As IF Times

From our history lessons in school, we learned (or used to learn) about the various epochs of mankind.  First there was the pre-historic age, wherein no one wrote anything down, so there really was no record, hence, pre-historic. From this period of unknown duration, man figured out how to make tools out of stone and thus animals could be hunted and hostile neighbors put at bay. This was of course, the Stone Age.  Once people starting posting graffiti on cave walls, the era of the caveman was underway.

Then, someone figured out how to harness the power of fire.  This enabled people to not only achieve better tasting food, but also created the ability to make weapons by using fire to melt metal.  Hence the Bronze Age came into being as people created armies with weapons and shields.  Now, societies could go about taking over other civilizations that were less advanced. Thus, civilizations spread through military technology.  As time went on, human ingenuity invented means by which life could be more productive and thus the age of iron and steam emerged which enabled heavy industry.  By now, things started to really take off for mankind.

As industrialization matured, more advances in technology occurred including the discovery and harnessing of electricity, the Electrical Age and all the way up to the very recent Computer Age and the related, Information Age.  All of these advances in human knowledge were created to make lives easier, less costly and more enjoyable for all.

Oddly, at this juncture, civilization seems to have paused, if not actually regressing, into the era that we’re in now; the Karen Age. In a throwback to a time when information and knowledge were the purview of the religious sect to be doled out in a manner beneficial to them, we appear to be regressing to this era once again.  Lives seem to be harder, more costly and less enjoyable.

This time, the self-appointed distributors of knowledge aren’t necessarily even educated….in anything.  The common denominator is that they profess their expertise and righteousness in pushing some narrative dear to their particular sensibilities. They cannot prevent themselves from sharing this worldview with others because of their own inflated sense of self-worth.  This wasn’t supposed to happen.  We were supposed to be in the Age of Aquarius: harmony and understanding, enlightenment etc. Instead, we’re in the age of Karen, the time of people telling us what to think and how to behave.

Someone like Al Gore may come to mind, but he’s not quite the profile of a Karen. Gore goes about his climate change nonsense honestly; that is, he’s in it for the money.  He doesn’t personally believe in the hoax that he pushes any more than he believes in walking to all of his conferences.

No, the Karens of this era are those fanatically pushing their worldview and will upon others because of their sense of entitlement and notions of social piety.  They are the exact opposite of the liberal notion of live and let live.  They have appointed themselves guardians of what is (in their minds) acceptable behavior. I read somewhere that these people believe that they’re the gatekeepers of one giant HOA.

Given that the majority of popular media is their soapbox, virtually any issue can be Karen-ed. It would be impossible to list all the ways that this oppressiveness has affected our daily lives since most people aren’t even aware of their effects.

From demonizing plastic straws, gasoline engines and gas stoves to red meats, paper cups, shopping bags and unethical coffee, people’s lifestyles are adversely affected by the zeal of the entitled set. It is the large scale life equivalent of ‘you can’t park here’.

We are convinced to accept that sexuality is a social construct in humans, not a natural one as occurs in 99.99% of nature’s creatures.  We are told that accepting a certain level of crime in our lives is all part of living in a civilized society.  In fact, it’s not even permissible to defend ourselves against crime.  Classic books are banned regardless of their literary merits because some offensive words or situations depicted, by today’s standards, are offensive.

And who exactly defines what’s offensive? Well, the Karens of course, because only they possess the moral compass by which we must all comply.  We could all easily ignore the bleats of the Karens in our daily lives if not for the fact that they’ve come to be fully represented in our governments.  Now it’s not just a matter of choice, it’s a matter of state edict as to your compliance with their worldview.  Cleverly, all edicts are framed as in the “best interests of the public’.

Ironically, when confronted with the nonsense of their edicts, they cling to their insistence that they are doing good for their subjects.  The very recent, and in fact ongoing vaccination and restriction edicts were prime examples of this mindset.  Governments are supposed to manage the moving parts of a nation, not determine what foods to eat or what cars to drive. They would be offended if their actions were compared to those of the totalitarian states they profess to abhor…even as the parallels are unmistakable.

It might do good to remember that the oft despised Nazi regime used this phrase as justification for many of their actions; “Fur Ihre Sicherheit”, which translates into, “It’s for your safety”.  Given that today’s compliant populations have boundless tolerance for inconvenience, I suspect that the Karen Age will last quite a bit longer until the willingness of people to go along to get along runs out.  History shows that when this happens, the culture changes severely.

This piece is inspired by a podcast to which I subscribe, entitled; Inner French.  The topic was the extent to which people have become unwittingly enslaved by the many electronic devices available in modern society. Specifically, this podcaster, Hugo Cotton, discusses the degree to which his daily activities became obsessively tied to the tabulations put out by his exercise watch.

While ostensibly, the watch was just an appendage to show time and distance travelled on his jogging runs, the other aspects of his life also monitored by the watch began to create a need in his mind to attain prescribed targets of things such as sleep duration and quality. In essence, he realized that this obsession with reaching targets prescribed by the watch were having adverse effects on his life and thus, he stopped wearing it except for the jogging runs.

I found this to be an interesting observation as this phenomenon has enslaved an entire world by linking their lives to electronic devices.  Of course, we’re not talking about basic smartphones per se; everyone in the world has one and that device is indelibly linked to each person’s lives and personality.  But phones are not just about basic communication as we all know.

What is more troubling is that people have fallen into the trance conveyed primarily by their phones on how to live their lives in general.

In the not too distant past, if people saw something on television or read something in a newspaper, it was deemed to be true, thus those platforms had enormous impact on people.  Clearly those who controlled those outlets would have significant leverage on any given society.  Cellphones, or more specifically, apps on smartphones have mostly taken over the role of TV and newspapers.  Instagram and Facebook are the modern equivalent of unimpeachable sources.

For some reason, there are endless tips and sage advice on how to ‘better’ one’s life or to more effectively perform some mundane task such as frying an egg or tying a shoe. Apparently we’ve been doing it wrong for centuries. There are targets given for physical competence, for cognitive ability or for raising your dogs and children.  We are given advice on the best foods to eat, at what time of the day to eat them, the subtleties of olive oil and the best things to buy at Costco.

We are measured against some mythical statistics on longevity and are given advice on how to attain such immortality by consuming the right amount of kale or by walking 8000 steps per day and drinking organic coconut water. Often this advice is given by 20 something year old ‘influencers’ with acne who’ve just graduated from high school (or not).  Not only that, but apps are always available to measure the targets of such an idealized life. As noted in Hugh Cotton’s experience, people fuss over reaching statistical targets arbitrarily set by ‘experts’.

And people believe it.  They believe the advice on how to get wealthy simply by leveraging themselves in real estate or to put it all into Crypto currencies. People become stressed when they compare the ‘progress’ in their lives versus those depicted on social media platforms. It is never good enough. Invariably, people will find famous people who will espouse sentiments favorable to their own and thus the modern phenomenon of ‘following’ people becomes the norm. Admit it or not, the phenomenon of hanging on to every word of powerful influencers is as additive as any drug.

With great irony, the proliferation of ‘information’ on so many levels creates more stress in people than the liberating health benefits that these devices purport to provide.  There are unrealistic expectations created to which people cannot achieve, thus fostering people’s natural insecurities. Think of the business model of Peloton, the stationary virtual bike machine in which you are on a leaderboard against other cyclists.   Think ab0ut Duolingo, a language learning app in which you are on a leaderboard with other learners.  While it can be argued that these are just effective tools,  in practice, people can become handcuffed to their own unrealistic expectations and perceived inadequacies and in fact may bring out obsessive behaviors.   By their own hand, people have increasingly and unknowingly chained themselves to their electronic devices.

It’s worthwhile to remember that not all ‘statistically’ derived advice is valid. Some of us will remember that in the 1960’s, 4 out of 5 doctors recommended a certain brand of cigarette. And we must not forget the famous phrase attributed to Mark Twain: “…there are lies, damned lies and statistics…”