We Are Becoming Strangers to Each Other

The other day, I was on a bus heading to work. There was a guy sitting near me with his headphones turned all the way up. Across the aisle, another guy talked loudly into a cell phone about banalities to some other guy he'd never met before. At one point, head phone dude turned to the woman sitting next to him and said, "This is why I got these headphones. For idiots like that," pointing to the guy on the cell phone. Then he returned to bopping his head to the techno music the entire front end of the bus could hear.

When reflecting on this scene, a few things come to mind. First off, the ways in which simple connecting and interacting with strangers or relative strangers is often sorely lacking in modern urban life. The invasion of technology, as well as multiple generations of people indoctrinated to fear their neighbors, or be suspicious of the actions of those they don’t know, has made something as basic as conversations between strangers a rarity. In addition, the disappearance of public space in many cities has eliminated the majority of opportunities to even have those conversations – to make connections with people who you probably would normally not connect with otherwise.

Public spaces are being privatized by the minute. Spending more time in downtown Minneapolis recently, it was interesting to read this article, which points out how little public space is actually left for people to gather together downtown. Not only does the lack of public space lead to more segregated places, but it also creates severe limits on the ability of people to exercise basic rights, such as the right to petition the government and conduct public demonstrations about social issues.

At the same time, remaining public spaces, like buses, are filled with a mixture of invasions into personal space and a lack of healthy, shared interactions between people. On another ride filled with people on cell phones, blackberries, and head thumping music, the guy sitting next to me tried to strike up a conversation with me. However, since I’d spent the previous half an hour bombarded by the noise of cell phone conversations and music from ipods, I could barely follow what he was saying.

And maybe it's just me, but just having a conversation with a stranger for the sake of it seems to becoming rarer and rarer. People want money. Or a cigarette. Or to borrow a cell phone. Or a lighter. As soon as such requests are fulfilled or not fulfilled, the interaction is over. It's totally understandable that someone who is destitute and desperate will be focused on getting their basic needs met. However, I'm seeing this behavior all over, seemingly regardless of background and needs. And I can’t claim to be all that much better. Sometimes, I try to interact or at least smile at people I meet on the street or on the bus. Other times, I avoid eye contact all together, hoping to avoid an expected request that I can’t, or don’t wish to fulfill.

How much of this is a regional, or national theme? I don’t know. It would be interesting to hear other folks’ experiences with these issues. Do you think it’s more difficult to have actual conversations with people in public places? Do you ever strike up conversations with strangers? Do you have any interesting stories related to this topic to share with the rest of us?

Public Space is Vital to Maintaining First Amendment Rights

I had some requests to post this op-ed piece I wrote over the weekend. Although it's very specifically focused on events and issues here in Minnesota, there are also broader points that I feel cut across any given location. \

As winter approaches, and the Occupy movement continues in Minneapolis and around the nation, the issue of public space has risen to the forefront. Not only have the Occupy groups challenged the ways in which 1st Amendment rights are being upheld in public spaces, but we have also demonstrated the severe lack of free, open and available space for groups to assemble, demonstrate, and exercise their rights. Nowhere is that lack of public space more evident than in downtown Minneapolis.

Other than the Hennepin County Government Center Plaza, the only other significant public space in central downtown is Peavy Plaza. Neither space is very large. While Minneapolis alone has nearly 400,000 residents, it’s unlikely that either location could comfortably accommodate more than 1500-2000 people at a time. This not only places a limit on politically motivated gatherings like Occupy, but also upon opportunities for free, public entertainment like concerts, outdoor theater, or seasonal celebrations.

Even in the recent cold weather, we had between 400-600 people attending two major demonstrations in support of our continued presence on the plaza. Furthermore, while the regular standing crowds of protesters have dwindled to less than 20, we regularly squeeze between 30-60 people in the skyway attached to the Government Center for our General Assembly meetings. And beyond the General Assembly meetings, there are several committees that meet in locations scattered all over downtown. Simply put, the Occupy movement has outgrown coffee shops and church basements. In order to do the work of participatory democracy, we need public spaces to gather, free from the harassment and unnecessary restrictions that have come from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department, in cooperation with the County Commissioners. The fact that Occupy needed to file a lawsuit to defend the right to publicly display political signs on the plaza should cause everyone to wonder what the future might bring.

While Hennepin County continues to stand behind claims that the restrictions being placed upon Occupy Minneapolis are about health and safety, the reality is that the county itself is financially under attack by the same Wall St. friendly policies that led many of the protesters to the plaza in the first place. The 2012 Hennepin County budget calls for 3.13-percent reduction, much of that a result of trickle down funding cuts at the state and Federal level. Instead of doing what they can to drive away the Occupy Minneapolis group, perhaps Hennepin County officials should be using our presence to help advocate for a restoration of the 100+ jobs that will be lost under next year’s budget.

The loss of public space to corporate interests, coupled with the kinds of restrictions of freedom of speech and assembly that have been upheld by the nation’s court system, represent a threat to the very health of our democratic society. Regardless of whether or not you support the Occupy movement, it’s vitally important to consider the broader issues of public space and the 1st Amendment. If more people don’t stand up now in favor of the 1st amendment rights of groups like Occupy, the more likely it will be in the future that such rights will diminish or disappear completely. And if there isn’t a sustained, mass effort by the general public to advocate for keeping public spaces, the odds are that what little we have will eventually be gone.

Living in a More Alienated Society

Now for something different. Over at Daishin's blog "living and dying with eyes wide open" is a short reflection on the digital age. Since starting my yoga teacher training, I'm spending more time on buses, and around people with all kinds of tech gadgets. The same is true wherever I go, even in public libraries, where the noise and busyness levels are much higher than I remember them being when I was younger.

Daishin writes:

What’s happening to plain conversations between two people — you know, they kind involving eye contact, occasional pauses, close listening, and actual presence? What makes people walk down the street with eyes and thumbs focused on a tiny screen, quite possibly ‘communicating’ with someone walking right next to them? What happened to listening to what’s naturally around us — a birdsong perhaps — instead of electronic sounds coming from earphones? And have we abandoned privacy and courtesy as we subject others to every shouted word on our cell phones?

The other day, I was on a bus heading to a yoga class. There was a guy sitting near me with his headphones turned all the way up. Across the aisle, another guy talked loudly into a cell phone about banalities to some other guy he'd never met before. At one point, head phone dude turned to the woman sitting next to him and said "This is why I got these headphones. For idiots like that," pointing to the guy on the cell phone. Then he returned to bopping his head to the techno music the entire front end of the bus could hear.

It's interesting Daishin mentions privacy. I'm not sure what privacy means anymore. In fact, the whole public/private line has been blown open, and in ways that aren't healthy on either end of the spectrum. Public spaces are being privatized by the minute. Spending more time in downtown Minneapolis recently, it was interesting to read this article, which points out that there is little public space in downtown for people to gather in.

At the same time, other public spaces, like buses, are filled with a mixture of invasions into personal space and a lack of healthy, shared interactions between people. On another ride filled with people on cell phones, blackberries, and head thumping music, the guy sitting next to me tried to strike up a conversation with me, but I mostly was checked out, struggling with the bombardment of noise around us.

And maybe it's just me, but just having a conversation with a stranger for the sake of it seems to becoming rarer and rarer. People want money. Or to know what time it is. Or to borrow a cell phone. Or a lighter. But as soon as such requests are fulfilled or not fulfilled, the interaction is over. It's totally understandable that someone who is destitute and desperate will be focused on getting their basic needs met. However, I'm seeing this behavior all over, regardless of background and needs.

And you know, I'm finding myself more shut down as well, less willing to interact or respond because so often it seems that I'm just seen as an object, a means to an end. Even looking someone in the eyes while walking down the street can quickly lead to a dance around not having a cigarette to offer, or a watch on my wrist.

Where all this is going I don't know. The prevailing trend here in the U.S. is to privatize everything, get people hooked on a view that the "good life" means being able to do whatever you want whenever you want wherever you want, and make sure everything is so sped up and blurred together that the majority of people can't see what's actually happening in their lives.

I remember sitting with my great grandmother last summer on the porch, chatting a little bit and listening to the birds. A simple conversation. Nothing really "profound" was said. However, it the was the best half hour I had the entire trip out there (she lived in Michigan). I'm not sure I ever asked great grandma what she though of the world today, but I know that one of her favorite things to do was sit at a table with family and fiends, talking, eating, and playing cards. Nothing fancy.

On Monday, we had a class on the 4th precept - taking up the way of not speaking falsely - where person after person spoke deeply about different challenges they had with upholding this teaching, and where everyone else listened just as deeply. The sharing was rich, and the energy of the room was loving and respectful.

Both those examples feel so different from the general movement of society, which seems to be creating more alienation within each of us.


*Photo from Chernobyl zone - Ukraine