A 20-year nap
In the American classic, Rip Van Winkle, fell asleep in the Catskill Mountains and wakes up 20 years later, having missed the American Revolution.
For over twenty years we have been living in the very early stages of a “digital revolution”. We are just now wakikng up to how this digital revolution is impacting every facet of our lives.
It is not so much that we have slept through the Digital Revolution. It is more that our efforts to cope with COVID 19 are waking us up to the much broader implications and possibilities of living in a digital world.
In the midst of the isolation of COVID 19 “Zooming” can be a metaphor for opening our eyes to different ways of doing business… and even different forms of presence.
Ecclesial prophetic voices
It is not that we were not warned. For me, the following is somewhat ironic. A nearly 20-year-old document from the Pontifical Council for Social Communications saw the broad outlines before most people. In 2002 The Church and the Internet boldly wrote …
“the Internet, which is helping bring about revolutionary changes in commerce, education, politics, journalism, the relationship of nation to nation and culture to culture—changes not just in how people communicate but in how they understand their lives.”
That same year St. John Paul II wrote
“Although the virtual reality of cyberspace cannot substitute for real interpersonal community, the incarnational reality of the sacraments and the liturgy or the immediate and direct proclamation of the gospel, it can complement them, attract people to a fuller experience of the life of faith, and enrich the religious lives of users.”
Vincentian perspectives
A former Superior General Gregory Gay wrote…
My brothers, the world has changed faster than most of us would ever have anticipated. The internet is one of the key movers in this change. … I have two questions to pose to you for your reflection, my brothers.
First, How will the world be different in just six years? Whether we like it or not, technology will be woven more and more into the fabric of our lives, even the lives of the poorest among us.
Second, Will we be ready to serve in such a world?
Over 20 years ago the Final Document of the 1998 Congregation of the Mission General Assembly presciently made the connection between access to technology and poverty:
“We are entering into an era of information technology which brings with it unrecognized, and therefore even more insidious forms of poverty. If the poor remain without access to information technology, they will be further marginalized and locked into a cycle of poverty.
We are currently seeing a two-tier education becoming solidified with children who lack of access to computers or parents poorly prepared to guide them. Their parents will increasingly be locked into jobs that will perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
As Vincentians we need to recognize this revolution will reinforce the already existing structures of poverty.
Structural information poverty should be a concern of all the followers of Vincent.
Allow me to modify Vincent’s well- known words. The Vincentian Family is not now what it once was. Nor is it yet what it is called to be.
Let us wake to the impact of the digital revolution on those we serve.
Questions
- Am I aware that the “digital revolution” is much more profound that just using email or watching Netflix?
- How conscious am I of the long-term consequences of the structural dimensions of information poverty?
- Do I ask as Vincent did, “What must be done”?
Click below for an audio version of this Vincentian Mindwalk
Spot on!! 👍🏼
This is exactly why UN NGOs say “Leave no one behind also means leave no one offline” especially now with our greater dependence on technology. Information Poverty demands it!
Has this got to do, then, with “infrastructure”?
Father John, thank you for the pleasant diversion. I was not as familiar with the Rip Van Winkle tale and took the time to read it (fortunately, it’s available online* and it’s less than 20 pages).
A couple of thoughts occurred when reading it – Rip was clearly the type of person that we discover “in need” most often nowadays – possibly focusing not on the things that would improve his own situation but eager to help anyone else – easily distracted from his seemingly endless life of drudgery and verbal abuse and seeking comfort in a certain refreshment and conversation – popular with children and those curious to hear a good tale but not so much with the town “officials.” Secondly, he awakens and stumbles back to town to find his nagging wife passed away, the pals he hung out with replaced by their sons or similarly minded folk, his own son the spitting image of himself and his lifelong demeanor and the only thing the local folks are concerned with what political party affiliation he has and how he intends to vote. It was written in 1819. Some things never change.
Getting back to your observation, so often the people we help are living in a similar bubble. So many people who have lived through the transitions forget those transitions and only see the origin and what it is now. For example, during home visits, so many focus on the flat-screen TV or the new smart phone and recall how much those items cost initially. Nowadays, for various reasons, those items are available for a fraction of that original cost or were donated by some generous group, yet the notion that they are somehow taking advantage of the generosity of others surfaces.
More to your point, it is easy to lose sight of how people communicate with one another – sometimes with a language and method unfamiliar to those not in those similar circumstances. We see that so many folks respond better to text messages than phone calls (often because government aid requires it) – they might have venmo or PayPal accounts that their family or friends use to help them out – and most have their private network of friends who make life bearable for them.
Recognizing that the process is the key (as you recently remarked), we all need the Spirit to bring us up to speed – whether that speed is slower or faster than we expected.
*https://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Irving/Winkle/Irving_Winkle.pdf
Thanks for another eye-opening, heart-opening journey.