You see it in people's hostile, frozen faces. You see it in the way they walk and the way they shout into mobile phones as if they were arguing with their 'voices' in a lunatic asylum. Above all, you see it in a thousand Facebook memes. The endless psychotic aggression masking the paper-thin ego, that will not be told anything by anyone. "Who are YOU to tell ME what to do"? "What's it to YOU"? "You've got not right to judge me". It's a great trick that allows rage-filled people to vent and make others the problem. "What are you, some kind of Nazi"?
Next time you see an inspirational quote saying "just be who you are and f*** anyone who tells you differently" recycled in a thousand different forms, consider: what kind of society would we live in if everyone gave this attitude to everyone else all the time? Actually, it's not hard, because since the invention of the walkman in the 1980s and then the mobile phone, large numbers of people act as if they were disconnected from their fellow humans. The stance is "there is no such thing as a public place; you are in my music room, my office, my boudoir; if your meal in this restaurant is being spoiled by my kids running around, tough: I owe nothing to anyone, and if you've got a problem with that...f*** you"!!!
I travel on the London Underground every day. Frequently people sneeze and splutter. They can't be bothered to cover their mouths, because they are fiddling with an electronic device or reading a paper. London tubes are so crowded that if someone with Ebola ever boards a train, many thousands would probably be wiped out in short order, because...no one has the right to expect others to act in accordance with the germ theory of disease.
I'm writing with humour and a touch of anger, but I have to remember that all communication is 'viral'. If I rant into the void and I am doing exactly the same thing: venting, arguing with myself, displaying sociopathic lack of contact with my world. Electronic communication easily dehumanises people - the talk to voices in their head, which is why disgusting rudeness breaks out so quickly online. So greetings, sojourner, and welcome!
There was a recent news story about a shop assistant who refused to serve a customer who was talking away into their mobile phone. I always cringe when I see this common situation - the dehumanisation, the rude humiliation caused to a person serving a customer who obviously feels they are too important, in too much of a hurry to even look the assistant in the eye let alone share courteous exchange. "Just serve me and let me get on with my busy conversation and my busy life, like any other robot in my virtual life". In a cafe the other week I saw a couple on a date - the unprepossessing man was ignoring the pretty girl while he fiddled with his phone for a good 15 minutes. I have seen a person with two mobile phones cut off a conversation with a person in front of them to start a long conversation on their phone, and then cut that person off when the second mobile rang. If someone can't see the insanity of this, I am not sure how I could explain it.
I have been in houses where the television is always on so that nobody can look at or speak with anyone else - the god of television rules all. Of course, fundamentally, we have all been programmed like lab rats to respond to stimuli. Flashing lights, bleeping phones, buzzing devices. You see people's muscles constantly twitching like malfunctioning robots, their hands hovering around their phones like some kind of addict. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.
I blame religious education for this! What, my dwindling readership cries - surely that is a mad leap too far! Well, it all comes down to how Jesus was portrayed in 19th and 20th Century cheap 'Sunday school' theology. That Jesus is the ultimate petulant adolescent - criticising the Pharisees, calling everyone a hypocrite, telling people not to 'judge' and getting away with it! This image is inordinately attractive to angry preadolescents, especially boys - as youngsters we all know that all the adults are hypocrites and "who are they to judge me"! It goes down well with those who feel they have no power but would dearly love to wield power over others. The typical rebel or angry young man who one day will become the Pharisee to be hated by the next generation.
When Nonconformist Christiantity mutated into insipid liberalism and nanny Socialism so typical of the Guardian reading classes, this idea that you mustn't 'judge' anyone remained - though what it actually means is quite another matter and most people have never thought about it. What it usually means to those who snarl it is, 'I am going to do what I want and nobody is allowed to say anything against it, in fact the kind of people that might dare say something are thus proved automatically bad'. Because everyone being self-centred is virtuous, and the only real sin is asking others to limit their selfishness and show some consideration.
This developed apace in the 1960s with the Hippy emphasis on 'doing your own thing'. The unworkable but common idea that we should all think mainly of ourselves and let everyone else do the same, in the fantasy a compassionate society will come about by magic, can only lead to one kind of 'society' - a society that doesn't really exist.
But Jesus was no petulant Middle Class egotist playing at selling Socialist Worker (and I have met a few of that type over the years). His teachings about Justice and God's Law are tough medicine and one can't even begin to understand the power of his challenge to worldly authority unless one has tried a thousand times harder to live a moral and socially aware life than most of our angry toddlers ever have. We can't become as a little child until we have grown up; until then we are just - childish. And without enough adults around, the human race doesn't stand much of a chance.
So if you don't like what I've just said...f*** you!!
Only joking, my very best wishes. Learn from all things and know for yourselves. But above all, don't be too proud to hold out for courtesy.
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