Humanity over Naiveté
Barry's post on wishing we were all a bit more naive, got me thinking:
What I wouldn’t give for all of us to be a bit more naive.
A bit less social media.
A bit less 24-hour news.
I certainly get the sentiment. I think about this all the time – how slow things felt back when I was young. How much more focus there was on what's right in front of you. How information traveled slower. Where we went wrong. It was a simpler time... or so every generation says about their generation vs. the current moment.
But I also think it's clear that many of the problems that are so in-our-face nowadays still existed and were just as prevalent, if not worse. Being "naive" or less connected just meant we didn't really address them...
A few examples of things being arguably worse (and I am not saying that things aren't bad for marginalized people nowadays – they certainly are):
- Racism? Worse then.
- LGBTQIA+ folks being able to live their lives in the open? Worse then.
- Women's rights? Worse then.
- A president causing massive, long lasting damage to a country? Debatable, but given the damage that Reagan did and how much it impacted the next 40+ years, I'll have to go with "worse then" (for now) – I certainly agree that the potential for much worse is currently in front of us, though. And he's certainly catching up fast...
I think naive is the wrong direction to go... naive isn't far off from outright negligence or even Idiocracy. It's pairs well with anti-science and anti-intellectualism. I'd argue that naive is exactly what the fascists want the rest of us to retreat to... it makes their job easier.
Where Barry does hit the nail on the head: corporate social media and 24 hour news. Both prioritize profits over people, bad news over good, and there is also some overlap in terms of the mechanisms used to get people hooked. That would be bad enough, but combine social media with AI, bots, and propaganda – it's a losing battle.
I'm generally off corporate social media for all purposes not related to Crucial Tracks. I do occasionally browse the feeds to see what I'm "missing." It's gotten to the point where I think many are struggling with the crossover of AI generated content, bot profiles, and algorithms. It's a propagandist's paradise. And it's also pure anxiety.
What I think we need is more humanity. More sharing of our stories and life experiences. It's how we come to appreciate people we don't know and that may not look like or live like us. It's easy to be baited into hatred of the faceless other, but a human being with a story we can relate to and empathize with? Much harder. It's exactly why fascists focus on demonizing and dehumanizing people.
This is why I built Crucial Tracks. We need more small communities where people bond over their humanity and love of something amazing, like music. Songs are the perfect avenue for this – they are open to meaning, available to the masses (especially now with streaming), and we all have life experiences we connect to music. It's an easy way to start sharing with people you don't know...
Browsing the Public Tracks feed is one of my favorite things to do every day. People from all over the world sharing stories. People of all walks of life. Sharing the songs they like, songs that mean something to them. I don't have to understand the song or even like it to feel the humanity behind the post – their lived experience. And, as a bonus, there are purposefully no mechanisms to go viral, post for clicks/views, or ways to induce FOMO. It's calm and real.
Anyway, this is way longer than I expected so I'll stop rambling. If Crucial Tracks sounds interesting, why don't you stop over?
