Post Modernity and the Future of
Communications
My sister told me that she had lunch with
six adults and as many children at a nice restaurant in Cayman Islands, it was
a family gathering. She enjoyed it very much but she had a small peeve.
Every single one at the table, including
the children, was on some apparatus supposed to make communicating with each
other easier, but on this particular occasion, communication had taken on
another meaning!
When we were children, the family dinner
table was an occasional to look forward to. For curious children, it was an
occasion to ask questions of the elders and be taught, culturally important
matters, which neither language nor education, can transmit.
You could say that communication at that
time meant relationship as well. Along with the important concept of one’s
identity being formed. Only with personal, intimate interaction one can build
upon ones identity, since there are intangible elements involved.
When I am asked by the Indians, why don't
you eat Pork, a simple answer such as, I don't eat Pork because I am Jewish,
has no meaning for them. The symbolism of that particular action is further
lost when there is no personal contact nor is there a relationship between the
two parties concerned.
Marc Auge, the French philosopher
Anthropologist argues that in such “Non-Places”, one may decipher neither
identity, relation nor history of those who are present, at least physically.
In one generation, we have gone from
regionalism to urbanization to globalization in geographic terms, in
intellectual terms from structuralism to modernity to post modernity to super
modernity.
The above individuals sitting around a
lunch table constitute a Non-Place, which is a good example of a Non-Place and
the period that is happening: Now and in Cayman Islands, is Super Modernity.
But Now is universal but the geographical
designation is becoming less and less relevant. Ten years ago, to communicate
with someone from Baracoa, involved gargantuan efforts without spending a
fortune. First of all you have to find someone in La Habana who has a fax
machine or at least access to one, as my Cuban mother did. Then when she is at
her office, she can print out the Fax Message and then call the person in
Baracoa, at that time a sizable majority of people in Baracoa did not have
telephones. She could then transmit the message by reading it.
That was in 2005. Just a mere 7 years
later, I get daily messages or emails sent to me from the cellular phones of
friends who live in Baracoa.
In the former one can decipher the
relationships involved, the entire history of friendships and also the nature
of the people involved. In the second instance, a space is created which does
not exist in that I can send a message to just about anyone in Baracoa. I began
hearing from people I have not seen in ten years!
The institutions that existed in the first
type of communications have disappeared and more and more of the communications
are sent and received in solitude.
I like the paradoxical arguments of Marc
Auge. He says: An excess of information gives us the feeling that history is
speeding up at the very moment that an excess of images and the swiftness of
communications make us feel the planet’s smallness.
Going back in time, “the good old times”,
is not the answer. Even in the middle ages, people complained of modernity and
longed for “the good old days”.
How to preserve our identities and maintain
our selves, in this age of super modernity?
The American Indian asking me the question
may have provided the answer.
In conversations with American Indians,
words, tones, language all have context in addition to the meaning they convey.
To them, the question, what religion do you
belong to, has less of a meaning than the question: In what language do you
pray?
As you can see, over the iPhones, iPads and
images and voices over Internet, none of the context can be transmitted.
Taking away the iPhone is not the answer,
but teaching our children and us the depth of communication, woven into a world
of relationships and wrapped in our individual cultural identities is far more
important.
My relationship with the Indians, as a
friend, as a doctor, as an anthropologist, has direct impact on many of my
interactions in every day life. Recently I was at a Museum dedicated to the Inuit
or Eskimo people. While watching short moving images of them or listening to
them, I realize how much my being with the Indians have added depth to my
understanding of the world. Truly they have made my understanding of myself as
an OTHER and also understanding of OTHER, individual and cultural, easier
As a Jew, I have to add this, pertaining to
the cultural identity and history of our people.
Rashi’s commentary
is also interspersed with Talmudic legends, which are our bridge to Biblical
times. With all due respect to archaeologists and their attempt to open a
window to life back then, they may uncover genuine artifacts, but they haven’t
got a clue as to what the Jewish people were like. A Jew does not feel a
connection to King David by seeing his sword in the Israel Museum. A Jew
connects to King David through the stories of the Bible, and those stories come
to life through the Talmudic stories cited by Rashi. (From JewishHistory.org.
Rashi, Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac or Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, born in Troyes, France
in 1060, the greater commentator on the Talmud)
This photo is from the Topkapi museum, with a very interesting historical inscription!
(I was taught as a child that Mohammed learned about the idea of Monotheism from the Banu Qurayza)
