Communication Breakdown

In past blogs cynicism and sarcasm have played an important role when opining about a particular state of affairs. Uses of these nouns occasionally bring perspective to the absurd. Some folks will tell you that this cynicism stems from a reservoir of pent up anger. It can be said that cynicism comes from disillusioned idealism. It may be idealistic to expect people to do their jobs that they’re paid to do competently, what, with the Peter Principle so embedded in our employment culture. However, if it’s idealistic to expect people to communicate, Christ, then call me unrealistic.
After the Civil War, once the Industrial Revolution got it’s muscle back; the wealthy thought it best to not only have a home in the cities where they were in close proximity to their businesses, but to also own a weekend retreat, an oasis if you will, from the soot, filth, noise, and crime of the metropolis. The fifty blocks from residence to factory no longer provided sufficient insulation from the world of rich to the world of the impoverished. Save the shit holes for the Irish and German immigrants, and the African-Americans.
An economic middle class was beginning to form at this time, America was shifting from an agrarian fueled economy to and industrial based economy. Wage earners were gaining ground in terms of respect. Land ownership was no longer the determining factor for voter registration. What you made now had as much bearing as what you owned.
Early in the twentieth century a new wave of immigration took place as Italians, and Eastern Europeans provided the manpower for industry to flourish. These laborers and artisans resided in the densely populated cities. This made for easy access to their places of employment. A bond was formed as most residences housed extended families, as well as multiple generations. Socializing with neighbors was the primary activity one engaged in after the whistle blew. Small local business owners became friends.
The wealthy were now moving out in droves. With automobile travel, the construction of bridges, railroads, tunnels, and eventually a subway system, commuting became a way of life.
The invention of the telephone allowed for people to keep in more frequent contact than ever before. Letter writing was still considered the most proper, and acceptable form of communication. Not all that the Great Depression brought was misery. Affordable housing appeared on the landscape. Not just in cities, but in the suburbs. Tract housing let people buy into their small piece of the American dream. Everlasting friendships were forged among neighbors. Block parties, and party line telephones provided entertainment, and kept everyone up to date on the local gossip.
World War II provided the middle class and their exodus to the suburbs a huge kick in the ass in the form of Levittown and like housing developments. Sixteen million returning GI’s needed jobs and places to live. Planned communities like Levittown provided both employment opportunities and affordable housing. By the 1950’s we were a truly mobile society.
The passage of the Interstate Highway Act connected America but severed ties. Neighbors moved away, generations now moved on away from their families. Often the only connections that remained were phone calls, an occasional visit, and Christmas cards. When a college education became a staple instead of an exception for middle class households, children moved away and stayed away. In many areas we live on top of each other, with zero lot lines and postage stamp yards, it’s no wonder we don’t catch the flu when the person next door sneezes. Yet many of us couldn't tell you who our neighbors are. Thank goodness for technology!
Today, we should be grateful we have all the devices that allow us to contact anyone at anytime. We have cell phones, which we’re never without. The thought of leaving the house without it is unthinkable. How often have we returned home to retrieve the indispensable little dickens? And just twenty-five years ago only the very well-to-do had such an item. We have the Internet, allowing us to e-mail anyone, anywhere at anytime. We have cell phones that have the Internet, ain’t life grand? We can put one call on hold while we take another while we’re scratching our lazy asses. We can text, we can e-mail, we can call, and we can send videos of what we’re doing in case the spoken word isn’t adequate. Yet we are further disconnected than ever before.
We also have call waiting, we have answering machines, we have caller ID, all in the name of keeping people out. Don’t want to talk to someone, let the machine get it, or let it go to voice mail. Don’t want to, or are to lazy, rude, ill mannered, answer e-mail or phone messages? Delete it, fuck’em. There are a few folks I’d like to delete altogether.
We have Facebook and MySpace so if a phone call, a text, an e-mail, doesn’t put you in contact with someone, you can contact them through these Internet connecting websites. Both have instant messaging, so you chat! Wow! But still, many of us don’t acknowledge one another.
This happens frequently in business. The level of inconsideration is unfathomable. I understand this comes from the skewed sense of self-import some feel they’re entitled, but the bottom line is, if you don’t want people to contact you, don’t give them so many ways to do so. That way you won’t look like such a douche bag, if you care at all.
In the past thirty days I have e-mail Congressman Connie Mack, and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. I have e-mailed the White House twice. I have e-mailed an editor at the Miami Herald. I have written and sent a hard copy to Congressman Mack. I have called an editor at the Herald and the Sun-Sentinel. I have sent numerous media packs to various colleges around the nation. Not one response. Not one form letter, or form e-mail. Not one “Thank you for taking the time…blah blah blah” Not one, “Don’t contact us again…” nothing. Congressman Wasserman-Schultz has been ill, but she has plenty of help I assume. With all the technology at our fingertips, and the abundance an aides and interns to call upon for assistance, you’d think that there’d be some sort of correspondence. Let's see them try to contact me if they need my vote or support. I’d even settle for “Go fuck yourself,” rather than nothing at all to remind me of my insignificance. Yet President Obama stated that we should all band together. How can we when apathy and inconsideration are so rampant?
I am not some self-righteous asshole. I have done my share. I commented just the other evening, that I live less than ten feet from my neighbor whose backyard abuts mine, yet I have no idea who that person is. I’ve lived in my home for ten years. For all I know it might not even be the same person living there as when I moved in. It’s a good thing the next generation doesn’t behave with each other the same way my generation does.
They call each other, they text each other, they send each other e-mails, and 99 times out of a 100 there’s a response. Well our generation better wake up. Answer your letters and e-mails. Return your phone calls; you never know who left you a message. Maybe it’s someone from the next generation, and they aren’t going to tolerate our snobbish, rude, ill-mannered, isolationist bullshit. It may be idealistic to think that one day they’ll be running the show, and they’ll remember who dissed them.
So call me a cynic if you will, but for Christ sake, at least have the common courtesy to fucking call to tell me so! Maybe cynicism is just idealism that’s had the shit kicked out of it.