual Social Sensibilities Bubbles are populated with overwhelmingly Social Bond Affirming internal bubbles that allow us to comfortable engage with each other based on shared sensibilities regarding common interests. Striving for a substantially different social contract for persons of a lower social or economic class is not of primary interest to them. Consequently, their discomfort with perspectives from the lower classes is a result of the lack of familiarity with the more radical and confrontational attitudes of the lower classes. People instinctively try to move from one Social Bond Affirming ritual to another. The problem arises when Social Bond Undermining rituals form the basis for interactions.
Our society’s unquestioned move to electronic mediated communication has undermined the Social Bond Affirming nature of communication. Most people will never experience receiving a hand written letter from home; while I don’t suggest we revert to hand written letters, I do think some attention should be paid to what social cost has been paid for more efficient communication. Once those cost/consequences have been identified, actions must be taken to replace the psychological and emotional benefits that have been lost. When entertainment is cloaked in violence and aggression, both sexual and physical, social bonds are undermined. It is outrageous how this society is sexualizing children. Early introduction to sexuality undermines the likelihood of forming long lasting personal relationships that are the basis for nuclear families. Vampires, werewolves and other somehow augmented humanoids are cast as heroes and the “common” people are left to cower in corners as the warring factions commit wholesale destruction of the existing world.
More and more, progress is defined in personal terms and validated by status symbols. We have been warned about the ever present threat of identity theft, but paid no attention to the larger consequence of identity purchase.
When we assume conscious control of our identity we override the natural conditions that creates a more roundly developed individual self. Fortunately for us, breathing is an involuntary function. The conditioning of the general population towards “selfishness” at the expense of our natural proclivities for social bonding is the result of the deliberate misleading of the masses to the best interest of the few.
It is my hope the ISSB will explain how our natural process for developing individual attitudes can be manipulated at the personal level by our unique groupings of SBA and SBU within our ISSB. Group cohesion is undermined because individual desires, often subconscious, direct our choices and priorities. Satisfying personal desires can easily become our dominate orientation, particularly in an environment that is filled with anxiety and scarcity. A population that is focused on individual gain will not likely resolve the causes of societal anxiety and scarcity because the drivers of these conditions are beyond individual control. This realization adds to the tendency towards apathy or defensiveness when it comes to issues of broader social concern. We are involved in a myriad of emotionally stimulating engagements that predispose us to seek relief in self satisfying escapes.
It has been said, “Our conscious mind only serves to rationalize our subconscious”. I believe the “ruling class”(I believe there is the ruling class and the rest of us) has determined that by satisfying a person’s deeply held personal desires, this will forestall any collective actions toward achieving more substantive societal changes in areas that would more positively affect the quality of our individual and collective, lives.