Do androids dream of electric sheep, as Philip K. Dick asked? Do smartphones dream at all?
How do they know what we’ve been talking about so they can show us relevant ads? Oh, we know the answer to that, but we don’t face the implications.
We’re entertained by the pretty FBI agents on TV stalking criminals with their cellphone data and the GPS devices in their cars, and we don’t tremble at the idea of constant surveillance.
Scary science fiction was written years ago about authorities watching the innocent 24 hours a day, and it was brushed off as fantasy or a future to be avoided. Now that it’s a reality, we brush it off as no big deal, or even a blessing — we can be found if we get lost. And maybe if the cameras catch us doing something really embarrassing, We’ll win $100,000 from America’s Funniest Home Videos.
The ghosts of Winston Smith and Julia aren’t laughing, though.
If we teach kids that people are made in God’s image, each a unique individual to be treated with care and respect, then we teach them to be gentle and loving and caring.
If we teach kids that people are squishy targets and it’s fun to blow them away, then we teach them something else.
It’s amazing how hard the computer geeks and special effects wizards have worked to make the simulated shredding and maiming of the human body look realistic in our movies and TV shows and video games, for entertainment purposes.
And I wonder if there’s a relation between running up points for every gory simulated death in a game, and cheering when the bad guy comes to a horrific end in a movie, and the cheering for war and violence on otherwise peaceful streets in real life.
Actually, no, I don’t wonder, I believe there’s a connection. When you cheapen the value of a life, you invite warlords and murderers to do their thing.
When a life ends, any life, something precious is lost forever. That’s what we must teach our kids if we are to survive as a species.
“In the folk classic ‘If I Had A Hammer,’ the hammer represents justice, one of these freedom.”
The answer to the Jeopardy! question was a no-brainer. “Bell,” I said to the air. “The bell of freedom.” Next question.
But wait, the three contestants — none of whom looked old enough to have been alive in 1962 or 1963, to be fair — stared into space with confused looks on their faces.
As happens at times like these, I said to the air, a little louder, “Bell! The bell of freedom! Really?!?!?” And the time buzzer went off.
“Bell,” said Ken Jennings, hosting, “the bell of freedom.”
I guess they don’t sing about freedom these days. Why would we want young people to sing about freedom?
Do they even know what freedom is or what freedom feels like?
A generation doesn’t know what it’s like not to be surveilled and monitored at every turn. They don’t worry if someone’s listening because someone is always listening, even if it’s just the AI on the nearest electronic device.
They don’t know what it’s like to get on a plane without being treated like a criminal suspect. If someone in authority tells them to lock themselves in their homes, they stay home.
Come to think of it, there’s one more item in the song that the kids ought to be taught to sing about.
“I’ve got a hammer, and I’ve got a bell, and I’ve got a song to sing all over this land,” the last verse of the song goes. “It’s the hammer of justice, it’s the bell of freedom, it’s a song about love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land.”
There’s still talk about justice these days, but freedom? and wait a minute, love?! When there are people in that other party to shut up and people in those other countries to kill? What the heck kind of a song is that, anyway?
I think maybe it’s a song that needs to be sung and taught to our kids, so that when that episode of Jeopardy! is rerun, everyone watching will yell at the screen, “Bell! It’s the bell of freedom!!”
