Flicker
08-14-21, 10:25 AM
Hm. I relate it to the global covid stress, but, in a way, I feel it had started earlier. I kinda also relate it to the expanse of social networks and how they frame relationships.
But in the last few years, I've seen the dislocation of many relationships, friendly, familial, etc. Like, burning bridges had become the most popular sport. Like, everyone being terminally fed up with everyone.
Some of these things had happened around the usual events : deaths, inheritances (which brings out the worst in people) and various forms of shock and mourning, fueling unmanageable amounts of bitterness that seek outlets.
But it's general. I see it everywhere around me (now the frontline has reached me, but I saw it approach slowly), and in different countries. During the covid containment months, it cascaded impressively.
And there's also... here's my theory, a bit. Usually, people were forced to live with each others. Workplace, family, proximity. Meaning that disputes and disagreements had to be resolved with time, people had to "make do" with differences and grudges. But with remote contacts, you have the freedom to switch off and terminate it, and not look back. And this has become a standard modus operandi : people cutting other people off in real life, as if the social network exclusion buttons had been an epiphany about real life possibilities. And as the covid has "virtualized" many relationship, this easy way out became generalized as a natural reaction, speeding up this Big Global Disaggregation, all in the context of general frustration and resentment with no defined targets (Alain Resnais' brilliant My Uncle from America (1979) has awesome sections on Henri Laborit's ethology research, showing how stressed rats end up assaulting each others when deprived of any possible action against their unrelated ordeal).
So, is it a trend you people have also witnessed around you during the last 2 or 3 years ?
But in the last few years, I've seen the dislocation of many relationships, friendly, familial, etc. Like, burning bridges had become the most popular sport. Like, everyone being terminally fed up with everyone.
Some of these things had happened around the usual events : deaths, inheritances (which brings out the worst in people) and various forms of shock and mourning, fueling unmanageable amounts of bitterness that seek outlets.
But it's general. I see it everywhere around me (now the frontline has reached me, but I saw it approach slowly), and in different countries. During the covid containment months, it cascaded impressively.
And there's also... here's my theory, a bit. Usually, people were forced to live with each others. Workplace, family, proximity. Meaning that disputes and disagreements had to be resolved with time, people had to "make do" with differences and grudges. But with remote contacts, you have the freedom to switch off and terminate it, and not look back. And this has become a standard modus operandi : people cutting other people off in real life, as if the social network exclusion buttons had been an epiphany about real life possibilities. And as the covid has "virtualized" many relationship, this easy way out became generalized as a natural reaction, speeding up this Big Global Disaggregation, all in the context of general frustration and resentment with no defined targets (Alain Resnais' brilliant My Uncle from America (1979) has awesome sections on Henri Laborit's ethology research, showing how stressed rats end up assaulting each others when deprived of any possible action against their unrelated ordeal).
So, is it a trend you people have also witnessed around you during the last 2 or 3 years ?