I had a great conversation with Nancy the other morning...
(at least I had fun, which is another way of saying I got all fired up and started preaching at her, sorry Nan!)
...so we live in what, one could argue, is the most fragmented society in the history of man. This is certainly a legacy of "me" thinking that has its historical precedent in the Protestant Reformation ("I" can interpret the Bible for "my"self) and bolstered by subsequent events of consequence in Western history; the American Revolution, the push for exploration, the development of consumer capitalism, even the modern charismatic movement with its emphasis on "my" experience of God; this is not to paint any of these factors with a negative brush, simply to emphasize the nature of the society we live in.
Our level of technology and the individualist mindset that we Westerners (and especially Americans) swim* in has led us to a place of social bankruptcy. We now have the material wealth, technical know-how, and inculcated tendency, to manifest a society that alienates and fragments social units and individuals, and ultimately destroys the social cohesion inherent in any community or group.
All of this to set the stage for the observation that individuals do not congregate in the small number of intimate circles that we all desire to belong to, rather we are scattered and diffused throughout a great number of social circles in distinctly different settings. Our spiritual-social DNA (as it were) causes us to hunger for intimacy and identity that can only come out of relationship, yet our society is structured to prevent that very thing.
Our culture is such that we very likely did not go to school with the same individuals for our entire education, and most certainly did not enter into the job force in the same place as the individuals we went to school with. The people we live next to very rarely work in the same arena that we do, our Church is likely to be some distance from the places that we shop, etc., etc..
The result is that we live our lives in compartmentalized circles, one circle only rarely overlapping with another. We have a circle of relationships at work, a circle of relationships at Church, a circle of relationships in the businesses and shops we frequent, a circle for hobbies, a circle for parents of our kids friends; it is the exception for any of the relationships from one circle to carry over to another.
This (major) facet of our way of life has the result of feeding the individualism that spawned it, both a manifestation of and a catalyst for a society of individuals; it has crept into many corners of our life. We no longer find it odd that children would spend forty hours a week watching television, or that we would never actually see our neighbors at a close enough distance to enter into a conversation. Even our architecture has been impacted by this reality; our homes have front yards designed for sterile eye-appeal, fenced back-yards for private retreats, enclosed and attached garages to allow direct access from our living room to the highway; all to insulate us from the people we live next to.
We go to great lengths (perhaps unwittingly) to prevent any meaningful relationship from taking place, even choosing to enter different circles precisely because of the anonymity provided there (how many people attend the mega-church to hide from relationships). All of this has the result of fragmenting our society and even our very selves as we maintain different faces in each of the circles we swim in.
*I love the analogy of fish=man and water=culture; it takes a very self-aware fish to recognize just what water is like...
4 comments:
Our ponderings of culture and the individual American consumer…it can appear so sad. It can be awkward deconstructing the world in which you are surrounded. Just a FYI… I’d check out ‘Body Ritual Among the Nacirema’ by Horace Miller, and ‘Motel of the Mysteries’ by David Macauly to get a humorous handle on the whole gestalt shift deal. By gestalt I am referring to a thing, its context or environment, and the relationship between them…or to be drawn out, that combination of physical, biological, or psychological and spiritual phenomena that are so integrated they constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable from its individual elements. Ouch…my head hurts…those Germans never really translate well. Never saw a live dry fish...Ate a few though.
"never saw a live dry fish..."
I guess that is a warning to recognize the necessity of culture itself. Perhaps we can sniff our way to the fresher water, but we cannot leave it altogether. (Dallas Willard's "vessel trap" concept comes in handy here.)
I would be interested in the Macaulay book, I have enjoyed some of his children's books (I guess you would call them that?). I couldn't find anything on Horace Miller other than a link to a single page that had a description of the work, it seemed like an intriguing concept, although I have heard someone describe some of our eating habits from the outside before:
Pan-fried amniotic fluid is GREAT! Especially with salted pig fat!
Do fish sniff?
Body Ritual Among the Nacirema - Horace Miller
http://www.aaanet.org/pubs/bodyrit.pdf
AND
Do fish sniff? A new mechanism of olfactory sampling in pleuronectid flounders.
Nevitt GA.
Friday Harbor Laboratories, University of Washington, Friday Harbor 98250.
Although olfaction is known to be a highly developed sense in a variety of fishes, little information is available about behavioral mechanisms by which fishes sample the olfactory environment. This study was undertaken to assess the role of spontaneous jaw protrusion ('coughing') as a potential mechanism for olfactory sampling in pleuronectid flounders. Investigations were carried out using a combination of physiological, morphological and behavioral techniques. Physiological results show (1) that typical respirations are coupled to measurable olfactory sac pressure fluctuations and (2) that during a coughing event, water is rapidly sucked into the olfactory sac. Morphological results indicate (3) a direct linkage system between the protrusion apparatus and the olfactory or associated accessory sacs, and (4) that coughing is associated with a rapid expansion or stretching of these sacs. Lastly, behavioral studies demonstrate (5) that coughing rates increase significantly over background activity when flounders are presented with attractive food odorants. From these results, I propose that coughing in pleuronectid flounders represents a behavior truly analogous to sniffing in certain air-breathing organisms.
J Exp Biol. 1991 May;157:1-18.
I like your blog. You're struggling, and that's good. God bless.
Post a Comment