Solus Vox Desertus

The very fact that you are reading this serves to undercut the argument I am about to make, but it's still a point I think is very relevant to many things that many people do.  It is oft-repeated that people are social beings, requiring social nourishment and contact to bring meaning and context to our lives.  And while simply being in the presence of others does fulfill some of this need, the role of communication cannot be over-emphasized.  I have touched on the importance of language before, but here more generally communication is what I'm referring to (as any psychology undergraduate can tell you, there are a whole host of non-verbal tics, clues, and signs that our brains pick up on without us knowing).  Communication is required for understanding, which is required for trust, which is required in general for most human interactions.  From the basic 'social contract' theory of government (where we rely on our fellow citizens to obey laws and rules that we also follow), to deeper levels of trust, such as that between friends, family and lover.

Communication is a necessary ingredient of social interaction, but I feel that the context, content, and expression is changing rapidly in the modern world.  During my formative teenage years I read near back to back Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World, and while both (to some degree) deal with the interaction between the individual and society or the government at large, another important component of these stories is the use of language and communication in society.  There was a passage in particular in Huxley's tome that struck a very deep chord with me, something I've felt to this day.  A conversation is occurring between two characters, with one expressing: "I'm thinking of a queer feeling I sometimes get, a feeling that I've got something important to say and the power to say it - only I don't know what it is, and I can't make any use of the power."  While that may play to smug feelings of uniqueness and importance we may have (I'm not the only one am I?), it also crystallizes a key component of the modern internet society.

Mass communication has shifted the balance of communication, from conversation to dictation.  A news anchor reaches millions of people, and the disparity between what is received to what we can contribute I believe has started to create a sense of vexation in society at large.   A longing need to be heard.  So what has been the response?  More one sided communication, but on a much larger and personal scale.  We have abandoned the content and context of communication for the satisfaction of being heard.  But I'm not sure we are really being heard.  Much like John the Baptist, I feel like we are all simply crying out to a desert.  This isn't to say that there aren't sympathetic listeners, but rather that the driving need to be heard is something that modern forms of communication don't sate.  We have facebook status updates, 140 character tweets, text messaging, live-journals, emailing, blogging, and video journals on youtube.  Context of the communication aside, the proliferation and adoption of these services shows how deeply we want to be heard.

I won't pretend to be immune; in fact it'd be quite foolish considering you're reading this on a blog at the moment, but it seems we all want to be famous.  We all want to have people know about us, and hear our story.  Like Gilgamesh who had his name passed on through the generations, fame can be seen as a shortcut to immortality, a chance to leave something that will last.  However, this itself is foolish, because as time goes on, our heroes are legends start to get crowded, they become recycled and stereotypical, with a few archetypes appearing here and there.  We want to be heard because we are hearing constantly, and much like the feedback received from a microphone left in front of a speaker, the noise will just get louder and louder.

Perhaps it's hypocritical to make the remark, but I felt it had to be said.  So here dear reader, a toast to clearer, deeper, and meaningful two-way communication.  And if no one reads this, I guess I'm just another person shouting in the desert, and I apologize for the racket.