Relationship Inflation

 

RELATIONSHIP INFLATION

 

Interpersonal connection is ultimately all we have, but its value has been subject to a deadly economic inflation as pseudo-connection has been rendered unlimited by digital media.  The principle at work  is the same as currency inflation.  Produce too much money in response to demand or economic weakness and the currency loses its value.  Our spiritual economic weakness, the hunger for more and more meaningful relationship, has been met with a profligate printing of currency in the form of FaceBook, Instagram, and the panoply of other social media.  We can connect with anyone anywhere at any time.  

As a result, individual relationships and interpersonal bond have been devalued.  We find ourselves in the position of so many nations throughout history who met economic privations not with addressing foundational economic weaknesses but by printing more money to momentarily placate the hungry, demanding masses.

We have not addressed the underlying crippling spiritual economic condition that leaves us hungry, empty, bitter, angry, frightened, and lonely.  We have responded to our spiritual ache of loneliness by minting ever more digital  interactions, rendering them all worthless.  We lug our bag of "likes", "followers", and "friends" to the relationship store and come away with a stale piece of bread, to which we respond by collecting more "likes", "followers", and "friends", each newly minted "connection" rendering all connections more superficial and fleeting.

Values of currencies arise only from the productivity underlying them, productivity in turn arising from work and investment.  Values of relationships likewise possess that value only when productive, when the exchange of relationship interaction among parties has some mutual and meaningful lasting benefit.  That is an economic parameter independent of any treasury, exchequer, or media corporation.  We each individually determine the value of the social currency we mint every day, with our authenticity, depth, and sincere listening, none of which are encouraged by screens and keyboards.  Log off.  Listen.  Care.  Watch the wealth accrue.

Digitally Fractured Beliefs

 

DIGITALLY FRACTURED BELIEFS

Only belief unites people, for going to war or for civic projects.  It is only belief, ungrounded - arbitrary - unsubstantiated shared belief.

Belief, and only belief, gets an army to march, the members to pledge, a populace to serve. 

Belief driven societies underlie all of human history. 

Shattering of shared belief underlies today’s fractured political landscape. 

In hindsight the unravelling of nations and civilization by the internet was quite predictable because the internet and fractured media facilitated the shattering of shared belief.

The collapse of a unified belief system, neighbors holding different beliefs, family members holding conflicting faiths, this is exponentially amplified by today’s diverse digital media environment.

I no longer need to behave like you.  Unseen influencers in Moscow or Austin can shape my behavior, and your behavior.  Even your family need not worship as you do.  A media multitude will tell them they need not worship at all.

The great clashes of civilizations are simply clashes of beliefs, beliefs that conveniently justified the raping and pillaging that reside in our dark souls.  The belief could be in a king or prophet or political system, as long as it was a shared belief.  .  

For millennia, family and society defined our beliefs.  Now we can believe whatever we want, with affirmation from people all over the world.  It is a heady feeling, a disorienting feeling, inducing a spiritual vertigo.  It is liberating, one would think.  Yet instead, it is more fearful than liberating, because we are exposed to so many people, people near and far, who do not share our beliefs and even threaten our beliefs.

This is new for humanity.  Our beliefs are ultimately our identity.  Contradictory beliefs in such close proximity are a threat to the core essence of our being.  

Historically humanity accommodates a sudden exposure to conflicting beliefs by invoking violence, cataclysm, and terror on the infidels, heathens, and gentiles.  But this time the differing beliefs are not across a border, not conveniently wearing a uniform, not even demonstrating the courtesy of self-identifying with a different skin color or facial structure.  

This is existential conflict of beliefs, beliefs identified only by channels watched and newsfeeds subscribed.  

Differing beliefs can coexist if there is some shared overarching belief subsuming the divergent beliefs, or if the differing belief is entertained by such a small cross section of population as to not pose a threat.  On Sunday mornings it was OK to drive past those other churches that were not really that different from ours.  It was OK to tolerate some minority opinions and ethnic groups when all were under an umbrella of shared patriotism and faith in a political system.  But remove the umbrella of overarching belief, partition a subcontinent or dissolve an authoritarian Balkan country, and the next lower level of beliefs  come to the fore, beliefs now in conflict.  The people that have always been in that other house of worship now seem threatening.  

In the United States and western Europe, the overarching blanket of beliefs is being stripped away, not by imposition of new borders or eradication of central governments, but by profitable exploitation of fears and ignorance.  Nothing has changed, but you and I now believe completely contradictory claims.

Shatter beliefs and shatter a nation, fragment beliefs and destroy a civilization.

When my neighbor shares almost none of my beliefs, it takes little provocation,  a provocation based on fervently held belief, for my neighbor to become a threat.

That is the world (dis)order of the internet, repeating the lessons of history but now worldwide, a history driven in its triumphs and tragedies by beliefs, beliefs now dispersed and mixed and scattered and stirred, terrifying diversity right next door,  even in our own living room, history waiting, waiting, to see if humanity will find any belief in common, anything overarching, some belief to share and unite, before the digital media incited conflicting beliefs turn our own neighborhood into the 1861 U.S., 1919 Russia, 1935 China, 1947 India, 1965 Indonesia, 1992 Balkans, 2024 Ukraine, 2025 Palestine…….

Copyright 2025 Don Ray.  Please share.