Why We Can’t All Get Along

By Joni Halpern

Marshall McLuhan was right.  “The medium is the message.”  That was the popularized theme of McLuhan’s book Understanding Media – the most incomprehensible book I have ever read –and it is quite possible that what I think I understood is worlds away from what he meant.

If I am right, however, that thematic summary helps explain why so many of us Americans cannot find common ground.  It’s not our fault we don’t get along.  We’re not even the same human beings anymore.

It is ironic that today, we live in the most interconnected world we have ever known.  A virus-laden bat comes in contact with one human being, and all over the world, people’s lives are changed forever.  A law enforcement officer on horseback chases and whips a hungry, desperate man trying to cross an invisible line on the earth, and a nation once revered slides down another notch in the eyes of people all over the world.

A person writes a single sentence on a computerized device and makes someone a continent away afraid for her life.  A young woman who has barely had time to dip her toes into adulthood dies from a stray bullet, and her family is able to pay for the funeral with the largesse of strangers and friends from all over the country who visit an internet funding page.

Yet, in this interconnected world, we are not each other’s neighbors.  We are certainly not each other’s friends, no matter what we are called on social media.  If McLuhan is right, we are all in the process of being transformed into human beings who mimic the characteristics of the media with which they engage.

In days of old, people talked to real people who had to be present to listen, unless they were in the tiny percentage of persons who wrote for publication.  Even if you were spreading gossip or criticizing a person who was not present, you still had to speak face-to-face with someone to accomplish this.  You could be reckless, unkind, hostile or uncivil in your remarks, but you still were restrained in some measure by the reactions of the person/s to whom you were speaking.

There was a measure of risk in speaking face-to-face, so people tended to seek conversation with like-minded persons and safe listeners as much as they could.  Still, it was impossible to escape differing opinions and negative reactions altogether, since no two human beings are ever in complete accord on everything.

So the back-and-forth of personal reactions, whether spoken or silent, sculpted the conversation and the unwritten rules of the personal exchange.  Bellicose bullies might be tolerated, but they needn’t be listened to.  People with new ideas might have been greeted with scorn, but by and by, if they kept at it, they might change people’s minds, especially if aided by new experiential knowledge of the community.

There was also the fact of physical presence as some proof of a speaker’s veracity.  There might be notable irony in the man who held forth in the tavern about the indolence of the poor and yet could be seen returning to his well-appointed residence.  His ample girth and fine clothes might call into question his dismissal of the need for charity toward the hungry.  The woman who scolded others for their spendthrift ways could be seen leaving the silversmith’s shop with a prized piece she had ordered.  Consequently, the ironies and counterpoints of a speaker became more apparent.

Not so anymore.  Today, there are millions of human beings who communicate only electronically.  They needn’t really know their listeners or readers.  They themselves can remain anonymous as speakers or writers.  Their life circumstances are cut, pasted, curated, and reassembled for publication in the hope or plan of going viral.  Bloggers, posters, and podcasters may have their critics, but these detractors can be sliced away like the brown spots on an otherwise perfect peach.

Our media are dependent on visual displays today.  Words are fine, but they shouldn’t be too numerous, too deep, too contemplative.  After all, it only takes a flick of a finger to slide away to less taxing attractions – the food we ate for lunch, the antics of a friend, the beetle we found in our bedroom.  We race from thing to thing, until we find some incredibly funny antic of a baby laughing hysterically.  Or we find a dark, but exciting event, like the body cam footage of a mentally ill man being shot to death, and we view it again and again.

We don’t need to see others in person anymore.  They are an interruption.  Even when we are with them, we must stop them from interrupting our ongoing discourse with people who are not physically present in our temporal reality, but who urgently send us messages and pictures to which we must respond in tiny bursts of emergency.

Marshall McLuhan said the media we use change us forever.  We are humans; we adapt to whatever tools we use.  If we use a hammer or an axe, we develop the arm muscles necessary to swing those tools.  If we drive a car, the range of options about the use of our time expands.  If we have money to spare, we think completely differently from those who are destitute.  A person who has a home becomes visibly different in appearance and demeanor from someone who is homeless.

In McLuhan’s view, the “medium” is whatever tool a human being uses. It shapes us. It rewires us. It calls forth in us a portion of our being that fits the tool.  In a sense, the human being becomes the tool, the medium.

Today we have people who still read newspapers, still gather at the local coffee shop to talk, still have their neighbors over for a soda or a beer to talk about different things, argue some, exchange ideas and experiences, and leave for home with a fuller heart and mind.  We still have people who are quite different from each other but converse while they are working out on the stationary bike at the gym or taking a walk without answering their phones.

A policeman talks to a retired lawyer.  They disagree about how wrongdoers should be treated.  But they learn from one anothers experiences, and little by little, their respect and admiration for each other grow.  Underneath their opposing viewpoints are facts worth exploring, facts that should be addressed in possible solutions.  The medium is their person-to-person exchange.  The message is engagement — repeated, civil, respectful, ongoing, open to inquiry.  The human being who uses this tool, this medium of exchange, becomes more open, more engaged, more willing to listen.

Contrast that with what may be happening to us if we limit ourselves to social media.  The medium is fractured, it must be immediately gratifying in some way, it is exclusionary, often uncivil and even deliberately hateful, inviting a short attention span, avoiding depth or tests of veracity.

The message is expression without development of the subject matter, without civility, without deeper inquiry.  The human being who relies on this tool, this medium of exchange, becomes more insular, more opinionated.  This human being cannot afford to be open; they have to be right.

In which of these two worlds can we become better neighbors?  Better listeners?  Better learners?  Better friends?  In which of these two worlds can we become better human beings?