One of the things that I have found interesting about the social networking tools that we have available to us today is that they do not correspond with the state of our human relationships. The question arises from time to time whether anyone of us actually shares our Google calender with a friend, that is if we use a Google calender at all. The fact that I had my older brother who lived in another state's telephone number, mobile to mobile, on speed dial did not mean that we had the type of relationship where I would just call him at any given moment. This might be because of my own narcissistic circumspection but hey, narcissism isn't even a personality disorder any more.
In the end it just seems like a real shame that none of these social networking tools will really be put to any practical use but I suppose 'practical and 'social' don't really go together. Most people send the most vain messages over face book or twitter, we don't share anything really important at all. The real important sharing is really done by the religious organizations, money, food, love. In the secular world we share lovers and their std's. When I think about the dating websites which say they can find your compatible match they definitely do not mean your soul mate. Unless of course they employ astrology and like the mating pairs in India and other traditional countries that have done that it is simply an electronic step back to the way things used to be done. However, I strongly believe that the modernist and the Christian Evangelicals whom I suspect to be behind some of the largest dating sites on the web would neither 'stoop' to seeking the council of an astrologer for their matches.
The question from a psychosocial point of view alone then is, is it healthy to step outside of the normal parameters of socialization in order to meet someone. Why do we believe that it is better to meet someone on line than in a bar or at the circus or the museum? What seems to be evident is that our society with it's increase mobility and devaluation of the family has done away with both 'coming of age' debuts for boys at least where a boy would kill his first bear or something like that. We no longer require boys to wear short pants which would give them every incentive to follow societal norms so that they can have the privilege of wearing long pants and avoid the humiliation of wearing 'boy short pants' at thirty one. Nor are we engaged in obligatory family and inter-familial social occasions. The irony of a 'gay-marriage' for instance is that most of the participants at the wedding will not be related to one another, nor will they after the marriage. We do not have a means of giving them a second birth into the society as psycho sexual adult members of that society. Now many of them believe that it is a right that they are born with, without God, to be a member of society and anything that is restricted from them is a deprivation.
The question from a psychosocial point of view alone then is, is it healthy to step outside of the normal parameters of socialization in order to meet someone. Why do we believe that it is better to meet someone on line than in a bar or at the circus or the museum? What seems to be evident is that our society with it's increase mobility and devaluation of the family has done away with both 'coming of age' debuts for boys at least where a boy would kill his first bear or something like that. We no longer require boys to wear short pants which would give them every incentive to follow societal norms so that they can have the privilege of wearing long pants and avoid the humiliation of wearing 'boy short pants' at thirty one. Nor are we engaged in obligatory family and inter-familial social occasions. The irony of a 'gay-marriage' for instance is that most of the participants at the wedding will not be related to one another, nor will they after the marriage. We do not have a means of giving them a second birth into the society as psycho sexual adult members of that society. Now many of them believe that it is a right that they are born with, without God, to be a member of society and anything that is restricted from them is a deprivation.
The question of homosexuality is primarily the complete devaluation of the soul, of the inner life in it's entirety, that is perhaps the real goal of science to do away with the soul as best as they can because the soul like God can not be documented. The short pants is not so much a demarcation of physical age but of psychological development where the ability to engage the opposite sex in psycho sexual harmony has been removed as a criteria of that development. The notion of self denial and assuming an agentic state for the benefit of the larger society has almost completely eroded as well.
So now we sit here with a myriad of ways of 'staying in contact' with one another but our actual personal relationships are totally frayed. The only reason homosexuality can be openly tolerated in the military is with the assurance that two people the homosexual and the heterosexual will have no personal relationship, they will not bond as men or friends they will work independent of one another. Where as sexual mores that prohibited having sex with any one but one's spouse which contained physically transmitted disease, true evidence that one loved another, having sex with whomever you like has been the norm and even privilege and has contained the spread of love, disaffecting fraternal love as well as intimate love. One of the Weather Undergrounds the American terrorist groups instilled code of values was to 'smash monogamy'. This organization was completely against one man loving one woman in a relationship. Instead they slept around in commune and had group sex reducing the individual soul to a mere object for copulation.
For my part however I cannot 'bash' the web cam. There is nothing like being stuck inside on a cold day like the one we had yesterday, left a shut in from the blizzard and receiving a call on Skype from a friend with a web cam. Seeing someone you have not seen in a long time is truly a pleasure and makes all the difference. Disagreeing with that person about the reality of God and never hearing from them again or for months on end is a real bummer on the other hand. The technology at our disposal does not meet the dispositions of our natures. My Google calender for instance should be unique fitted to graph and chart the horoscope of my friends astrological sign as well as her bio rhythms so that I know exactly when to reach out to her. I would really appreciate if my internet provider had an astrological service that guided my free online services with this information. Then again, isn't it the joy of life... all we don't know, no?
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