The Opposite of Civilization is Human Nature

The opposite of civilization is human nature.

And occasionally, regrettably, human nature finds a way to break through the behavioral, cultural, social, and even religious boundaries constructed assiduously around it.

We define this “breaking through,” as conflict, violence, and—at the nation-state level—war.

The purpose of civilization is to hold back the tides of human nature and to negotiate the consequences of human nature when it runs amok: selfishness, greed, vanity, pride, sloth, envy, and so on.

Civilization does this job through the application of social and behavioral norms that enough individuals agree to. Conflicts arise, of course, when the social and behavioral norms are no longer considered normal.

Cultural evolution is a constant. Human nature is a constant.

But civilization is precious, demanding, and worth defending.

Just Make It Work

Two things are happening simultaneously in our organizational cultures, our markets, and our personal lives.

We have established non-curiosity (“I don’t care how it works, I just want it to work”) as the new standard for engaging with the work, the ideas that interest us (or not) and the world of conflicts that inevitably surround us.

We have also decided that we don’t have the time or emotional or mental bandwidth to care deeply about a topic, person, or idea, and thus we have jettisoned that character trait (caring) as well.

At the same time, for anyone who is interested enough to look, there has been an explosion in the ways that people are explaining what they do, why they do, and—most importantly—how they do it. From videos on the Internet to long-form blog posts, to intentional curation via your email, to documentaries streaming on your over-the-top video player, there are more people taking more time, to explain what they do, to more interested (curious) and caring audiences than ever before.

These two cultural occurrences represent a split and a niching down into time, attention, caring, and curiosity that is dividing audiences, and may well portend a future of less curiosity and caring at mass, and more curation, curiosity, and even care, at the edges of the conflict universe.

The things that matter, the solutions that “stick,” the statements that are meaningful, and the audiences who will care about the impresario’s show, are not going to be found in the immediate, speed driven, bite-sized, mass market.

They will be found at the edges, slowly, over time, and they will be hungering for you to arrive, with your deeply thought out solutions to their most pressing problems.

Louis C.K. and the Cortez Problem

There is a story (probably apocryphal) that the comedian Louis C.K., burns his jokes, his stand-up material, and his writing after successfully delivering it at the end of each year.

This story reads like a corollary to the idea (popularized through the constant repeating of the alleged actions of the explorer Hernando Cortez upon arriving in the New World) of burning the boats on the beach.

This idea of creative (or not-so-creative) destruction, as a motivator to either exploring further (because there is nowhere else to go) or rebuilding (because everything you built before is destroyed), can be scary for some.

Even for those who believe that they’ve already burned the boats…and the jokes.

What’s never talked about is developing the will and the courage to look at what you have accomplished in the past (i.e. a successful negotiation, a big project, a positive relationship) and ask the two following questions:

What about this could be better than it is now?

Who here will have the courage to change in order to make this thing better?

Having the will to destroy what’s already been created in the pursuit of a better future is the first step toward realizing that better future.

Disconnect as the New Standard

The disconnect between what people know about how the Internet (and by extension social media) “works” (choices, behaviors, options, etc.) and what people use the Internet (and social media) to accomplish (tasks) is underrated and massive.

Part of the disconnect comes from a lack of interest and caring about how the world of communication (and the tools in it) work, not only for the people with whom we are immediately communicating but also for the people not part of the communication.

Part of the disconnect comes from distractions that exist in the world of social interactions between people, and differing filters of awareness and attention. Individuals pay attention to all kinds of things that other individuals believe are unnecessary, irrelevant, uninteresting, or even unknowable. And then, because the human mind seeks order out of chaos, individuals, make judgments, create attributions, and create frames and boxes for language and ideas that further the disconnect.

Part of the disconnect comes from a lack of curiosity and even a lack of education about what to pay attention to. Lack of curiosity is endemic in discussion around the Internet (and social media) because our communication tools have prioritized lack of curiosity as the “new normal” in social interactions.  Lack of education comes about when the market responds to a lack of curiosity as a new standard, and then complies by providing less nourishing meat (education) and more easily digestible milk (displays where people advance by how well they kiss).

The disconnect is massive and troubling, for two reasons:

In the market’s breakneck race to monetize every human interaction and behavior, combined with the alarming reduction in human economic productivity, we have a recipe for a society and culture where the very tools of educating, enlightening and uplifting are being monetized and controlled by a select few individuals—or organizations.

Which would be fine if those individuals and organizations were angels, but like most people, they’re just people.

The second reason is economic in that we have prioritized facility and adaptation as ways to get ahead in a world of Internet-based (and social media based) communications where competition for attention and awareness is fiercer than ever. But if the average individual is non-curious (or too disinterested or disconnected to care) about where their future dollars to pay their future electric bills are going to come from, then we have opened society to the wavering whims of every political, social, cultural, and economic demagogue (both individual and organizational) promising to make such important decisions “simple.”

“Simple” of course meaning, “Simple in a way that works for me, my power base, and my tribe, and creates distractions, confusion, disillusionment, and disengagement, for you, your power base, and your tribe.”

Which would be fine if those individuals and organizations were angels, but like most people, they’re just people.

A standard of anti-intellectualism comes from a standard of non-curiosity, which combined with the disconnect between people and how they use their new communications tools, leads to the creation of a world of communication, rhetoric, persuasion, and power, we should all be wary of.

To resist the new standard, we need to fight to establish access to education about how to use our new social tools across the disconnect, eliminate distractions as a way to encourage disillusionment and disengagement, and re-establish curiosity about the unknown (or about blind spots) as an alternative “normal.”

Otherwise, the conflict outcomes could be disastrous for everyone.

Dollar Value of Mediation Skills in the Connection Economy

It’s hard to place a dollar value on human-to-human interactions in the current (and growing) connection economy, because connection is about engaging in acts of caring.

And whoever put a dollar value on acts of caring?

But here are a few challenge questions if that’s your attitude:

Whoever put a dollar value on the act of raising crops in an agricultural economy?

Whoever put a dollar value on the act of building a widget in an industrial economy?

Whoever put a dollar value on the act of providing a customer service in the service economy?

Humanity figured out the dollar value inherent in all the economic transitions from hunting and foraging, to agriculture, to industry, to service and created functioning economic systems—from trading and bartering to late stage capitalism. And humanity will figure out the current global transition we are in right now.

The space between the old system and the new system is a space of conflict, anger, incivility, uncertainty, spectacle, entertainment, along with a healthy dose of depression, worry, and anxiety.

This is a space where the skills of mediation (particularly around distraction, diversion, and deflection) can be helpful (and monetized) at scale.

But whoever put a dollar value on the acts of caring?

Culture of Immediacy

The culture of immediacy that we have created with our digital social communication tools, has convinced our brains that problems of all kinds should be solvable immediately, to our specifications, and with little effort (or friction) on our part.

Here are a few examples. Your mileage (and examples) may vary:

Climate change could be solved tomorrow…if only the “right” people oversaw the solutions. Like the people who populate my Facebook feed…

Elections could turn out with the “right” outcome with results that I could see immediately…just like a Twitter poll does…

People could treat each other with fairness, justice, and equality in a pretty cool and hip way…if only it were the “right” people doling out the fairness, justice and equality…and all others who don’t agree (or aren’t hip or cool enough) could be blocked or never seen anyway….just like in my SnapChat feed…

Rights, responsibility, accountability, and freedom. These are human conditions that took centuries to adjudicate, argue over, and have conflict about, to come to the space of where we are now as a global culture.

They will not fall to the growing culture of immediacy anytime soon.

Netflix, podcasts, YouTube videos, search results. These are tools of communication that operate on the principles of speed to market (your eyes) and entertainment (your brain).

The slow, plodding things that need to change (i.e. systems) are hard to shift, require emotional energy in the face of human intransigence and institutional friction, and need conflict to change. It used to be that we recognized and passed on to the next generation, the idea that incremental change was enough and that lifetime change (on the scale of anywhere from 35.5 to 78.8 years) was enough to get a society and culture to where it could reasonably be expected to be.

But this idea of plodding, incremental change is slowly eroding in the face of collective minds, attitudes, and behaviors being transformed by the culture of immediacy that our digital social communication tools provide.

Combine this fact with the reality that the inner workings (both the how and the why) of our digital social communication have become incomprehensible for the average person and that we have elevated this incomprehensibility from a minor annoyance (think about how you could repair a car in your garage only 50 years ago) to a belief in the magical genius of self-interested companies (think Google and how the algorithm of search works), and we have a giant problem on our global cultural hands.

Relationships with people are boring, mundane, exciting, and thrilling.

Solutions to people problems cannot be solved through the clever application of another frictionless algorithm.

People cannot be inspired through speed, or motivated through impatience to change.

The hard work, the meaningful work, the work of people conflicting against other people, is the last thing that will survive the cult of immediacy we have built.

If we let it.

And the changes that can come about from that survival is worth leveraging all the immediacy-based, incomprehensible tools for good, that you can.

The Privacy of Memory

We lose a little of ourselves when we outsource our memory to Google.

But not in the obvious way that we think of.

What we lose in the privacy (some would say inaccuracy) of memory is the ability to forget.

And to be forgotten.

The privacy of memory and the palaces that we build in our minds of truths, facts, lies and stories is more valuable than we know to preserving the best parts of our fragile humanity.

In the rush to electronically preserve the truth in non-debatable, and factual ways, we are losing the pleasure (and the privilege) of the privacy of choosing what we want to remember—and what we have the grace, forgiveness and ability to forget.

When we can call out each other using facts we like that work for us (and avoid or dismiss the facts that don’t), our social media communications and interactions become about expressing the rawest of emotions with immediacy, in the face of overwhelming facts that are preserved as eminent, and indisputable truth.

Google can’t help us here. Neither can artificial intelligence. Neither can another social communication platform.

Only human beings can preserve the privacy of memory in relationship with other human beings.

HIT Piece 2.7.2017

On any curve of distribution, at the beginning of the curve and at the end of the curve are outliers.

At the beginning, these outliers are known as “pioneers.”

At the end, these outliers are known as “laggards.”

And in the middle of the curve (where the bulge is) this space is a cluster known as “the masses,” or the “average” or the “median.”

This truth of distribution stands for anything that can be mathematically measured, from the number of tall people in a room all the way to the number of CDs that people own who you may stop on the street.

This truth of distribution applies to my words (and the words of any other blog writer) as well.

On one end (at the beginning of the distribution curve) I’ve written blog posts with 50 to 100 words.

On the other end (at the end of the distribution curve), I’ve written blog posts with 1000 to 2500 words.

And in the middle, on average, I’ve written posts with 300 to 500 words.

Some math before I make my larger point: In the last four years, I’ve published 848 blog posts. If on average I’ve written 500 words per post, which comes to 424,000 words I’ve published in total since starting in 2013. And it might even be a little higher than that, due to posts not published.

424,000 words.

In all that time, I haven’t collected as many email subscribers as I would like.

I also haven’t collected as many engaged readers as I would like.

And this is the trouble with the Internet in general and blog writing in particular.

It begs the questions:

  • Why write on a blog you own, everyday if no one (or very few) are reading and engaging with you on your own platform and instead are continuing to read and respond on other platforms (i.e. Facebook or Medium)?
  • Why continue to build on land that you own when you’re the only one in the house?

I’ve been thinking about these two corollary questions a lot lately, because people often get excited when I talk about the blog, but then, when I point out that it requires you to be engaged with me, in order for it to work at the emotional and psychological level, I get…

…well, I get the responses that you would think I would get.

I’ve been thinking about these questions as I’ve been watching shared, walled, social media gardens devolve into spaces of short-form thinking, and long-form hubris.

I’ve been thinking about these questions as I build a platform that may not be for everyone–but that just might be for YOU.

424,000 words.

Responses, engagement, critical thinking, emotional intelligence: These are the things that matter, and whether writing, teaching, video making, or podcast recording, I hope that you will stay in the meaty part of the distributions curve of listening, engaging and responding.

Can We Have Civility

Can we have civility when we don’t agree on what’s true and what’s not?

When we hold on to our worldviews, and when they become more than merely window dressing, and they become integrated into our overall identities, we can find it incredibly difficult to engage with others civilly.

So, we resort to not talking, talking about mere banalities, or talking about distractions that mean nothing at all.

When we are unwilling to hear different perspectives on the facts that we hold dear, we lose the ability to be flexible when the fundamentals that underlie those facts change.

As fundamentals always do.

When we are unwilling to acknowledge that there might be different outcomes to difficulties, conflicts, and competitions that might just be as good for just as many people as the outcomes that we favor, then we become concretely encased in the pursuit of outcomes.

And everything else be damned.

Can we have civility if we are unable, unwilling, and incapable, of going outside of our worldviews, perspectives, and preferred outcomes toward what another person may value?

When we are wedded tighter to the secure arrogance that theater, spectacle, and display inevitably provide, rather than being wedded inexorably to humility, grace, and forgiveness, we will be constantly surprised by what outcome “wins” and what outcome “loses.”

And we will allow our capacity to engage in civility to erode.

When we are more concerned with the freedom to be expressive, rather than the responsibility of soberly and judiciously informing another party of the truth, then we will allow ourselves to fall into incivility.

And our communication culture will erode into communication anarchy.

Can we have civility in the process of moving toward communication anarchy?

Conflicts—based in values, identities, worldviews, and emotions—are sure to become more damaging and deleterious when we cannot separate far enough from people whose values, identities, worldviews, and emotions, (and maybe even existence) we find to be odious above all else.

The News Continuum

There’s always been news. There’s always been a continuum of what’s considered news by audiences and what’s not.

But what’s been lacking has been information, wisdom, and knowledge.

The continuum of what’s news has been debated for years by those delivering the content, and is now heating up with accusations of biases, “fake” news, propaganda, and “false flags.”

Of course, with the rise of social media, it has become infinitely easier for all manner of actors without the best of intentions, to engage in the process of deciding what’s news and what’s not.

The continuum, though, breaks down like this:

 

“not news” – Seemingly “obvious” information that very few people find relevant, interesting, or factual, but that some find to be a resource. Information that is classified as “not news” usually is dismissed by whatever mainstream reporting outlet seeks to gain power from holding onto it.

“fake news” – What used to be classified as propaganda at the most extreme end and gossip at the least extreme end, “fake news” is a term that’s currently being thrown around with abandon, not because the information is spurious (it might well be) but because the distributor of the information is perceived as being biased.

“false news”—This is information that isn’t “obvious” but also isn’t “non-obvious.” It is the information of a cloistered group of people (or a tribe) who have insider knowledge and seek to use their access to distributors and purveyors of news to sow the information to a broader public that isn’t privy to their knowledge. “false news” exists not only in the gray areas between who’s “in” and who’s “out,” but also it exists as a weapon and a wall to keep people silent—or ignorant—of all the facts of a situation.

“news” – Is exactly that: Information that is new that provides facts to an audience unaware of the facts before. This is in the middle of the spectrum, for two reasons: One, in an information-saturated culture, it’s hard to determine what audiences know and don’t know more now than ever before. Two, as audience choice of what information they have access to, has gone up, audience attention spans have gone down.

“old news” – Is information that seems to have gained traction by audiences coming to a consensus that they are bored of hearing about it. In the modern media landscape, that which is old is determined by how few clicks it gets from the audience.

“new news” –This is the hardest to describe, identify, and attain in an information landscape dominated by Google. No information seems “new” to an audience trained on a diet of irony, sarcasm, and short attention. “new news” should inspire and delight and expose information, wisdom, and knowledge never before considered.

The drivers of all of this are the audience. And the conflict between the audience, and the people with the cameras, the audio equipment, the websites, the networks, and the bandwidth is going to get more and more divisive as audiences drain the lifeblood of attention away from what used to be universally agreed upon as news, and move on to create their own identities, outlets, and perspectives.

And they do so without asking for permission, or forgiveness.