A lot of problems in both DC and our lives can be fixed by simply talking to each other.
I’ll be the first one to admit it: I have a constant need to be connected. These days, I scroll through Facebook and Twitter almost out of habit. I would say it’s because I have friends all over the country that I’d like to stay in touch with, but truthfully, I could pick up a phone and use it for what it was made for: to call them whenever I want to, and to have a real life conversation. But I don’t. Instead, I communicate with them through social media.
I watched a great short today by Charlene deGuzman and Miles Crawford about the American obsession with technology – particularly phones and social media. And it’s not artistic hyperbole – even when I’m with people, I check my phone out of habit, and now that I’m trying to break that habit, I see how annoying I’ve been to my friends. I’m not saying that technology can’t be good, or that it can’t promote communication – websites such as Upworthy, The Daily Good, and this one have worked incredibly hard on fostering a communicative culture around the internet, and writers such as Steve Roggenbuck are also spreading the gospel of the internet in a positive way. But the fact remains that Americans are still abusing social media in an unsustainable way, and this lack of actual communication could be linked to the problems in our political system.
A lot of the problems within both society and Washington now stem from a complete breakdown in communication. When I hear my parents’ generation talk about the “way things used to be”, it’s generally a lot of eyeroll-worthy advice from people who happened to not be dirt poor during the Reagan era. But there’s a piece of truth to the fact that we – Americans, not just my generation – simply don’t talk to each other the way we used to. Take this from a Lloyd Grove piece written exactly a year ago Friday:
But John Boehner and Harry Reid are constitutional officers of the United States—the Republican speaker of the House and the Democratic Senate majority leader, respectively—so their sulfurous, X-rated squabble last Friday, in the midst of fiscal-cliff negotiations at the White House, had no consequence beyond the further coarsening of political dialogue and a decreased likelihood of bipartisan cooperation in the nation’s capital.
“Go fuck yourself,” Boehner advised Reid as they crossed paths just outside the Oval Office.
“What are you talking about?” Reid asked in surprise.
“Go fuck yourself,” Boehner explained.
Late last year we also saw “Take This Town And Shove It”, a manifesto by Sam Youngman on the big problem that plagues DC: the bubble of information that disconnects people there from the average voter. But when the average voter is trapped in the information bubble – whether it be from TV or Facebook – what do we really expect from our politicians?
While we’re currently riding a wave of civility in Washington following the budget deal, it has to be said that anything would be better than what we’ve been doing the past couple of years. We get the government we deserve, and if we can’t muster up the courage to have a conversation with each other, how can we expect our leaders to?
Photo Credit: Miles Crawford/Charlene deGuzman