It has become painfully obvious that the United States is, without question, the loneliest nation on earth.
Stop to consider that the rest of the world despises us and wishes we would pack up and move to another planet in some other galaxy. Radical religious groups have vowed to snuff us out. Historians are comparing us to the Roman Empire prior to its demise.
So, why all the hatred? Sure we’ve been exporting a boatload of misguided foreign policy of late, our legal system has become something of a joke, and yes, we are responsible for reality TV, but are we truly that bad?
The answer is an unequivocal “yes.” I mean, you don’t earn a nickname like “The Great Satan” without trying. The bigger question, however, is what do we plan to do about it?
Sure, we could elect leaders with IQ’s higher than turnips who practice socially responsible politics. And yes, we could be more generous with our unprecedented national wealth in terms of combating worldwide hunger and poverty. Such a course of action, however, would require time, effort, and grass roots support of the voting public, which our current national attention deficit disorder and preoccupation with real estate speculation and advancements in SUV technology, make unlikely. As such, better to follow the tried-and-true path of focusing our collective attention on treating the symptoms rather than curing the illness.
The truth is, as the United States’ isolation from the rest of the world worsens, we will be facing an epidemic of loneliness (to go along with our present epidemics of depression, impotence, infertility, obesity, hair loss, high cholesterol, stained teeth, and penile insufficiency).
The warning signs are all around us. For example, Americans, as a people, are already so starved for contact with other human beings we cannot be out of touch with each other long enough to go the bathroom.
This became glaringly apparent to me the other day when I received an important call from a friend who had urgent news about the lint screen in his clothes dryer. As we were talking, I heard a loud splashing sound in the background.
“What are you doing,” I asked. My answer came with the rush and gurgle of a flushing toilet. At that moment, I realized I had just participated in something every man dreads – bathroom conversation with another male.
It’s an evolutionary fact that men do not like to be present when another male is eliminating. Unlike women who tend to “potty” in groups of no less than three (one to hold the toilet paper, one to lift the seat, one to guard the door, etc.), men historically eschew the company of other males during such times, routinely going to great lengths to avoid each other.
This predilection is nothing new. During prehistoric times, the single greatest contributing factor to the high mortality rate among early male hominids was the desire to get as far away from fellow cave dwellers as possible during times of intestinal urgency.
As a result, cavemen would routinely stray into a remote portion of the jungle with the latest edition of the Daily Grunt, never to be heard from again. Back at the cave, the cavewomen would be squatting together in a circle, prattling on about the pterodactyl they were planning to roast that evening or whose husband has the biggest club, while saber tooth tigers were devouring their mates.
Even today, most men find the privacy factor in public restrooms sorely lacking. Ask a man, and he will tell you that a sound-proofed cubicle with, floor-to-ceiling lead-lined walls and a bank vault door may still not be enough to ease his anxiety over toilet-time intrusions. In fact, I have a male friend who works in a brand new office building featuring “modern,” restrooms with no separation between stalls whatsoever. He tells me he often holds it until his ride home at night, at which point he stops at a gas station to “take care of business the way God intended.”
But I digress… The point is, although surrounded by over six billion people, we are a nation desperate for social interaction, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by the wireless telephone industry.
Witness the proliferation of cellular telephones at every level of society. Thanks to the wireless industry, none of us needs ever be out of contact with friends, loved ones, or bookies again, even if those persons are standing right next to us.
Consider our heroes in Hollywood. While channel surfing the other night, I happened upon one of those ubiquitous awards ceremonies – a rare occasion when actors, musicians, agents, publicists, and caterers congregate to celebrate their collective genius, exchange recipes, and prove that they can still look smashing even when weighed down by two-hundred-fifty thousand dollars worth of borrowed jewelry and designer fashions.
Every celebrity worth his or her weight in gold was talking on a cell phone – one no doubt equipped with the essential camera feature – throughout the entire broadcast. I assumed, as most viewers probably did, that they were perhaps conversing with family members, pet sitters, or parole officers watching at home on TV. But then you would see a particular celebrity waving across the room to his counterpart who also had a phone plastered to the side of his or her head. One can only imagine the conversations.
“How does my new phone look while I’m talking on it?”
“Here, let me send you a picture so you can see for yourself.”
Given the current pace, in ten years it is likely that direct human conversation will go the way of dinosaurs as people become more and more embarrassed to relate to each other in the stodgy, old fashioned, mano-a-mano way.
Fast-forward to the 2015 “Aren’t I Fantastic Awards” and two Hollywood starlets seated across from each other in the back of the same limo, conversing by wireless phone:
“Like, can you believe Pomegranate Paltrow talking to Terlingua Travolta face-to-face?”
“Do you think she knew how stupid she looked not using her cell phone?”
“And all those germs!”
“What about Evian Eastwood? His phone is so last week!”
“I know! It doesn’t even have a built-in MP3 player, electronic organizer, satellite television, or microwave oven!”
“Not to mention this handy taser feature.”
“Ahhh! Ahhhhhhh!”
Yes, times have changed. In today’s hands-free world, walking down a public sidewalk having an animated conversation with oneself – while annoying and ostentatious – is now relatively commonplace. Fifty years ago, however, such behavior would have rated a one way ticket to a mental hospital. The doctors of the time, upon discovering a wire leading from a patient’s ear to a small device clipped to his belt, would have no doubt concluded it to be some sort of battery pack supplying power to the brain, and immediately begun an alien autopsy.
Nevertheless, like Amazonian termites constructing a giant pillar of mud, the fearless employees of the wireless industry are literally tripping over each other (and in some cases themselves) in an effort to strap antennas to every stationary, immovable, and/or inanimate object on the face of the earth including Mount Rushmore, Donald Trump’s hair, and the US Supreme Court.
In fact, if the wireless companies have their way, our planet will soon be so bristling with antennae that when viewed from space, the Earth will look like a giant koosh ball. Of course, the benefit of being able to order a pizza from heretofore unheard of locations like parking garages, coal mines, and Iowa will no doubt far outweigh the negatives in terms of global ecology, aesthetics, and increased male pattern baldness.
But is this what we truly want… to be so connected to each other that we can be contacted anywhere, anytime including during moments of intimacy, on adventure vacations in the Antartic, or while watching Survivor Detroit?
I for one find this trend deeply troubling, emblematic of the degradation of the very fabric of society. I long for simpler times… those bygone days when you could drive up to your favorite fast food restaurant, order a high cholesterol lunch face-to-face from a smiling fiberglass clown, and drive away with the wrong food without the use of any modern technology whatsoever.
I guess times have changed, and social convention as well.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to phone my wife up in the kitchen and ask her bring the newspaper downstairs. Nature calls.
© 2005 Mark J. Layne/Layne-Duck Productions, Ltd.
