Though I do not want to live in the past, I am holding on to a grudge from 2006 which I must revisit. Forgive me then for rehashing a surprising tribute from last December. Time Magazine's Person of the Year was none other than "you." At first I was confused and then I was struck by the utter absurdity of picking the entire human population -- or at least the entire readership of Time Magazine -- as the Person of the Year.
This alarming revelation was perhaps greeted with a smile and a bit of coyness. "Me? How ever could that be?" But then I learned after the initial spirit of egalitarianism subsided, that you are only the Person of the Year if you use the internet.
The cover of Time Magazine had the image of a reflective computer screen along with the unveiling of the Person of the Year saying, "You. Yes, you. You control the Information Age.Welcome to your world."
There are some serious problems with this assertion. In many stages of history there have been remarkable advances relative to the time.Indeed, for something to be truly revolutionary it requires widespread human participation. There is nothing unique about the fact that the Internet is revolutionary and, at the same time, popular.
Following Time's principle, in the early twentieth century, for example, you could have been the Person of the Year for purchasing and driving a Model-T car. Those who assembled the cars, designed them, opened mechanical shops, the lawmakers who appropriated money for improved roadways all would have been indicated as Persons of the Year.Of course there is something disproportionately unique about the internet in this age, but just as the driver of a car was not particularly praiseworthy in times past, so today internet users do not deserve further accolades.
But this is just deception in its most flattering form. In a sense, because everyone has a voice or a potential voice on the internet, excellence is easily drowned out by the uproar of the many creating unsophisticated material in a diffuse medium.
In the article explaining how you are the Person of the Year, Lev Grossman hailed Wikipedia as a grand image of your power. Besides refusing to entertain the idea that a democratic encyclopedia is an oxymoron, Grossman failed to explore the unsophisticated, sometimes inaccurate and unscholarly material that pervades Wikipedia and other online resources.
Grossman admitted that some activity is less than inspiring, but that it is part of the social experiment that is the Web. I was not aware that a medium rife with inaccuracy and filth is a cute social experiment,
Again for comparison's sake, I suppose you could be the Person of the Year for living in a modern metropolitan city at the dawn of the industrial age. The mass of people living together as neighbors in high rises and as strangers on corners began to revolutionize the way humans lived.There are particularly inspiring and humane things about cities. But then, of course, there are the unprecedented crime rates, slums, drug use, seedy behavior and a feeling of vulnerability. These are the things that make a city, the high and the low, but it cannot be rightly said that mere inhabitance makes someone worthy of high merit. The same principle applies to the "digital city."
None of this is meant to deny the revolutionary qualities of the internet. Yet, just as in a physical city, the honorable accompanies disorder, corruption, and degeneracy. Decent people continue to use the Web decently; yet, for those without self restraint and propriety the Web can become a hellhole. Countless numbers of people are addicted to readily available pornography, there are not-so-infrequent pedophiles preying on naïve young people, gambling sites are everywhere, insincere social networking sites connect equally insincere people, and monetary fraud and thievery continues to grow. All this indicates the ways in which the internet is not the new emblem of human excellence. Indeed, if the internet and the Information Age is a product of our control, as Time Magazine asserted, we might disparage our efforts rather than praise them.
Sorry to knock the wind out of our sails, but this country, as illustrated by Time's gesture, suffers from an insufferable amount of self-importance. Human excellence does not come in a fancy metal box or on the blogs of young singles lamenting their tattered love lives. We must look to the immaterial for such qualities. I am not the Person of 2006 and neither are you, no matter how many times a day we feverishly check our e-mail and blog and buy and browse. On the contrary, distinction is rare and we would all be wiser to exalt it.
Christa Byker's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at cbyker@cavalierdaily.com.
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