Look me in the eyes

I have a theory that our society is both too connected and not connected enough. We are too connected in the sense that we can immerse ourselves in news from across the country or across the world, but we often don't have any sense of the undercurrents and background behind the stories. And yet, we have so much information at our fingertips, we assume we know what is going on. That is how we are too connected.

As for how we are not connected enough, we know a lot of people and hear stories of many more, so it can become hard to assign individuality. It is much too easy to become callous and forget that these people have faces, stories, and feelings. We do not live near them, nor do we see them at work or the store, so we are not confronted with their reality.

That is how we are not connected enough.

For myself, I am working on a phrase to ground me whenever I catch myself falling into one of the above pitfalls.

"Would I say the say the same thing if I had to look them in the eyes?"

I have my moments of a Social Darwinist attitude. If people are not competent enough to survive, it is the way of nature that they are eliminated from the gene pool. But if confronted with someone who fits the profile, would I voice my attitude? I don't know.

If I don't like the health reform and say that those of us who work should not have to support those who don't... would I hold to that if I had someone unemployed in front of me? What if I knew that person's reasons for unemployment? Or what if that person had a serious illness and got caught in the "doughnut hole" of coverage? Would I stand firm on principle?

If someone is ranting on an online post in a way that I don't like, do I jump in and start firing back? Or do I moderate my words, remembering that just because I don't have to face the person directly, that doesn't mean that words don't still hurt?

Since I cannot take one position from a distance and another from closer in without becoming a hypocrite, I feel that this approach will only benefit me and those around me. If we all conducted our lives as if every interaction were face-to-face, I wonder what differences we would see...