Identity Quest: what the hell is happening here?

Because something is happening here...
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Ballad of a Thin Man
Highway 61 Revisited-- 1965
by: Bob Dylan

Right now it's not just Mister Jones that's feeling the heat of confusion. Madness seems to be flying around everywhere-- like pizza pies at a Papa John's kitchen on Super Bowl Sunday. How do we explain all this angst, so much sound and fury, so many Breaking News stories, wild tweets, counter-tweets and retweets. The talking heads have their hair nicely coiffed but there constant stream of words has taken on a new frantic quality, like the fabric of society is splitting faster than a fat man's pants after a 12-course meal. But the meal everybody is over-eating is the words racing across the glove: Brexit, Trump, building a wall, refugees, Muslims, hate crimes, racism, trolls, alt-right, Dems, GOP, Russian conspiracy, CIA, FBI, national debt, interest rate, student loans, Obamacare, Trump-don't-care, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, bathrooms, New York Times, Beyonce, Lady-let's-all-go-Gaga, transgender, mind bender, hacker, and the beat goes on... But something's different.

The speed has moved up a few notches. The news cycle got shorter. We used to move at 33 1/3 rpm and now we're doing more than 45 rpm. Every face is turned towards their cellphone. Maybe future humans will have gracefully flowing fingers, with tiny points, the better to hit the keys with?

In times like this we should all turn to Marshall McLuhan. An easy entry point is his Playboy interview from March 1969. Google it. UC Davis has the text of the interview in pdf format.

McLuhan, as always, explains the powerful transition from the printed word (Gutenberg technology) to the age of electronic media. Therein lies the key to the kingdom-- the kernel of truth to explain the illusion we live in today, the vortex of electrons circling the globe thanks to satellite technology.

McLuhan described Fidel Castro as a new national leader of the television era:

"For one thing, it's creating a totally new type of national leader, a man who is much more of a tribal chieftain than a politician. Castro is a good example of the new tribal chieftain who rules his country by a mass-participational TV dialog and feedback; he governs his country by camera, by giving the Cuban people the experience of being directly and intimately involved in the process of collective decision making."

Does that ability to govern by television remind you of anybody? There's a new guy in town with a similar flair for mastery of electronic media. This guy has a more recent technological device in his hand, called a cellphone, but also communicates "directly and intimately" with his audience and creates a sense of "collective decision making." Yes, that would be Donald J. Trump and his weapon of choice is a cellphone and a Twitter account-- with 20 million followers. And Trump, despite his words to the contrary, is no enemy to television. Remember, he was the candidate available for every interview with every news outlet. And then Twitter became his ace in the hole.

So, don't be surprised if you find that you're flipping your whig-- suffering an identity crisis. You feel so close to everybody...  to close... it's like you're in love but, then again, you're alienated from half the world too and hate their guts. Mr. McLuhan has a solid explanation. I'll end with an extended quote from McLuhan since Marshall says it best.

PLAYBOY: Would you describe this detribalizing process in more detail?

McLUHAN: The electronically induced technological extensions of our central nervous system, which I spoke of earlier, are immersing us in a wold-pool of information movement and are thus enabling man to incorporate within himself the whole of mankind. The aloof and dissociated role of the literate man of the Western world is succumbing to the new, intense depth participation engendered by the electronic media and bringing us back in touch with ourselves as well as one another. But the instant nature of electric-information is decentralizing-- rather than enlarging-- the family of man into a new state of multitudinous tribal existences. Particularly in countries where literate values are deeply institutionalized, this is a highly traumatic process, since the clash of the old segmented visual culture and the new integral electronic culture creates a crisis of identity, a vacuum of the self, which generates tremendous violence-- violence that is simply an identity quest, private or corporate, social or commercial.

There you have it-- read the whole interview, Mister Jones... 'cause I guarantee you're gonna like it.