Do You Hear What I Hear?

I love technology as much as the next blogger. I see the good in facebook, google wave, and the iPhone, and I've recently (along with our dear Moderator) become well-versed in the 140-character microblogging language of Twitter. The "Gadget Age" presents us with a near-global level of connectedness that not even the 1990's saw coming. We can even share music videos whenever we want!

Speaking of that, your latest bit of reading music is a live performance "Fast Paced World," the title track from the new album by Canadian soul-gospel-folk-samba-country string band-zydeco-Irish dance band The Duhks.

(Another excellent, positive use of technology would be to buy the studio album on iTunes. The Duhks also support sustainable living projects - go team!)

Technology, particularly the Internet, gives us lots of good things - widespread access to media, humor, research, up-to-the-second news, instant video communication with loved ones - whatever you want, you can probably find it. It's even become and essential element in disseminating culture (this short NPR piece describes that phenomenon perfectly).

It also, as with anything, has its vices - I don't need to list them, at least one of them is probably fresh on your mind from some recent newsbyte, but I've talked about this example before.

From Belfast to Carabayllo, from Kenya to Kerala, we're touched by the near-constant flow of zeroes and ones.

Television, Television

As I found myself embroiled in the madness (delightful madness, but madness nonetheless) of the holidays, planning a vacation to Dublin and London, producing a Christmas play, and celebrating with new friends and old, two strange things happened: 1) I lost my Christmas spirit, and 2) "The Truman Show" came on TV - a truly bizarre use of modern technology.

My first thought was that Sir Richard Branson had decided that it counted as a Christmas movie (it was the evening of December 23rd, after all). Already in a bit of a "Bah Humbug" kind of mood, I settled into my armchair to watch. If you don't remember the movie, it's Jim Carrey's 1998 existential classic, about a man (Truman) born and raised within an enormous television studio, starring in an eponymous television program that has been a worldwide hit for the first thirty-odd years of his life. It raises deep questions about the nature of God, religion, and the exploration of life - even "Die Hard" and "Die Hard 2: Die Harder" are easier to peg as Christmas movies.

Information Overload

It got me thinking, though - although far from the Stepford life of Truman, I definitely exist in a world controlled by some outside power, whether it's a voice in clouds or, well, Sir Richard Branson. Instead of a carefully scripted interaction with a news vendor every morning on my way to work, the combined powers of CNN and NPR deliver a constant feed of 140-character summaries to my computer screen, complete with short-form links, in case I want to learn more than "Suspect Charged In Airplane Terrorist Attack http://su.pr/1cu9te." Instead of a perfectly-put-together housewife suggesting that I buy a brand new grinder-slicer-dicer-peeler-pizza cutter-oven-self-defense device, I have the almighty and eternally suggestive iTunes store at my fingertips.

If I've got that much information overload over twelve minutes in the four-parking-space-sized flat I'm living in now, I can only imagine the messages that the community around me are receiving. Northern Ireland, is, for all its troubled past, very squarely in the global "North." Wireless high-speed internet is more than common, and continues to spread like kudzu - up-to-the-second news and communication are ubuquitous. There are more subtle messages present, as well. The schools of Northern Ireland are still overwhelmingly segregated along Catholic-Protestant lines, with only about 5% of students attending a 'mixed' school. While many public figures have taken very visible steps towards reconciliation, prominent legislators seem to gloss over the delicate issues. The sprawling community across the street from my flat is Seymour Hill, a largely Unionist, formerly-government-controlled housing estate, encompassing several Protestant churches, along with several bastions of Loyalist paramilitary influence.

Did you get my message?

In the U.S., we're often concerned with the messages that our children receive through music, television and video games. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, gratuitous violence, more sex, more drugs, Kanye West, actual gangsta rap, Dane Cook, Grand Theft Auto, Goth Metal, Katy Perry, playing Stairway to Heaven LPs backwards, and the list goes on and on.

Here in Northern Ireland, however, the same negative, destructive messages are present, with some unfortunate additions - imposing, balaclava-clad figures clutching assault rifles are painted on the street-facing sides of housing estates. Paramilitary-aligned remembrance gardens are often the only green patches in Belfast's residential areas. Miles and miles of physical barriers separate Unionist and Nationalist neighborhoods - walls that, unlike their slightly more infamous cousin, show no signs of coming down anytime soon.

I suppose that's where our work begins - deconstructing and understanding the messages that the community is receiving, and then rebuilding them around the central message of Love and Peace (or Else). As I return to work after the holiday season, I'll be doing some more seeking - how I can partner with the churches and organizations I'm placed in to rejuvenate their ministries, and how to transform the messages presented to the community from ones of violence and segregation to words of reconciliation and unity.

Maybe Sir Richard Branson had something right in putting on "The Truman Show" this December 23rd. Not a single Christmas tune was hummed or whistled, there were no hints of nativities, midnight masses, or executive Christmas parties, but there was something tucked inside Jim Carrey's existential crisis - the need to escape from a world where we're told way too much and simply believe it.

And in case I don't see you...good afternoon, good evening, and good night.