Is this it? What about this: What about if we looked at these situations in terms of needs? By this, its not a matter of what we giving up for x or y but rather what do we need to get done? How are we going to change the world today? What would society look like then? Fundamentally, cost/benefit analyses will only take you as far as the invisible hand. There’s work to be done and its our job to do it. So, am I going to go to that movie? Maybe, we’ll see where I’m called.

Compliments to Julie Johnson

In his dystopian novel, Gibson creates a world, which, surprisingly, could be our near future Technology has proliferated so much so that there is nothing bad or good in the world but all is equal. Morality has been erased by technological improvement, taking away the consequences of our actions. Instead, having no overarching structure or consciousness, people are led by their individual desires to look out for number one. This creates a nightmarish scene of coercion, backstabbing and fear with the desires of the strong ruling over the rest. To quote Rousseau, “I would have above all, have fled a republic, in which people… foolishly reserved the administration of civil affairs and the execution of their own laws.”[1] Both Plato and Rousseau believe that man cannot handle true democracy’s investment power in the common people. Furthermore, in this digression to a state of nature, people are relegated to exist as the sum of their actions. As Molly states in Neuromancer “Anybody any good at what they do, that what they are, right? You gotta jack, I gotta tussle.”[2] In this worldview, there is no meaning beyond what you think of yourself. If a charismatic leader has strong enough desires to rule they are able to. Freedom to act is replaced by oppression. Here, “Things aren’t different. Things are things.”[3] Absolute relativism has thus taken over in a Darwinian struggle for power.

So again, what is the solution? How does one prevent our society from turning into that of Neuromancer’s? Here is where Plato and Rousseau part ways presenting two contrasting views of society. Plato believes that there are different classes of people and that each class should be ‘socialized’ to create a well-functioning society. This means raising children outside of the family structure and guarding all the youth encounter. In this system, people give up their personal identity and subject themselves to the meritocracy in enforcing their “gold, silver and bronze roles”.[4] However, the same problems still exist as in the democracy turned tyranny. Now there is forced coercion from the philosopher kings instead of those with strongest desires as in Rousseau’s state of nature. Rousseau takes a more diplomatic view to the question. He states that man enters the social contract “to guard the weak from oppression, to restrain the ambitious, and secure to every man the possession of what belongs to him.”[5] Man sees that he needs a well-ordered society in which to operate. This is the beginnings of the answer to the question of the world’s problems and its descent to tyranny.

To expand upon this, a tangible example can be seen in the September 28th issue of The New York Times. The articles portrays student co-ops and the culture surrounding them. It states that co-ops have “grown up in reaction to the alienating aspects of modern campus life, where the increased presence of technology, while enabling certain kinds of connection, has had a hand in limiting others.” This article speaks directly to the issues manifest in the world of Neuromancer. Although people are more connected through cell phones and facebook there still is a lack of interaction and true friendship. Obviously, the answer to the world’s problems is more than student co-ops but the natural desire for community and order inherent in man puts him on the right track. Going beyond Rousseau, in order for this community to be able to occur man needs to take his desire for community further and take on a heart of service. It is from this desire to serve and have close friendships with others that government based upon freedom can exist which saves the world from tyranny. In friendship, we can determine laws together and not as a separate bodies, imposing laws on one another.

However, in order to make this happen we need to the create whole new society. This new society looks like taking the idea of democracy and that all people are created equal and really applying them in light of holding on to freedom and a moral framework. In this new society, is the leaders job to facilitate conversation amongst people and to always have the people’s will on their mind. It is their job to make consultations of the entire group able to happen. In this, it is not about campaigning to get elected but rather in one’s ability to serve. It is only from this service of one another that one can be free. With this, we can look at the life of Christ as a model. The Son of God came down and became one of us to serve the poor. He, the leader, washed his disciples feet and being sinless died so that all may live. That is how to have a well ordered society. Its not about some big government institution stepping in to solve all of our problems but it is us stepping up and being leaders who serve. This is the ideal of government. We need to have a social consciousness in which we look our for our brothers and sisters and serve them. In this attitude of service is the only way to promote this freedom. Others acknowledge our gifts and talents and create an environment in which we can grow. Here, people can be truly be who they are in a society where everyone looks out for eachother On the contrary, if everyone only looks out for themselves naturally things clash and there is no common framework in which to operate. Furthermore, all this relates back to man’s apathy. If he is only caring about himself that is why he is apathetic. This is why the mentality of “whatever,” “who cares” “just do it” comes in to play. People only concerned for themselves seem to have strange conundrum of not knowing what it is they should do and who they should be. They do not look to society and have roles models of how to act. They do not have a social consciousness of what is going on in the world. They do not see all the problems of the world and how much the world is really a mess. However, with good solid relationships with one another we can see how to serve onanother and how to grow ourselves.

This new society needs a lot of common groundwork that needs to be laid. People need to particularly need to fight their natural inclinations taking self-preservation too far and thinking that they have to just do it themselves. People need to learn how to participate in the conversation. This happens on a couple levels. It happens with people learning how to formulate articulate ideas about the world around them and themselves. In terms of the world around them, this can happen in schools. Studying the causality and the fundamental questions about why we are here is how this occurs. It is not about reading x’s interpretation of Aquinas, or y’s idea of what Aristotle was trying to say but forming their own ideas and having something intelligent to say. This happens in discussing in an ordered fashion what the arguments are on the table and what their own reactions are to them. Grappling with these big ideas is how people learn. Furthermore, it can open their eyes for how to serve other people better and what their needs are which in turn helps them grow personally. It helps them be able to have meaningful conversations with one another and to really be able to share their life. It is only through sharing life and conversation that people can honor one another and participate in the true freedom of democracy. This can be as simple as asking someone “Tell me about your day” to dropping what one is doing and going to help out their neighbor who needs help re-doing their roof. Through this, one can grow in how to change the world. All of these things are just some of the keys for how to avoid the world of Necromancer. However, this new society takes one to be completely sold out. It cannot be done half-hearted. As in everything, all of us must do our part to make it succeed. It takes hard work and humility but it is how to get things done. We must trust our brothers and sisters and serve in love as Christ our Lord.

[1] “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, pg. 6

[2] “Neuromancer” William Gibson pg. 50

[3] Ibid. pg. 259

[4] “Plato’s Republic” Book III

[5] “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, pg. 6

What happens to a dream deffered?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

“Literacy Limps Into the Kill Zone”
By Tony Long, Wired News.

The very nature of e-mail (which, along with first cousins IM and text messaging, is an undeniably handy means of chatting) encourages sloppy “penmanship,” as it were. Its speed and informality sing a siren song of incompetent communication. But it’s not enough to simply vomit out of your fingers. It’s important to say what you mean clearly, correctly and well. It’s important to maintain high standards. It’s important to think before you write. The technology of instant — or near-instant — communication works against that. But it’s not as if you can’t surmount this obstacle. You only have to be willing to try.

Technology conspires against language in another, more insidious way: The sheer speed with which things move these days has given us the five-second attention span, the 10-second sound bite and the splashy infographic that tells you very little, if anything, while fooling you into thinking that you are now somehow informed. (Of course, if you need more than 10 seconds to “get” Mariah Carey, well, shame on you.)

Sadly, this devalues the thoughtful essayist and the sheer linguistic joy of the exposition. And the language dies a little more each day. Then there’s the havoc wrought on spelling and punctuation by all this casual communication. You can’t lay all that at the feet of technology, of course. Grammar skills have been eroding in this country for years and that has a lot more to do with lax instruction than it does with e-mail or instant messaging. (Math is a different matter. No student should be allowed to bring a calculator into a math class. Ever.)

But couple those deficient grammar skills with the shorthand that’s become prevalent in fast communication (not to mention all those irritating acronyms: LOL, WYSIWYG, IMHO, etc.) and you’ve just struck a match next to a can of gasoline. And people wonder why the tone of e-mail is so easily misunderstood.

Apologists will argue that language isn’t static, that it’s ever-changing and evolving. That’s true. Language does change. Idiomatic English is the product of centuries of social and cultural infusion, a fact that gives modern-day English much of its color and flair But when change does violence to the accepted standards of the king’s English and takes the mother tongue into the realm of the unfathomable, as does almost all jargon coming out of the technology and business worlds, it’s our job as keepers of the grail to drive it back into the dark little hole from whence it came.

If you’ve got some time to kill, you’re welcome to join us, the happy few. Glory!

Therefore, I ask you what ought to be done? How does one make the right decision? If only the clouds would part and a voice come down from the heavens pronouncing, “Do this! You won’t be happy any other way.” But I suppose that again would be a violation of our freedom because it no longer would be a choice but merely fulfilling an obligation. Everything seems to come down to freedom.

Instead, an answer that still recognizes freedom may lie in another idea; discernment. Most of our decisions are not necessarily between good and bad options but they quite often deal with a collection of ideas that are all good. If one is chosen over another, it does not mean that some cataclysmic event will inevitably follow. There is no single, perfect algorithm chock-full of complex multivariable equations in life that one must solve in order to find the paradisiac way to live. The “straight and narrow” is not a formula but is a paradoxical journey along an infinitely variable but immutable road towards our destination.

In all of this, once a well thought out decision has been made, its posibilities should be whole-heartedly utilized. Giving up potentials along the way is the only way to gain them. The only thing worth fearing is inaction. Glory!