Category Archives: Problem Practices

Communication behavior or analysis that is often counter-productive

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Facing the Risks in the Soup Isle

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We have a new understanding of where the “front lines” are right now, and they are much closer than the beaches of Normandy the Korean demilitarized zone.

A book series I edit includes two volumes of scholarly research exploring the meanings and feelings associated with the great monuments built in in Washington D.C.  Visitors usually look forward to seeing the elaborate edifices put up to honor Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and others associated with the nation’s real or and sometimes imagined enemies. Most cities emulate these monuments in their own tributes, frequently featuring generals and other leaders on horseback. Statues of generals on top of a horse have become their own urban clichés.

Even so, it strikes me that all of us involved in these projects were busy cataloguing the familiar while overlooking the obvious.  In truth, scores of nameless individuals soldier on quietly doing much of the nation’s work, which can become ominously dangerous.  These men and women are often not in the sights of the hero-makers, but it’s time they were. In the time of the COVID-19 virus we have suddenly realized how much we owe our safety and perhaps our lives to nurses, doctors, sanitation workers, first responders, grocery store employees, senior-care aides, postal workers and delivery men and women.  We now have a new understanding of where the “front lines” are now, and they are much closer than the beaches of Normandy the Korean demilitarized zone.

I’ve never seen a monument to a check-out clerk from Target, an E.R. doctor in scrubs, or the employee behind the Deli counter at the local grocery store. Right now their heroism during hurricanes, natural disasters and especially this virus seems much more tangible than the tributes to individuals who have been affiliated with battle-ready organizations, but never had to consider the possible dire consequences of helping a customer. It’s interesting that the iconic actor John Wayne fought World War II and the Vietnam War only from the soundstages of Hollywood, keeping up his faux toughness with a heedless and rabid form of anti-Communism. And yet, for all of these dubious achievements he’s been honored with his name on a major American airport. Sometimes we seem to miss the greatness of people around us doing essential work.

We should have the grace to realign our thinking to more clearly honor that those who have the patience and perseverance to show up and provide help when the health and lives of Americans are in peril. They deserve our gratitude and far more recognition.

Living ‘Virtually’

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A “virtual seminar” is a non-sequitur.  So is a “virtual experience,” unless a person really does feel enchanted by what they see on their phone or a computer screen.

A tech columnist in the New York Times just noted that he’s never been more busy that with his “virtual” life online.  Indeed, he expressed some pleasure with “living online,” noting that he has more invitations to watch, observe and participate than he has ever had.  He said he was surprised at how lonely he wasn’t.

It’s possible, I supposed.  And to be fair, many of us are able to move onward in this troubled spring doing some of our work online. But here’s the rub.

We can easily let our language deceive us to accept that “living online” is existing in some sort of elevated state. All we need, goes the logic, is a good screen and the endless platforms and distractions it can offer us. Without doubt it surely gives us a chance to connect with others, many of whom have arranged their public screens a little like the department store window displays. Others use Twitter to hone their skills as potential insult comics. These kinds of things surely represent some kind of life, but one that seems less than fully actualized.  Media forms that truncate our natural sociality diminish us.  We offer a smaller and less nuanced version of ourselves online.

“Computer-mediated reality” remains a distant runner-up in the sweepstakes of what it means to be part of the world.

I’ve tried to convince myself and my students that finishing out a class this spring as a “virtual seminar” is doable.  And we are all game  to try.  But I will sorely miss being in the same space with my sexteen students–reading their body language of engagement or boredom–as we bore into the work of a series of thought-provoking writers. Earlier in the semester we surely had moments of insight.  I’m less certain that will happen online. To be sure, the readings can continue without a meeting together, but probably about as well as a book club that never bothers to collect themselves in someone’s living room.

A “virtual seminar” is a non-sequitur.  So is a “virtual experience,” unless a person really does feel enchanted by what they see on their phone or a larger computer screen.  Can that be possible?  I’m from Colorado.  Enchantment is seeing Mount Evans tower above Denver in the late afternoon.  Enchantment is sitting at Sprague Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, looking at 14,000 foot peaks that seem close enough to touch.  Enchantment can even be taking in the expanse of New Jersey’s beautiful Rosemont Valley from a neighboring ridge.

Language often has a way of laying down apparent “truths” that aren’t quite so obvious on closer examination. I’m glad to use computers as tools to wrap up this broken semester.  But “computer-mediated reality” remains a distant runner-up in the sweepstakes of what it means to be part of the world.