Beatrix, Queen of The Netherlands, seems to feel the internet is in large responsible for the estrangement of some people in society. In her traditional Christmas Speech she spoke about virtual contacts and how it may have resulted in a society where ‘the modern human seems to lack attention for others’.
A view on her words.
Beatrix herself is the main author of the speech. It is considered the one moment in the year where she is truly able to speak her own opinion and she traditionally gives her view on matters that concern her. Though the speeches have always remained quite abstract as not to offend anyone, she is very clear in her words.
This year she spoke about how we, in her opinion, have become strangers of each other, how we appear to no longer look after our neighbours and that we seem to have lost touch with what she calls the community.
We are too individualised and one of the main reasons for that: internet in general and online social communities in particular, or so seems the claim of Beatrix.
Cookies for the Neighbours
My neighbours are total strangers too me. When I see them outside I greet them, but that really is about it. And I don’t feel a need for more contact. If they’d start some chit-chat one day I’d be polite, but clearly keep my distance.
Home is a place where I wish to be able to relax and I prefer not to take the risk having neighbours ringing my doorbell for a cup of coffee (or sugar for that matter). Not saying my neighbours would, but it is a risk you take when you connect more, Surely I would alarm them if I notice a fire or a burglar and I more or less count on them doing the same as that too me is just human decency. But truly nothing more. Does that make me a bad neighbour?
Should I bake cookies and take them next door one day and check out who they actually are? Meet them, so to say? Get to know their name? Is being civilised enough or should I really be social?
“[...] But the modern human seems to lack attention for others. In current time people are mainly focused on themselves. We are inclined to look away from the other and to close our eyes and ears from what is around us. Now even neighbours are sometimes strangers. We speak without having a conversation, we look at each other without seeing. People communicate with short and fast little messages. Our society becomes more and more about the individual. Personal freedom has separated itself from being connected with the community. But without any feeling of ‘we’ our existence will be void. An emptiness that will not be filled with virtual encounters; quite the opposite in fact, distances will only become bigger. The ideal of the redeemed individual has reached its end. We must try to find our way back to what holds society together.”.
Though the Queen was actually a close neighbour of one of my previous employers, my co-workers and I knew nothing of her personal life, putting me in no position to judge how well informed she truly is on certain matters. She may just be Bea1938 on some obscure blog and constantly be twittering, updating her facebook page, roam Second Life as a furry or she may have never touched a computer in the first place.
What one has to bear in mind is that the Queen may (may, as she has not mentioned it in her speech) be affected by the tragedy on Queensday this year. A man has attempted to slam the Royal Bus with his car. The Royal Family was not harmed, but 7 others were killed when the man took his car with great speed through the cheering crowds. He himself died later in the hospital. It has been said the man had been estranged from his family and the people around him resulting in spending most of his time online.
Conversations without voices
Further in her speech as she continues:
“The current technical possibilities seem to bring people closer together, but they stay within a ‘safe’ distance, hiding behind their monitors. We can speak without having to appear, without being seen, anonymous. Simply and roughly showing emotion has become an easy thing. No longer people are being accounted for speaking without respect. Being the stranger is not what causes aggression but aggression is what makes the other a stranger.”
The ‘world online’. I have very dear friends there. Some physically close too me, some far far away. Most I have never met in person, some I have never heard the voice of. But does that matter?
When we exclude avatar-eyes this sure speaks for me: “We speak without having a conversation, we look at each other without seeing.” The exact intention of the Queen with this phrase still puzzles me a bit. I mean, how does one speak without having a conversation, other than when we speech? Is a conversation only verbally possible? Surely the Queen has written letters to others and has received a response, isn’t that a conversation in its own right too?
The monitor we sit (or hide, as the Queen calls it) behind does add a border. Sometimes I really miss being able to look someone in the eyes, to give (or get) that hug or just truly being together. But it also gives us the power to connect with people we would have never connected with otherwise. It is very unlikely I would have met any of my friends that I met online without the internet, simply as we live in other places, would not connect through work as we do other things and we are too old for summer camp. Yet we have found personal grounds that makes us friends. Things that make us love each other. The bonds are equally strong as with my friends who I met in the ‘traditional way’. Only difference is that we don’t physically meet, or at least not on a regular basis.
Now this is solely speaking about good online experiences. I have met way more people online who had a hidden agenda or that I didn’t have that click with. It is a matter of not letting things go to fast, taking time to get to know each other and to be a bit cautious. But doesn’t this apply to meeting in real life too? How many people do we speak with in real life and don’t end up being friends of us?
Shiny tools, shady people?
The Queen addresses a serious problem in parts of society and for certain individuals. I am the last to deny that or to look the other way and pretend it is all that shiny. But where I disagree with her is putting the blame on the tools used (the internet and online social networks). It is a problem of the person self. It is about not being able to find that balance or not knowing how to connect in real life in general, thus losing contact with society, or their neighbours if you will. And this is a serious matter, a problem we should at least attempt to solve as a society.
Isn’t it the same as the connection people make between violence and computer games? I honestly consider it bogus. We are all quite easily (it’s scary sometimes) influenced to some extent by what we see, read and hear. And when you consider that, wouldn’t way more people be shooting in the streets as they play these games? Or could it be that the people committing these crimes have other issues that are the true cause? Sure, a game could have enhanced it, given an example even. But when one is in good mental health a game would never be the trigger to shoot someone, don’t you think? The problem lies deeper and the same would apply to the rude behaviour of some people online and those who really use the internet as a way to communicate without speaking and a place to hide.
Some people in society disconnect, but that is not because of the internet. The internet is a powerful tool that can be used for the good and the bad. The problem lies in society in general, how we raise our children and keep an eye on our peers. Some people are not able to balance things and they are often not supported in finding that balance. Or they have never learned how to make friends due to a variety of reasons.
And for the internet? It is just like every invention over the dawn of time. The Royal Family drove in a bus as a way to greet and connect with the Dutch people, yet the same technology was used by a man in his car in a (sad) attempt to slam that bus.
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There seems to be no official translation available of the Christmas Speech. The translations are done by the author of this article, Miskat Qinan, and are as accurate as possible.
Please note that this article is a personal opinion and it is not intended to offend anyone.
You can read and view the Christmas Speech of Her Majesty the Queen Beatrix in Dutch on the official website of the Royal Family.
