Joel Foner, the facilitator of We Are The Network, had a tweet out today about Vicki Abeles’ film Race To Nowhere (trailer and information). It’s not just a film about suicides and distress in youth culture, it’s a call to action to do something about it.
Of course, the film is not just about the problems of the young, who are being pushed to ever more and “better” performances. Kids these days have to be active and admired members of the community, they have to be good in sports and culture, they have to be outstanding in school, they have to be cute and social. Without all this, so it seems, they won’t have a good life in a society where the middle class is under ever more pressure and the choice is between really succeeding big time or ending up as one of the increasing number of people who work hard, have various jobs, but still don’t manage to escape poverty.
At the same time those kids ask the question: “race to where exactly?” The teachers ask: learning what exactly? Learning to succeed in a competition or learning in the sense of understanding the world and the different ideas about what “a good life”(some ancient Greeks would have said “eudaimonia“) might be?
Do those high-performing adults, who are so proud they work 14 hours a day, are that sure their life makes sense? That they are not neglecting other values? Our society and technology, in the West at least, is capable of tremendous high production and productivity, yet people are encouraged to work day and night in order to keep up with the competition, with the “unprecedented challenges” etc.
Would it be far-fetched to wonder whether we live in a neurotic society, where work is increasingly becoming a meaningless but compulsive behavior?
These latest weeks I attended some great discussions at We Are The Network and at the Metanomics forum, about the nature of these virtual communities in Second Life. The smaller scale and stability of those communities seem to allow for forms of civility which are highly appreciated by the community members. It is not only about “consuming the show content”, it’s about encounters, about conversation, where it is at least as important to meet the other members.
In the competition for attention those communities have a very special position, and people get attention not only because they have interesting things to say, but also because they are people, and because we want them to engage in the conversation, so we can meet them and recognize them for what they are – wonderful human beings.
I don’t know whether this “convivial” atmosphere in our virtual communities can be traced back right to the counter-culture movement, but it seems to provide a safe-haven for people who want some alternative for the” race to nowhere”. As the work of many educators in Second Life shows, these communities are not just places to escape from mindless competition and performance pressure, but also places to help preparing for action and for viable alternatives in “real life”.
Roland Legrand