A Conversation Too Far?

Cell phone use has become rampant in almost all areas of our society, slowly but surely.  It became such a problem on the road that in most states, cell phone use while driving has been made illegal.  In one recent article available on Yahoo, a man playing in an amateur soccer game stopped playing the game so that he could answer a phone call.  This seems to be a bit ridiculous to me.  The fact that a man stopped in the middle of the game, without a sub, to answer a phone call just shows that in our world we have placed more of an importance on virtual communication than face to face communication.  Although cell phones' ease of use has increased our ability to communicate with one another, it has also lowered the quality of our communication with the people who are right in front of us.  We can be found at restaurants eating together, at movies, or walking to and from places texting or otherwise plugged into our phones when we could be plugged into the world around us.  It has gone a bit too far when we are using our time with people who are present and in front of us to communicate with others who are probably asking a simple question or with whom we are carrying on a substance-less conversation with.

The question then becomes, what can we do about this now that cell phones are so common in our culture?  The answer to this question will not be easy to find.  So many of the current generation are content with their current modes of communication that no public service announcement or civility campaign will change their mindset.  There must be some sort of conscious effort by the phone companies with their ad campaigns or something of a similar affect in order to shift what the public perceives as appropriate use of cell phones.  Without this, we will continue to turn ourselves into a society which is content with placing more of an importance on virtual conversation.

All or Nothing

We often see news stories about partisan arguments flash across the television and appear in the daily newspapers we read.  These stories just kind of exist in the background of our lives and they really have no bearing on our daily lives.  I believe we have become so jaded by these stories because we have been conditioned to not expect anything else from our political leaders.

An article such as this in the New York times is a dime a dozen.  However when you really look at the content of the article, you begin to see that, in this case, arguments over budget issues become less about choosing the more effective course of action than they do about winning the argument.  In this article, it features a quote from the fiery tea party leader from Indiana, Rep. Mike Pence.  He says, "It's time to pick a fight, if liberals in the Senate would rather play political games and shut down the government instead of making a small down payment on fiscal discipline and reform, I say, 'shut it'"  Quotes like these give us an example of how it seems as though political arguments are being continued just so that one side will be able to declare themselves the winner and use it to boost their standing come election season.

The hostile approach Rep. Mike Peace is taking is everything that is wrong with politics today.  Instead of going at each other with the goal of winning for their own sake, we need political leaders who spark and debate arguments with the end goal in mind of finding what will benefit our country and our citizens' well being the most.  The reason this is taking place is because politicians are moving away from the shared background of common goals.  Author Stephen Carter explains in his book Civility that in order to keep a healthy and functioning republic, politicians must understand that, "... the political battles themselves must take place against the background of a shared understanding of what America most fundamentally means."  It has nevertheless become apparent that politics has become a seemingly personal competition among its leaders, with little regard to how their goals of personal advancement affect the nation's well being.