In looking back over my Invisible Stick Theory post I realized that I had written about only a small part of the overall influences that have brought mankind to its current state. I feel compelled to talk a little about another aspect of the invisible stick that I didn't touch upon. I call it "The Loss of Guidance".
What is "The Loss of Guidance"? Simply put it is the abandoning or removal of traditional influences and subsequent replacement with tenants of the invisible stick. Over the last 100 years the world has changed in a great many ways. Most would say that humanity has made positive strides towards the future with the introduction of technologies that we now use on a daily basis. To certain extent this isn't an incorrect judgement, it's true that I enjoy cars, airplanes, television, telephones, the internet, etc. but I temper my love for these things with the knowledge that they can no more make me a better person than a rock or a stick can. So I am not here to discuss the ramifications of a world with TV or how the Internet is killing true knowledge and wisdom, rather I have decided to discuss what we lose as humans due to the technological society that we live in today.
Firstly though a note: I would like to point out that I feel that much of the problems of society today can be boiled down to the interference of government in personal affairs, and as such in a world without interference we might not suffer from quite the same effects as we do from technology.
The Loss of Guidance is the loss of all those things that turned fairly-good children into good adults. Would a Spartan father have told his son to Google sword fighting? Would Plato and Aristotle have told their students to get a kindle app for their iPhone in order to read the latest theories on life? Would a monk have typed out the bible in Arial Font and made 200 copies on the printer at FedEx Kinkos? Would a dairy farmer in the Midwest tell his wife to get in the minivan and go get a gallon of milk?
Technology is a double-edged sword, on the one hand man finds himself tied to the convinience of having everything at arms length, but the humanity of...well...humanity is lost by not knowing about the world around us in a more personal way.
Examples:
I can tell you how many people died in a suspected terrorist attack, but I can't tell who my next door neighbor is. I know when my favorite sitcom is coming on but I need facebook to remind me when my friend's birthdays are. Instead of talking to someone face-to-face I prefer to text them. When I need help with an assignment in school I wikipedia the subject instead of asking my dad, or going to the library. When I come home from work I sit and watch a landscaping show instead of going out and planting my own garden. Instead of knowing where my food comes from I trust that the government will keep me healthy, and so on and so on.
As a species we are losing our historical identities in favor of a more global view. If Queen Victoria did something in England over 100 years ago, a man in Arizona may not hear about it for months, if ever. If the Queen of England is grabbed inappropriately by a celebrity today I can read about it 10 minutes after it happened online. What were once just stories about the world of men have in fact now become ongoing concerns for us on a daily basis. Why should I care about what's going on in the Middle East? Why should Angelina Jolie's life be a subject of discussion between myself and others? Why does it matter what the President's been doing while on vacation in Hawaii? And why do I care about the idiotic redneck who tried to jump a house in a snow mobile? The truth is, I shouldn't care at all, I will most likely never meet these people or deal with them on a one-on-one basis. They shouldn't preoccupy my thinking nor should they be of concern to me in my daily life. I can't afford to take on the extra burden of the global issues that I most likely will not change and which ultimately never affect JUST me. I should focus closer to home and realize where my focus should be. But mankind chooses to fail more often then we choose to succeed.
So what then is lost because of technology and the world around us today?
Families are decimated because of the world today. 50-60% of all couples get divorced. Children cannot be taught in schools because they respect nothing, they are killing each other and themselves because no one told them that it was wrong, or even that they were loved. Parents have consciously and unconsciously given over their parental responsibilities to schools, television, popular culture, and the internet. I again reiterate that I am not against these technologies, however I feel that many people think they come to represent the replacement of familial obligations. Indeed it is hard for parents to even be an influence to their children. With work obligations these days both parents may be working, kids get shuffled into day care...then later left to their own devices until the parents come home too exhausted to cook dinner and too beat down by their job to want to answer their children's cries for help. Child counselors, psychologists, and medications have replaced parental love and guidance. But sadly this is not the only reason we're messed up as a species.
The family's destruction is a small part of the much larger community decimation agenda. Not too far back if a neighbor saw a child doing something wrong they'd go out on their front porch and say something. Now-a-days, the neighbor says nothing to the child for fear of retaliation from the child or the parent, fear of retaliation from the state (Child Abuse etc.)or they simply decide to call the police and turn something simple into something very dangerous and potentially life-threatening.
The loss of family and community also affects development at school. Teachers now fear student reprisals, outbursts and even violence. Metal detectors and police create a small prison system where children must go to learn. Gone are the days when kids came and went from classes in a happy atmosphere, where walking home from school wasn't a struggle against bullies and violence and where disputes were settled with words and sometimes fists, but never with the intent to kill or seriously injure another. Romance wasn't about who could get pregnant first, and children dressed their age.
We did this to ourselves, we allowed it to happen. Try as you might to argue for the current system, either as a necessity or inevitability, the fact remains that we as a species are not in a good place, and I feel that this is due in large part to the destruction of those positive influences that have shaped mankind since it first took steps in the deserts of Africa. Our first teachers were our families, then our community, and then our educators. Our teachers were never our technology, our government, or the corporations. These institutions work in concert to remove all of our free will and separate us from the true influences, because they want to be the only thing we listen to. If we listened to our parents then Eminem wouldn't sell 10 million records, and if we'd listened to our neighbors we wouldn't be in juvenile detention for vandalism, breaking and entering, or assault. If we listened to real educators we wouldn't be struggling as a nation to compete in the world economy. If we stopped listening to our governments we'd realize that raising a child is like breaking a stallion, not coddling a kitten with an ego. If we stopped listening to our televisions we'd know that our world doesn't need to be this way if we decide to change who we are, rather than what car we drive.
The Loss of Guidance is a key component to the success of The Invisible Stick.
