Returning From Travel: Back Down to Earth
I have been away for more than a week on a vacation in Europe. I’m back home now, but, as I reintegrate into my mundane existence, I’m weighed down by introspection.
Travel often marks a break from stultifying routine, providing an opportunity for both a respite and a reset. I have returned from my latest trip in a ruminative mood, concerned about the uncertainty and volatility that have subverted our expectations and disturbed the foundations of our contemporary reality. We find ourselves in a period of profound dislocation, when the past is disputed, the present is febrile, and future is potentially terrifying.
As I’ve said before, nobody has a foolproof crystal ball; nobody can see what’s coming around the corner tomorrow, much less what might happen months or years from now. Too many unknowable contingencies can strike suddenly, from moment to moment and day to day. Many of these contingencies are arbitrary, products of human volition, which means they are often fickle, gratuitous, and entirely avoidable. These are the things that we — some of us, anyway — inflict on ourselves.
In posts that I intend to write in the days and weeks to come, I will explore areas such as accountability, culpability, and responsibility. That means the discussion will turn to ethics, a minefield of potential destruction and self-destruction in the digital age, imbued as it is with the calumny and vituperation characteristic of anonymized and impersonal social media. I won’t be indulging in strident personal insults or rabid partisanship. Instead, I want to encourage a long-overdue reassertion of candor, maturity, moderation, respect, and — for want of a better term — adult equanimity. In our society, in our interpersonal discussions and dialogues, we can’t go on the way we’re going. We can still have humor, of course — a sense of humor is absolutely essential to our comity and sanity — but it should be grounded in dignity and humility.
The technology industry is not immune to the vagaries of society. In the last couple years, the technology realm, which is intimately connected to and embedded within contemporary culture and society, has lurched and careened off course, pulled into unfamiliar territory by the forces of social gravity. What we need is not so much a reality check — though we need that, too — but an ethical check, an honest reappraisal of who we are and what we stand for in a fast-changing world.
No Time for Reticence
Some people these days are embarrassed to talk of ethics and morality. I’m not embarrassed or reluctant to say what I believe needs to be said. I don’t care where you stand on the political spectrum: It’s possible for to have a meaningful, even vigorous, debate without threatening to physically harm one another. People can and should agree to disagree, understanding implicitly that there’s no harm or malice in holding differing opinions.
Regardless of whether we agree or disagree with one another, however, we need to return to a basic civility, a recognition that we owe each other mutual respect and reciprocal human dignity. The golden rule exists, in one form or another, in nearly every religion and belief system, but we somehow find it difficult to honor it in practice. It should be a simple matter, shouldn’t it, practicing the ethics of reciprocity? How hard can it be to treat others as one would want to be treated by them?
Let’s try harder to make it happen, not just here but everywhere. We’re in a dangerous time. Even if human beings might have an innate need to define themselves in relation to their enemies, we should still see our foes as fellow human beings, with whom we can attempt to empathize, if not always excuse.
In addition to the usual fare, which I will continue to address, I’ll be touching during the next little while on what we might call, ironically or otherwise, _big questions. _I apologize in advance for any discomfort or inconvenience these digressions might cause, but I would not be able to look myself in the mirror — not that looking in the mirror is an appealing diversion at my age — if I failed to call attention to what I see starkly as impending danger.
Bad things happen when good people absent themselves and acquiesce. I don’t want to be on the wrong the side of history, like so many people were nearly a century ago.