Between Moods and Messages: A New Year's Chance
By Dr. Jackson Janes

Mirror of a Mood
Time Magazine's decision to name its Person of the Year - "you," i.e. all of us - as the winner may be a creative way of avoiding a dilemma. Choosing a person whose influence and impact has some standard that sets him or her apart enough to warrant the alleged honor is difficult enough within one country let alone when aspiring for a global measure. But like the dozens of nominations which have come before this one since the series began in 1927, it is more a mirror of a mood than a real measurement of accomplishments.

The mood captured by this year's nomination is a reflection of what some might call an increasingly self-preoccupied fixation on our own personal world while others might say it is the most revolutionary networking matrix ever known in history - the Internet. The simultaneous ability to both narrow your focus and broaden your scope creates options for better and for worse. The ability of individuals around the world to access an unlimited source of information through the Internet can broaden the mind but serve self-selecting opinions equally well. The emergence of global networks can generate communication that is almost devoid of context. We often do not know the content provider, what motives there are behind the content, and how it can be evaluated. Yet we are inclined to gravitate to those with which we may agree rather than disagree. The Internet creates a limitless bulletin board for ideas but also offers a protective cocoon for those not interested in debate,

The Internet impacts the political process in contradictory ways. Political arenas are more easily accessed through the Internet than through conventional channels and can challenge existing institutions, especially those in government or running for office. Political actors can exploit the Internet's ability to organize. Yet, the Internet can - for better or worse - transport unmediated communication between the public and its political leaders. It can bring selected issues to a policymaker's attention in lightening speed, and it strengthens political actors who want to press their cases.  The Internet provides tools for policymakers to make their case to the public without intermediaries. That opens the door to more direct digital democracy but also to opportunistic exploitation; a look at some of the political ads used in the latest U.S. Congressional campaigns would lend evidence to both uses.

However, the question remains: can the Internet generate a more effective selection process through which ideas can be transported, assessed, and evaluated in an objective and reasonable manner? Today, more so than was the case in the 1960s, one can tune in or tune out in a direction that comforts with all the most agreeable images and opinions we desire, without being confronted with those conundrums and contradictions we would rather not confront.

Helpful or Hurtful?
I have often wondered whether the tidal wave of Internet connections that now link nations really leads to more mutual understanding. It is entirely possible for any kind of interest group somewhere between Kiel and Munich to find a counterpart group somewhere between New York and Los Angeles. But does that linkage bring with it a curiosity that goes beyond the interest itself? Does it create lateral vision? It reminds me of those situations years ago when Americans based in Germany with the Army might live on the base with a PX for shopping but never had much opportunity to explore life beyond it. Or of those Germans who can pinpoint where they want to be in Las Vegas or Orlando for that two week vacation but never have much of a chance to experience the frontiers beyond the hotels or the shopping malls.

Germans and Americans can celebrate the same holidays as we do at this time of year, watch the same movies or even the same television shows. Yet despite all the shared exposure, how much does the virtual networking really help us understand any more about others than about ourselves?

In fact, it may be getting more challenging just when the quantity of exposure seems to be increasing. And that may have something to do with the increasing challenge of coming to grips with our own respective environments. Americans are increasingly registering concerns about the direction of the country, with uncertainties about their own future, with doubts about political leaders and institutions which no longer seem to offer the support they once did. Amidst this is the continuing fear of what is "out there" in the form of potential terrorist attacks, and a war which seems to generate less, not more, security. The temptation is then to seek solace not in reaching out but in walling up, in many forms, be they physical or psychological. The current contempt with which the Congress is held in the U.S. and the historically low levels of confidence in the White House is paralleled by the skepticism toward corporate excesses mirrored in the Enron models of greed and the increasing gap between the upper and lower levels of American society. Given such complexities, some seek answers in polarization and dogma rather than in diversity and an exchange of ideas abut solutions to these challenges. And this all takes place within American society even before we get to dealing with others beyond our borders,

Germans are also nervous about the same matters and are uncertain about the course of their political leaders and their established parties, which are losing members in large numbers, as are other cornerstones of society like the labor unions and the churches. Chancellor Merkel enjoyed a  bonus grace period when she became Germany's first female chancellor but it did not take more than six months before she and her party, along with the partner Social Democrats, were sinking in the polls as Germans worried about the security of their pensions and health benefits. (See companion piece by Dr. Dieter Roth) In local elections we then saw some extreme right wing and left wing parties trying to take advantage of that uncertainty without offering real solutions and being more an expression of a mood of fear in the face of an uncertain future. One can look around Europe and see similar trends, from the riots in the Parisian suburbs to the smoldering scars in the Balkans, when fear turns to hate,

A Real Connection?
Yet there remains a shared longing for some degree of authentic community in confronting these challenges, and the Internet can be one tool for all those searching for it, at the local and global levels. The question is whether that search will provide a real basis for communities across any number and kinds of borders to find common cause in a global village or whether it will tempt us to isolate us further into separate villages. The renowned German psychologist Erik Erikson once reminded us that most of us spend far too much time in life defining who we are by saying who we are not.  The Internet provides us with a great deal more chances than anyone has ever known to understand both the differences that define us, as well as the common ground on which we stand.  Having a tool like that does not guarantee that we will use it that way; maybe 2007 will offer new opportunities. 

Best wishes for a thoughtful mood during for the holiday season.

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This essay appeared in the December 21, 2006, AICGS Advisor.