Schizoid

The journey from reality starts early …and doesn’t stop.

When little Leo or Megan are old enough to hold a toy they are given a red, plastic copy of a computer. Every time they touch the picture it changes delighting them with color and sound.

Now they are just like Mommy and Daddy and big sister or brother always playing with their phones.

The play continues into school age. The toy has become a real phone. Now, when they pile in the back of the car with their special friends the absolute silence means they are texting each other sitting side by side.

In high school they are able to text undetected and they do. .

In college, professors report an unwillingness to talk no matter how much encouragement they get. Class discussions are few but when forced to communicate this way, the talk often leads to harsh commentary designed to crush an opposing opinion rather than trying to understand it.

The years pass. People live with their computers in their hands. Texting has replaced talking. The years pile up and turn into generations. Those teens are now 30 and 40 somethings. The phones have become a necessity. The necessity a way of life. Forget your phone and the day is a mess of uncertainty.

For so many those phones have become the center of their lives, providing their belief systems, their amusement, their reality.

But they are looking down and missing the flow of life making their reality, no reality at all.

LIVING IN THE POSTFACTUAL AGE

What becomes of reality in a world seduced by technology?

We believe we have invented social media to benefit ourselves. But how often do we scroll endlessly, mindlessly through it—noting this or that or nothing at all…part of us rooted in the reality of our daily lives…pressures, desires, work, money…all of the most common human experiencers…the other part addictively rooted in watching life through a tiny screen.

When we are overcome by social media we no longer can recognize what is real from what is false, what is truth from what is a lie, what are facts from what is fiction.

Two events in the last decade – the Trump Administration and Covid-19 – have been a powerful influence on America by ripping away the veil of familiarity to reveal what we really are – whether we choose to see it, admit it or like it.

Eight hours into the Trump Administration, spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway interviewed on “Meet the Press” was questioned about why the President was so insistent that the crowd at the Inaugural was the largest in history when picture after picture indicated that was simply not true.

And she answered “Well we have alternative facts.” And the commentator said “Alternative facts are lies.” And Kellyanne just changed the subject.

That was the beginning and the end came four years later when the alternative fact was that “…the election was stolen.”

Thanks to endless social media messages 40 million Americans still believe it.

Covid continued the postfactual age with the lie that Covid was nothing more than a different kind of flu…even though the chief purveyor of the Big Lie (keep telling it and people will believe you) clearly knew that this disease was frightening because as he put it privately “… it floats in the air.”

So despite 900,000 deaths, a variant which is causing death to those unvaccinated at a greater rate than Delta did, is causing greater rates of long Covid and is crushing the healthcare system in hospitals in key areas of the country, 38 million Americans refuse to be vaccinated and tens of millions more refuse to wear masks.

We are lost in our phones and in waves of carefully structured and endlessly repeated misinformation all the while looking down, not seeing what is happening to America and so seeming not to care.

THE WAY IT IS

Again, Covid did not cause the decay of the American way nor the problems with the systems that are the foundation of our government and society. They have existed for years, stubbornly resisting poor attempts to correct them.

Nor did Covid cause the isolation that social media introduced when years of looking down into our phones brought us to the point of being alone together.

And so the systemic weaknesses, the realities we didn’t want to see, existed at all levels. Even those few who own so much of the country began looking beyond reality to new ways of living.

Suddenly Musk and Bezos needed to go into space and because of who they are, quickly saw business opportunities.

Oh what money can buy.

Big Pharma, which controls the industry tightly, used that influence to buy time by seeing to it that other Covid vaccines, more historically developed and perhaps safer in the long run, went elsewhere before they could ever come here.

Oh what money can buy.

The cost of gas soars jacking up the price of transporting goods. So food and clothing costs soar. The people of Greenpoint, Brooklyn just received electric bills from Con Edison four times the usual amount.

Will our government do what the government can do and has done in times of crisis, put price ceilings on goods and services?

In this America where money talks and where wealth controls government? Not likely.

And then there is crime in ways and places unknown since the days of the Wild West. In San Francisco, pharmacies are prime targets…shelves are invaded in store after store…thieves get away with a constant barrage of stealing and when they are caught, they are out of jail before the police write up their reports.

In New York, besides the endless gunshots that make NYC seem like Washington DC in the crime-riddled years of the 1990s, supermarkets and bodegas are robbed, smash and run attacks are made on Fifth Avenue fur shops and jewelers, mailboxes are targets in Brooklyn and Fairfield, Ct.

Where is the public outcry? You hear it in minority neighborhoods…but otherwise silence.

And then there is the reality of work and the changes that have become so apparent…if we are looking up and paying attention.

Midtown New York is empty…empty of people, lunch-goers, shoppers, commuters. The big office towers are only 23% occupied by latest count. Major corporations proclaim the end of staying home…but then rescind their deadlines for returning or decide to make those hours “hybrid” some days in, some days home.

In time…Real Estate will flex its muscle and offices will reopen..’there is too much money involved…and money works with money.

POLITICS AS USUAL?

Maybe not.

State legislatures in Republican controlled States are writing laws to not only limit voting opportunities, but naming “Commissions” which will unilaterally decide whether elections at all levels are fairly decided. Never mind the vote count or the margin of victory, the Commissions will decide.

No matter what else is happening politically…generally the usual…Democrats argue among themselves, while Republicans say “No” to everything. The idea that a Commission in as many as 30 States can overthrow an election must be dealt with or our democracy will be challenged as never before in history.

There is an attitude in America fed endlessly by social media that America has divided itself between the educated elite and those without that elevated position.

We believe that the antagonism is not about politics, but about money; about tens of millions of Americans who are sick and tired of the obvious control of money – especially on politics and government decisions that money can buy.

We believe that Donald Trump’s astounding success, came from his simple statement that despite his wealth, wealthy people hated him. From such a simple statement, autocrats are made.

Social media, including Twitter, made it possible for him to play that con on those Americans he knew felt that resentment. From such a simple reality, elections are won.

Our financial, education, healthcare and justice systems are in serious decay. Unless we find genuine answers to improve them, to equalize opportunity. we will remain on the obvious downward swing that has made us debtors to China, buyers in the World’s markets no longer sellers and unable to educate out children to be the citizens they need to be.

The Reality is this: It will take more than putting down our phones. It will take doing, not watching. Unless we start seeing what must be done and do it, we will no longer even be a shadow of what we’ve become.