I thought, as a post election note, to give a view of The Day After - because it was completely unremarkable from where I was.
There were no mass wailings or tears. There was no gloating or shouts " USA! USA!" filling the hallways. There was no post-election paraphernalia being worn or dangled from clothing or backpacks (everyone has a back here, I assume because rain is a thing so often).
The company put out a somewhat expected "Many of us are feeling stress and this is where to find support" e-mail - which was not a surprise to me in the least: it is a very large company and ticks all the current modern thinking boxes. But it was a restrained e-mail, not even mentioning why people were feeling stress (the election, of course), and so was pretty non-offensive.
What happened instead? People worked.
To be fair, it was the end of a manufacturing day and a 24 hour day at that, but none the less we had a task. People worked in the facility. People went to meetings.
People did their jobs.
For the rather large amount of wailing and cheering I have seen on the InterWeb, it was not indicative of my experience. For all one would have known, there simply was no election at all. And honestly, that is how it should work.
I am mulling over the non-political lessons of this election - I think there are several - but one of the biggest to me is simply the fact that I wonder if this election represents a potential turning point in our culture on the cult of attention. I have pondered on it before, this need to make everything about one's self to every extent possible - but in the post days after election the only people actually paying attention to such things were the ones publicly having breakdowns or the ones publicly gloating. Neither is particularly helpful of course: one election is not a reason to make one odious to one's friends or one's enemies.
If I have any wish over the next two months, it is that people simply move on with the work that needs to be done. I realize that is unrealistic of course, but public screaming sessions or public victory laps do not solve any of the rather large problems facing us as a country.
And that, at least for me, is what I care about. Solutions and getting things done. I saw that at my place of work The Day After. Would that all adults could actually act like adults and, as Steven Pressfield says, Do The Work.
Good points made TB, adults need to act like adults and not as four year olds having a hissy fit. Bills don't stop coming with an election so they need to be paid, working accomplishes that for the majority of people. Unfortunately with an increased population there are more snowflakes evident and social media does help to out those....... :)
ReplyDeleteNylon12, I do wonder if an outcome of all of this will be what we might call "The Great Maturing"; the idea that is is of course okay to be upset when things go your way but you then have to go on with your daily life. Bills do indeed come due and you have to work with people that are not like you.
DeleteI been listening to a number of shorts on The Tube of You, and one of the unintended consequences of the election is that some online magazines and sites may have kept going only to get every last ounce of political advertising dollars. Now that the election is over, there is no reason to keep them open. I think these sorts of hard realities are coming; I am hopeful people will have the ability to self reflect (per Ed's excellent comment below) and realize life is dominated by a great many more things than an election outcome.
I'm with you on this one 100% TB. There is lot of bellyaching going on right now but it is virtually 100% online. Going about my daily life, things seem normal. The one thing that has struck me that I never really thought about before, and perhaps you've read on my blog post and in comments elsewhere, it that people are quick to belittle those that voted for the winning side instead of asking the more important questions, why did my side seem less appealing to the winning side and most importantly, what can I do to appeal to those that found the winning side more appealing. Perhaps if more people started asking those questions, we could stop straying towards the extremes and find some harmony somewhere in the middle.
ReplyDeleteShamefully realizes he is woefully behind on Ed's blog (quickly goes over and reads it...). Yup, you are right on the money.
DeleteIt is interesting to me that I listened to a couple of clips yesterday where certainly commentators were almost...almost to the point of asking the soul searching questions which you suggest. But they were immediately cut down by others who completely blames "the voters".
A fundamental question that I have often posed is "What do you defined victory like and how badly do you want it?". The definition of victory needs to be in place before you start of course, but then comes the question of commitment: if a person or business or candidate is 70% on your side, is that enough? 60% 80%? If it ultimately moves the needle towards victory and that has been defined as the ultimate goal, then one either accepts what moves the needle forward or descend into purity tests which continue to ensure defeat.
I honestly think that - for both sides - there are a lot of lessons here. In some ways the old-style Red party has been swept away by this election. It might be interesting for the current-style Blue party to consider the same sort of thing, if they want to see different results.
But that is for consideration. For now, I want - and expect - everyone to get over themselves and work to solve the significant problems we currently face. The real mandate from this election is that people want solutions to the problems that are impacting their daily lives. We as voters should demand nothing less.
People who actually go to work don't generally flood the internet with politics.
ReplyDeleteIt's the living on mom's dime and such who lve noticed that speak out so much.
Same happened when Obama won. Working folks shrugged and went to work.
Michael
I have seen greater and less degrees of it in past jobs, Michael. This was a complete absence of any discussion.
DeleteI also think that in our current media/attention culture complex, it is people who are desperately in need of being validated by pulling in "views". This is how they know to interact with the world.
The rest of us, to your point, just went to work.
Excellent post and excellent comments. My experience since Tuesday concurs. It's definitely an online phenomenon. I've seen some interesting articles about the impact of social media (or marketing media, as I think of it) on mental health, and the conclusions are troublesome. More troublesome, is how the news media has been abusing this to try to manipulate people. How did we ever become such an insecure people, unable to think for ourselves?
ReplyDeleteI said news media, but it seemed to be more a campaign strategy which the news media joined in on.
DeleteThanks Leigh. I am reading more about social media in bits and pieces through other books and like you, am finding it troubling as well. The "connections" seem completely overweighed by the mental health issues it is creating.
Delete"Manipulate" is not a bad word - in the reactions I have seen, people are convinced that we are about to revert to some sort of pre-modern society based solely on what they have been told.
One of the best comments I have seen (from a Tube Of You poster - an amateur, of course) is that this clearly shows the difference between children and adults: Adults can control their emotions and do their jobs and move on. Children cannot, but simply react. Somehow, a portion - a very visible portion - of our population has failed for whatever reason to mature. That is a concerning problem.
And yes, most "modern media" clearly had a side. Their declining viewership should have informed them that this is a failed strategy.