REALMS OF SELFISHNESS

There is a reservoir of goodwill. And we are free to tap it, and drain it away. The reservoir of goodwill ... it is not regulated by law. Courtesy cannot be compelled, regard for others cannot be forced. Selfishness is prefectly legal -- when it comes down to interacting with clerks and other shoppers in stores, or other drivers on the road, or when we choose isolation over the company of other people, by engaging in solitary pursuits that feed our egos at the expense of society.

In more primitive societies, the reservoir is more safe from depletion at the hands of selfishness. The smaller the community, the more a person's face and reputation are known -- meaning that there are consequences for selfishness. Face-to-face interaction is more necessary in societies where the telecommunications are not so dominant. Face-to-face interaction is more meaningful in societies where there is less geographic mobility -- in those societies, the same faces stay in the area, for a longer time, building reputations and connotations. Primitive societies have their own problems -- suffocation of free will and individuality. And our society has certain mechanisms, such as credit reports and other impersonal monitoring devices, to keep track of who has been doing what.

But we are primarily living through machines now, whether they be cars or computers, cell phones or credit card scanners. Our society is connected by the wiring of unseen routers and cables that string together the internet and cable and phone systems, and by the walkie-talkie towers that carry our cell phone calls (as the connection to the local loop). The reservoir of goodwill is tapped and drained by each automated phone service center that frustrates our attempts to answer our questions, by each driver who cuts us off to get to a red light, by our own limited patience with others. Goodwill is a human emotion, one that binds people together as living beings, building communities and societies; but we are no longer building human community or society -- our mass endeavor is now the construction of a network of information transmission, through telecommunications. This network allows us to communicate with friends, relatives, and business contacts, who are scattered across the world. But the network also displaces essential parts of our humanity, today, just as, in the past era, industrialism took its toll on the natural environment. Conscience might be the one final regulator, to protect our humanity ... if only they could develop a barcode that would scan for it.