Zoom Doom
One of the many ‘transitions’ in this faux pandemic has been in the way people are allowed to, supposed to, and indeed forced to communicate with each other.
Gone are the days where people welcome personal contact, in-person meetings and social events. The terror campaign has been a success. Many people clearly even find it difficult to pass by another hapless soul on the street. We have been convinced that we are all a danger to one another. It is a profound step backwards in our evolution as a species, and it is no coincidence that it also is directly in opposition to our evolutionary history and the means by which we have survived and even thrived as a species.
When people are full of fear of any kind, but especially fear of each other, they are easy to control.
Never mind the tragic loss of intimacy, this mandated default mode of social avoidance will leave its mark on people of all ages for years and years to come, as we grapple with somehow rediscovering our social nature.
Gone also are the days when leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt would tell their citizens not to give in to fear even though there was obvious existential danger to some of them. Should Churchill have told Londoners to evacuate London during the blitzkrieg? Is he not responsible for the huge amounts of deaths by not telling them to leave? Or is it possible there is another more courageous way of approaching fear that is at the root of why we have survived as a species?
We have entered the age of control and surveillance, where fear is used as a method of control by Governments and institutions, backed by a phalanx of people and tech apps used as enforcement. The pathetic New York Governor Cuomo today said “I am more afraid of Covid19 than anything in my life”.
Really? Has he faced so little in his entitled life that a cold virus is IT? Or is it more likely that he realizes that he holds the keys to the Fear that can allow him to manipulate his electorate so easily?
Interestingly, in the Soviet Union version of this reign of terror, the people may have obeyed the Government manipulation, but they never embraced it. Unfortunately, our culture has now fully acquiesced to this new directive, the new ‘normal’. To show any reluctance to bend the knee to the fear is a major transgression. It is an invitation to be labelled as an outcast.
One of the specific evils in the new norm is something that aptly rhymes with Boom and Doom - it is called Zoom. It is the miracle new way of being up close and personal yet so far away. Words can be heard, faces can be seen, and people can feel that they have literally phoned it in, yet there is no danger of contamination.
How wonderful? Indeed.
I have heard the believers and fearful all state enthusiastically that Zoom is a wonderful thing. After all, they opine, it is so convenient and so effective.
Here is the problem. At the root of communication is something more than just words. There is a physical and psychological element to communicating that is completely lost and altered by Zoom. The larger the group becomes, the more the failure is apparent. When people speak, they feel too present, and when they do not speak, there is no presence. The group-think mentality that is the cause of so much human misery is exaggerated. People feel less inclined to become the focus on a screen than they would if simply speaking in a room with the same people.
Would the French Revolution ever have happened on Zoom? Of course not.
I have seen ghastly Labour agreements pushed through by Zoom in my work, the affected people sitting by silently feeling unable to assemble, unable to comment, unable to object. Zoom prohibits the all important gauge of the ‘feel of the room’ that is at the core of democracy. The Committee hacks, authoritarians and Union bosses rule on Zoom.
The Government rules by fiat with no legislative assembly allowed. Bureaucrats of all kinds rise to an unapologetic importance, and disagreement and discussion fall by the wayside.
Technology turned against the people, and people lose.