Society: Collective Judgements in a Moving World

Last week there was news of a brutal murder on the streets of San Francisco where a well-known, and well-liked tech start-up founder and CTO, was stabbed to death. This story brought to mind our rapid course of judgement which has caused friction in our society and the way that news is broadcast and absorbed.

In recent news, San Francisco has been a city in peril due in part to the expanding drug trade, high cost of living, economic instability, policing ideology, and politics. Although the conditions of San Francisco’s challenges are well documented, adding relevance to the news of the CTO’s death is the close proximity to Silicon Valley just miles south. The news hit hard there with an increase in calls for change and accountability for city leaders and elements to blame.

The speed at which the information and surveillance video was broadcast showing the CTO staggering mortally wounded along the sidewalk created a swift focus on what San Francisco has become and the dangers of simply being a citizen. There were some that reserved judgement so that more information could develop to bolster the story and get closer to the truth. Still, there was speculation and opinions expressed.

This is the point where our society is challenged and at a crossroads. As more information was available we saw that the CTO was stabbed to death by someone he know well rather than what we believed to be a random vagrant on the streets. The CTO was at a gathering with the murderer that night and a general motive was established. This changed much of the perception of the interested public receiving up to the minute news via twitter and other media platforms.

Even to those that reserved judgement, there was criticism for those that simply expressed an opinion. Why? Isn’t that the American Way? We are allowed in our society to express ourselves without criticism or having to relay a disclaimer explaining our intents. Why have we stopped allowing each other to have a change of opinion?

When I heard the news, I immediately thought that the CTO was stabbed to death in some random violent act or robbery. I imagined how it all went down and with my illustrative mind, I envisioned what the assailant looked like. When the video showing the injured victim, that just integrated itself into the cinematic picture my mind was already creating. Then, the news came out which changed that picture. The image that I had developed in my mind was incorrect, it was a typo. What to do next? I simply deleted the incorrect part of the information and inserted the correct information as the events played out. It is not very difficult to do that without focusing on the opinion of another individual.

Have we lost that as a society; the ability to change? I’ve mentioned it before in terms of freespeech, we need a societal buffer zone where we can take in information and allow ourselves to have a human reaction. When the news of the CTO came out it should be acceptable for someone to feel personal outrage. That outrage can migrate towards the current status of the city and the people that are in leadership. That outrage can be toward a group or type of people. The anger can be for a system that seems to consistently let down our communities.

Then pause.

Whatever that feeling is, it belongs to the individual. You have the right to think it, express and share it with someone else. I do not have to agree or respond or like your perspective. You have your idea and I have mine. That does not lead us to a conflict of ideology; you have your way and I have mine. On this particular issue we are not in accord. Maybe in some other topic, we might agree with great passion.

It is not OK for an individual to take the expression beyond what is lawful and express that anger or outrage in the form of violence, direct or indirect, like being a protagonist to incite a riot. We have rules for these things and they should be followed.

We also need to understand the natural disconnect between personal opinions, expressions, and the actual way one chooses to live. I may have an opinion that is contrary to how I go about my day to day life that may be deemed hypocritical. It is true that we should all strive for flawless intellectual honestly, however, we should also understand that life and thoughts from the mind are extremely complicated things. We should be given an opportunity to reflect on those elements of life simply because that is where the improvement reside. When we are able to view those complexities and irregularities in our personal expressions, we are able to rethink and change as necessary.

What about those that are not able to review and reflect? Those are folks that do not need help. They are stout in their convictions and are right or wrong as they see fit. Although I have the opportunity to disagree, it is not necessarily ones place to express anything regarding the change of another person. I do not need to like a person or their group or their cause. Within myself and the individual mind, we are all permitted to do what we want. The balance and threshold always exists between thoughts, expressions, and actions.

For society to exist, thrive, and mend, we need to allow for the thoughts and expressions in others to exist. This is a two way road. We also need to understand that the other perspective does not need to subscribe. There is an understanding there, where we elevate beyond that level reserved for an individual and increase our focus on our commonality. Let us begin with what we do agree on. Let us navigate swiftly through our differences and locate where we do stand together. Then we have the ability to move back and forth from those similarities and differences to obtain understanding.

Even in our current global tension, this ongoing search for societal commonality will be necessary in any regime or any time, especially in the world of A.I., surveillance, social conditioning, media, and war.