Within the past week, national politics suddenly got personal.
In his State of the Union speech, President Obama called out the Supreme Court justices for ruling to overturn a boatload of campaign finance rules (and Justice Samuel Alito bucked tradition and gave it right back).
Then, the president got his Parliament on by taking questions from Republican representatives — and offering frank answers in return.
And finally, to cap it all off, participation came back to the people through YouTube videos and town hall meetings.
So politics didn’t get personal in the way one might think. Instead of baseless disagreement, there was constructive criticism — and instead of insults, there was dialogue.
And there is nothing more personal than that type of meaningful conversation.
Just ask Jon Stewart, who will be paying a visit to Fox News today to have a pleasant, one-on-one discussion with Bill O’Reilly. (Maybe that’s a weak example. But you get my point.)
Unfortunately, human interaction is no longer the norm.
In a telling bit of “breaking news” earlier this week, well-known TV reporter Ann Curry found herself stuck in an elevator in the New York Times building. Trapped with her were a number of big names in new media. Ultimately, the big story was not that these great journalistic minds shared ideas or forged friendships or banned together during their hour of suspended isolation (all of which they did, to some extent). Instead, the fact that they Tweeted and videotaped the event became the lede.
As a society, we are addicted to virtual interaction to the point of dependency. According to one estimate, “We now spend between five and six hours per day on media, and that is the second biggest human activity after sleeping.” In true ironic fashion, I found that link on Facebook.
A good friend of mine wrote a blog post recently that I think speaks perfectly to this point. An excerpt:
There are a lot of social lines in our society that divide us. We know the big ones–race, gender, religion, socioeconomic status–but we often overlook the less obvious ones. Instead of saying “Hi” to people as they walk by, we type away furiously on our Blackberries. We leave a “safety seat” when we sit down in a room, afraid of sitting directly next to a stranger. And, when we go into a store, we grab our items, pay and leave. Instead of reaching over the counter, we allow it to divide us.
These observations are not revolutionary, to be sure — especially not in the age of social media and mobile technology and the iPad.
But what is revolutionary is the idea that, by failing to engage in person-to-person interaction, we’ve all become a little less aware of our collective humanity. Only by regaining that sense of humanity can we again come to respect each other, and only with that respect can we achieve the progress we seek.
Things may be getting personal, but let’s hope this is just the beginning.
