"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."-Martin Luther King Jr.
This is a quote that I find simplistic yet at the same time very deep in its meaning..here was a man that was brought up in a time that was told he was not equal, he was not allowed the same inalienable rights that all men are allowed not because he was a criminal, not because he was a terrorist, or some personage from a foreign land, but simply because he was of a different color. I know I have touched on this theme before but this is something that resonates inside me. This is not a problem for just America these days but for the whole world. Things are different now than they were a century ago, a decade ago, or even a year ago. We are no longer a world comprised of small fiefdoms, and tribes. We are no longer separated by long distances, and borders. This world that we live in now is truly one. We are on a path of becoming one world, one land, one people, one tribe. Movements that can upset an entire government and way of life can be started half a world away. Take the uprising in Egypt. You have a land where a ruler has been in place for decades. In fact many of the grown adults that were in the streets calling for change were not even born when this ruler was put into office. They refuse to be complacent anymore and stood up to challenge a ruler that they have known all their life. Events happened in Tunisia, then Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire, this all leads to Asmaa Mahfouz blogging, tweeting, and using social media to cry for change. Within a matter of days it had sparked a revolution, a revolution that overturned one of the most corrupt regimes in the Middle East that had existed for 3 decades and had a horrible history of gross injustices and human rights violations.
Up until now this was unheard of...think back 40-50 years to the Vietnam War,this was the first time that the horrors of war were brought into the living room. Before then your updates into what was going on in far off countries were through newsreels and periodicals. Now you could turn on the nightly news and get updates as to what was happening, but even then there were delays. You may hear now what happened 1-2 weeks ago. Think to that iconic photograph that most of us have seen where the Vietnamese General is executing a suspected Viet Cong. Or think to the photo of Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire in protest. Or the heartrending shot of the child running down the road naked, crying and burned from napalm that destroyed her village. These photos were not seen by the general world until well after they happened. Sure you say that is because they were half a world away...ok take this example Bernie Boston's photo of the "flower power" of protesters putting flowers into the barrels of guns, the photos of dogs and fire hoses being set on people, the pics of John Kerry and Jane Fonda at anti-war rallies. All of these were taken and took days or weeks to reach the general public. These were things that would shape our world, country and society for decades to come, yet even then no on had a concept of deep that it could be.
Think about today, it is no strange thing to see someone take a photo or video and have it be seen world wide within seconds. How different would things have been then if you were there and you took that photo as that trigger was pulled knowing that within seconds someone thousands of miles away could see it and raise their voice in protest right at that second. Even 20 years ago it was not common to see someone with a cell phone. To video something you had a huge camera with a VHS tape in it. To put this in perspective ...March 3, 1991...on this date a high speed chase ends with the suspect tasered, beaten, and in cuffs. OK to make it a bit clearer...this suspect was hit 56 times with batons, kicked 6 times, handcuffed and dragged to the side of the road and left on his stomach until an ambulance came. This was taped by a local of the area unbeknownst to the police, this person went to the police who wanted nothing to do with it, so the person who filmed it, George Holliday, went to the local news, who after a couple of days of the instance happening played it in it's entirety over the airwaves. This led to trial and 13 months later horrible violence and rioting when the officers were acquitted. Yes this was the "Rodney King beating". That was 20 years ago, almost30 years after the end of Vietnam. The only people who had cell phones were typically thought of as the very rich or criminals, digital cameras were unheard of, the Internet was used only in approximately 44% of households, YouTube was over a decade away.
Now flash forward to 2011...it is not unusual to see something happen and watch someone pull out an object the size of a pack of cards, film it, and send it across the city, country , or world. We have become a world of instant gratification. Of facebooking our lives, posting our visual history on flickr, tweeting our every movement from when we get up, to the last time we used the restroom. Social media is no longer the high society page in a newspaper but is a cornerstone of our world. Children today are more savvy into the workings of our world. They can't help but to be. Small town America no longer exists..the average household has 2-3 TVs, 3 cell phones, and at least as many computers of some type. The world of Johnny Mnemonic and William Gibson is upon us. People have wondered how it would affect society...it doesn't take much to realize it.
These are our times of controversy and challenge. We need to realize that technology is here to stay, so how it is used is up to us. We often complain of the loss of privacy and of invasion into our space by the government. We do this while turning on TMZ to see the latest gossip, see which celebrity is being chased by the paparazzi, and updating our facebook about what's for dinner, all while laughing at someone's drunken college photo you were "tagged" in. We complain about what our children are seeing and doing, when we ignore them behind closed doors, while they chat on the Internet, with game controllers in hands.
So here is the challenge...realise that technology is changing, always and forever..."evolve or die"...realise that there are things out there we may not want to know, want to see, want to hear...realise that yes there will always be someone listening and/or watching. But this is also not something be afraid of. Technology is a tool just like a hammer, wrench, or screwdriver. Tools can be used to build or to tear down. The tool does not do wrong or evil acts, the hand that wields it does. Technology can be used to build a society or bring down a regime. It is up to us to use those tools and it is up to us build a future we can be proud of or to do nothing and allow those same tools to be used for evil. These are our times of challenge and controversy, we should be happy for that and make the best we can. Like the Chinese proverb, "May you live in interesting times", I would say these times are quite interesting and I for one can't wait to see what's next.
