This Cisco ad captures what I hope media can do to bring countries and cultures together: linking people, especially children, real time. There’s no reason, given the technology today, that we should be so ignorant of others. That ignorance fuels the belief that our way is the only way–and the US tends to be high on the solipsism meter anyway.
We need to see that other countries are made up of people working hard to take care of their families with hopes, dreams, and good times and hard times, just like ours. This is the only way to begin to break down the us-versus-them perspective. While it is a natural and hard-wired response to create a sense of group affiliation, it is also a root source of conflict. When times are hard, it’s easy to blame the “other” guy, whether it’s at home or abroad. It’s easy to see the ‘other guy’ as all the same. Those Arabs, Chinese, immigrants, Republicans, Democrats, those Muslims, those Christians, those bankers, those politicians, those teenagers, those _______ (fill in your object of choice–you know you have one). In spite of how much lip service we give to political correctness and not negatively stereotyping, we do it every day. It’s just that the object of approved targeting changes.
History is full of heinous behavior when people are worried and scared and look for an ‘other’ to blame. No country is immune–not even us. Think about McCarthyism, Klu Klux Klan, and Guantanamo as some of the examples of abuses of power that people readily tolerate when they are scared. That’s why it’s important to have what Amartya Sen’s ideal of identity complexity–the ability to define ourselves in multiple ways so that we can recognize what we have in common with many different people.
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Sen, A. (2007) Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Dr. Pamela Rutledge is available to reporters for comments on the psychological and social impact of media and technology on individuals, society, organizations and brands.
I agree with the spirit of your comments, and there is no question from all the research that familiarity and contact results in less hatred, less racism, and so on, which was one impetus for ongoing integration and even affirmative action efforts.
BUT, here’s the thing. You seem to think that such problems are a result of root causes that technology can address, mainly difficulty in actually seeing people do the things you mention. That’s amazingly naive. THe problem isn’t contact or information or “seeing”.
It’s much more profound as any one who has done any work on racism will explain far better than I can.
You might argue that social media might allow more control by individuals so that someone in Iran might see an American eating, vice versa, but that isn’t the barrier. The barriers are much deeper, psychologically, and as such even if the technology was to be operable and available beyond what is there today, how many bigots would tune in.
I think it would be cool to tune in and chat with a family having an Islamic meal in Tehran, but the average bigot isn’t. Sorry.
We need to stop thinking technology can address profoundly human problems.