Not long ago I listened to an old address by author, David McCullough. He talked about what it means to be a spectator vs. a participant. He was concerned that the American public was becoming so dependent on smart phones, tablets and social media that they had removed themselves from participating in the real world of in person relationships without which life becomes flat and the fabric of society weakened. They had become mere spectators uninvolved in the necessary work of active citizenship. Active citizenship means more than reasonably well informed engagement with important public issues of the day. It also means engaging with others to listen, learn, develop and maintain friendships, to participate in social events ranging from coffee gossip to clubs, worship, shared spots and hobbies, and the like.
Last week I heard a brilliant H.S. graduation speech on lessons learned during COVID. Although Zoom made continuing learning possible, it could not make up for the loss of in person community that normally energized student life while practicing social skills and values in the give and take of human interaction. I doubt she had listened to McCullough’s address, but the message was similar: be a participant, not just a spectator. Personally I would not want to repeat my awkward, sometimes painful teenage experiences, but admit it was also a time of exciting growth, learning and discovery.
Even after the isolation of COVID, I now sometimes wonder if McCullough was right. We live a block from the campus of a medium size university. Students walking from here to there appear glued to their phones, oblivious to anything around them – people, birds singing, weather, traffic, even friends trying to talk with them. It isn’t just students; many adults seem to think a text ding is more important than talking with the person they’re next to or that failure to catch a breaking news alert or email is a venial sin. How many live their lives through tablets, computers and phones, rarely experiencing personal engagement with nature and people? The Internet and social media are useful tools but can never be substitutes for personal engagement, what McCullough called ‘participation.’
Is our collective disassociation from the real world as serious as it sometimes appears? I’m also aware of how actively our local students engage in issues discussions, community volunteer work, student religious groups, etc. We’re a historic town with lthousands of tourists. There’s a high demand for summer hospitality jobs and internships that soak up teens and young adults involving some kind of social interaction with co-workers and the public. You earn a lot about the real world when working in Hospitality.
At the age of 80, I’m part of two weekly and two monthly discussion groups, and have a circle of friends who enjoy visiting in person or email about matters of interest and importance. We take long walks, explore nature and delight in what we experience in daily life. University was a long time ago, but life long learning is our passion, as it is with neighbors and friends. The same is true of our extended family of adult children, spouses, grandchildren, in laws, and so on. Most are progressive, a few are conservative, but all are engaged in the real world beyond careers. Perhaps that’s closer to the norm than polls suggest.
What is the real world? It’s far more than public policy issues of one sort or another. It means being aware of one’s surroundings, the needs and interests of others, nature with all its creatures, and the needs of every day life. In an age of increasing specialization in almost every career and occupation, it means having interest unrelated to “work” that brings more fullness into life. With that in mind, it also means that participation in life must include a significant measure of spectatorship. If there is a time for everything under heaven, there is a time when one must be a silent spectator, waiting, listening, seeking understanding, reflecting and judging. It’s a matter of balance. Being a spectator is not wrong in itself, it’s wrong when spectatorship defines one’s way of life. Long before smart phones and the internet, it was possible to be little more than a spectator and too many were. Grocery store tabloids, idle gossip, couch potato t.v., and living in isolated bubbles of town, neighborhood or club created opportunities to be willfully ignorant of “the real world”, uninvolved in it, except for angry criticism of things one knew little about. I don’t know, maybe it’s too difficult for many people to envision a a wider horizon and better future, to be curious about lives of people unlike themselves. My wife is taking a class in which the instructor alleged that too many lives are dictated by the past, unaware of the present, and unwilling or unable to envision the future beyond the next month or year. They lack curiosity and imagination. Writers of the 1920-30 era called them stupid. It means something a little different now, but that’s what it meant then.
Is it just a quirk of human nature? I hope not. Creating the conditions for more people to be intellectually curious, courageous, and engaged in a healthy mix of spectatorship and participation is what public schools, universities, community colleges, and tech schools are about. A well funded vibrant, challenging public education system is, I suspect, what makes broad engagement in citizenship possible. John Adams thought so almost 300 years ago, and so do I. Angry adults attacking school boards appear to prefer intellectual passivity over courage, stupidity over curiosity, and spectatorship over participation. In plain English they seek to abort the next generation of well informed citizens.