Digital navel-strings – shall one cut those?

Visualization of a portion of the routes on the Internet.

[Updated after lunch and in the evening, see the end of this posting]. I skimmed a magazine “Smockan” from “Sveriges musik- och kulturskoleråd” or “Sweden’s music and culture schools council” (a club for mutual admiration?? :-)) at work the other day and found an article there I thought was interesting or which made me think and not least feel “Digitala navelsträngar – ska man klippa dom?” or “Digital navel-strings – shall one cut those?” *

And I also read a leader-chronicle on “Vi mår nog inte alltid bra av att allt är offentligt” or (a little freely) “We probably don’t feel well by making all and everything public” by the leader writer and Lutheran priest Helle Klein. I thought these two articles paralleled each other.

First the former article which was about a lecture on the theme communication by a Micke Gunnarsson working on the web and communication bureau Noisy Cricket (Gunnarsson's own home site).

On this lecture or seminar he gave a quick history lesson, history light as they wrote, where he said that the society has developed from an agricultural society where it was demanded of people that they should be able to work with their bodies, have strong bodies to work with, and that one should be stationary and collective, to an industrial society where more education and brain was needed, with the demands being more functional and being more of a specialist (what about being a complex individual?) and where it was more focus on the individual.

But now when I reread this it strikes me that being able to think, i.e., having a brain wasn’t less necessary then probably, was it? Not even for a stone age human being! Even then people needed to figure things out to solve problems of different kinds and to anticipate or foresee the results of their actions.

He said that in today’s knowledge society communication, networks, speed and complexity is needed.

“You share knowledge in another way today, the techniques for exchanging knowledge happen all over the world.”

Being young today means largely becoming confirmed (a need becoming confirmed), it is no coincidence you can upload pictures and information about yourself on different portals on the net he said.

Children and youth need to have full control all the time, they want to know perpetually and constantly what’s going on (the need for power and control?). It’s about speed; you shall be able to find things quickly on the net. It’s also very important with contacts and networks; it’s status having a lot of contacts.

A lot of the communication happens on the net too, something media in large has realized and uses.

The second article was about a funeral of a small 10-year old girl Engla that was brutally murdered. Her funeral was sent in Swedish Television last week. And this is something that has never happened here earlier. Earlier it has only been well known people’s funerals that have been sent on TV. And it has been a hot debate on this here.

Helle Klein reflects over tendencies in the society, making everything public. She points out (which is true!!!) that the church’s all ceremonies are public, so also funerals.

According to her a lot of people use to call the editorial offices in crisis and catastrophes wanting to share their despair.

In today’s individualized world the mutuality is shaped in our collective mourning she thinks. In that sense she thinks it’s a good thing the grief isn’t privatized.

At the same time there is a narcissistic back of cancelling (en narcissistisk baksida av upphävandet av) the boarder between private and public (yes, I come to think of integrity, of boundary violations and the expressions of these things and the roots for these things). She thinks it is as if people’s sorrow doesn’t exist if the media hasn’t reported about it. The seduction in being mirrored is strong she writes.

But she doubts if we feel well in long term making everything public.

We get married in media, vi are operated in media, we talk about our marriages in media, we make love in media, we mourn in media, yes, we even die in media.

She thinks the blog-culture is the outer expression of today’s narcissism (!!). All shall get passed forward.

There are traits of elitism in the (recent) debate though. Nobody question if the great director’s funeral is televised, but televising a 10-year old girl’s funeral is awful in people’s minds.

The church need to help people safeguarding their integrity instead of making the publicity easier. We need to protect the soul from unsound exploitation she writes.

Present-day people should need the experience of being part of a context exceeding herself without that this should mean cancelling the private sphere.

She thinks it’s time preaching freedom as relation but not necessarily as publicity.

In the old popular movements (folkrörelserna) empathy was exercised in meeting with the Other person in different contexts. The human being was seen as relational and the social bonds were strongly interlaced. Today it’s different. Through TV-cameras a sort of connection, coherence is shaped, that’s true, but when the searchlights are turned off the individual stands there alone on the stage. The audience has gone home.

Klein thinks the public’s perspective is as short-sighted as the speculation on the stock. We need room for long-range seeing, where the social bonds remain, beyond the medialization’s fugitiveness. We ought to greet each other with

“See you tomorrow. We live in each other’s company.”

Human kindness needs the eye of eternity.

---

Earlier postings on autonomy, boundary violations, and integrity. How would it be if we were capable of meeting children from the first start and onwards with true, genuine respect? What sort of society would we have? How would young people's needs be?

But we would probably need help with this ourselves first, to develop awareness and sensitivity. I imagine we aren't even aware of what we do always. But of course that's no excuse! We are probably not aware of what effects our actions have emotionally on young people?

But the more we write and speak about these things the better? But I guess this will be met with denial from many people?

* In the Swedish part it stands about the naval string or navelsträng:

"Navelsträngen används ibland metaforiskt för att antyda att en person inte har frigjort sig ifrån sin moder."

Translated:

"The naval string is sometimes used metaphorically to imply or suggest that a person hasn't liberated hím/herself from her/his mother."

And it is used with a contemptuous undertone. A sort of contempt for weakness. But from where does the inability to cut the ties to one's mom come? See about autonomy above and what Miller has written about this. Something in the style that if the child hasn't got the opportunity, help and support to develop an own, genuine, true self she can't be autonomous either **(my free interpretation). And how does one help (or rather support) a person in reaching such an autonomy? Not by contempt though?

And I don't say I have come to terms with these things at all. I am still struggling, and will probably continue struggling with them! Maybe the rest of my life?

** But maybe the later grown up can disguise it's lack of autonomy very cleverly and intelligently, and fool both her/himself and the environment?? Or become too independent? Deny his/her needs of other human beings?

Updated after lunch: Sigrun at Sigrun's blog wrote that this popular Norwegian Christmas song was written on May 17, 1992, the Norwegian Constitution Day or the National Day of Norway.

Happy May 17!

En stjerne skinner i natt

Nå er den hellige time
vi står i stjerneskinn
og hører klokkene kime
nå ringes julen inn

Englene synger høyt i kor
synger om fred på vår jord
verden var aldri helt forlatt
en stjerne skinner i natt

En nyfødt kjærlighet sover
nå er guds himmel nær
vår lange vandring er over
stjernen har stanset her

Englene synger høyt i kor
synger om fred på vår jord
verden var aldri helt forlatt
en stjerne skinner i natt

Se himmlen ligger og hviler
på jordens gule strå
vi står rundt krybben og smiler
for vi er fremme nå

Nå kan vi drømme om den fred
som vi skal eie en gang
for dette barn har himmlen med
og jorden fylles med sang

~Eivind Skeie / Tore W. Aas~
---
En stjärna lyser så klar

Nu i den heliga timman
ser vi mot himlens höjd
och vi hör klockorna klinga
känner vart hjärtas fröjd.

Änglarna ger oss hopp och tro
sjunger om fred på vår jord
allt som Gud aldrig övergav
en stjärna lyser så klar

Kärleken världen behöver
vet vi att barnet bär
vår långa vandring är över
stjärnan har stannat här

Änglarna ger oss hopp och tro
sjunger om fred på vår jord
allt som Gud aldrig övergav
en stjärna lyser så klar

Himmelen ligger och slumrar
på jordens gula halm
vi känner fröjd och förundran
för vi har kommit fram

Här kan vi drömma om den fred
som vi skall äga en gång
barnet som fötts tar himlen med
och jorden fylls utav sång

Änglarna ger oss hopp och tro
sjunger om fred på vår jord
allt som Gud aldrig övergav
en stjärna lyser så klar

Updated in the evening: Thanks for the Swedish text, Sigrun! Maybe I will use this Christmas song, a song I actually haven't heard earlier. The text was very beautiful!