Reality and The Culture of Simulation (5)
Reality and The Culture of Simulation (5)
The Spectacle of the Real comes to Uvalde, Texas. What should leaders do?
This is the last in a series that explores the culture of Simulation as the context for most of our lives. A facet of this culture is The Spectacle of the Real which is a manufactured, hyper-real response to an event. Politicians and media figures who unleash The Spectacle of the Real politicize an event before facts are known or analyzed by the authorities who are directly involved. They politicized these events because the culture of Simulation is a culture of exploitation and extraction.
The Spectacle of the Real comes to Uvalde
The shootings and deaths of children in Uvalde, Texas are a tragic example. The community’s loss is NOT The Spectacle of the Real. The public beyond the community of Uvald’s response is. The event is treated as a national or a global event because it can be used as a political lever. It extracts from the tragedy commercial benefits. Eyes on the screen, whether with social media or cable news, translates to a financial return. What is the basis for extracting money from a local tragedy? A face and a voice on the screen who has no direct ties to the event.
The massacre is a local tragedy. We should let the families and citizens in Uvalde grieve as a community. When politicians and public figures declare that “Something must be done!” they are not saying, leave the families alone. They are saying, “We have not politicized this local crisis enough.”
This is what The Spectacle of the Real does. It takes the direct experience of a group of people and turns it into a spectacle of comment and righteous anger. The result is that the people in local communities who would normally be on the front-line of care, law enforcement, and mental health professionals, now know that a national, even global, public is always watching over their shoulder. It ultimately means that The Spectacle of the Real, whether intentionally or not, creates the conditions for more of these events. YouTubers and the news media can no longer be considered the watchdogs of our society. The citizens in local communities must now recognize that they have to watch after the community because everyone else is waiting and watching for them to fail.
The Impact On The Leadership of Local Communities
The culture of Simulation changes how leadership is conducted in a local community. There are two types of leaders that we need to see. There are the institutional leaders, whether elected, appointed, hired, or in a position because of local longevity. Then there is everyone else.
I see that “All leadership begins with personal initiative to create impact that makes a difference that matters.” In a local setting, it means anyone can step forward and take some kind of action that matters. I can’t and won’t critique the local leaders of Uvalde. They don’t need me adding to the confusion of The Spectacle of the Real that has invaded their community. However, as a member of your local community, you can begin to think about what should I, my family, my neighbors, and the rest of our community begin to do to mitigate the potential of a tragedy like we’ve seen.
YOU need to take initiative to care for YOUR local community.
We all need to take our eyes off other people’s lives and communities and focus on our own communities. If you want to contribute to making something better, you start locally. Don’t first think politics.
Think - Build Relationships of Respect, Trust, and Mutual Accountability.
If you don’t have those kinds of relationships, why? You and everyone in your community are responsible. If your elected officials don’t have those kinds of relationships, why? You are still responsible. Even in the midst of failed leadership, you are responsible. I am too. We all are.
Last night, I was sitting at a bar eating dinner in a community that is not my community. The woman and her husband turned to me and started a conversation. We talked about gathering a circle of their friends to talk about how they can support each other and their community during these strange times. You can do that too.
Taking personal responsibility for your community means that your desire for justice can have a direct outlet that goes beyond just hitting the like button and leaving an emotional outburst. When dealing with the people and places where we have a direct connection, the impact that we can have is tangible. You can go touch it. It is real. I know. It happens to me every day. Why? Because I am intentional about it.
Here’s the Problem
There is just enough that is real in the culture of Simulation to seduce you into thinking you are making a difference. Because it feels like it does matter, all those likes and comments make us feel influential, needed, and valuable. The Simulation is really an empty experience because there is very little that is direct about it. This is why it requires the creation of a religious-like consciousness. It feeds a false sense of righteousness. Because it is really empty of impact, it leads further and further away from reality. Once you have been programmed to respond as a member of the shock troops of The Spectacle of the Real, then you are under their control. You have lost your individuality and your agency as a person.
At the organizational level, the effect of the Spectacle is the loss of authenticity and trust that is essential for local leaders and institutions to serve their communities well.
Am I saying that your participation in the Spectacle of the Real is going destroy your community? Yes, it can.
Particularly, if you never have a tragedy like what happened in Uvalde. The community will slowly sink into disconnection as it focuses on the Simulation of global issues.
A false consciousness will take over your community as it divides along social and political lines. The Simulation rids the members of communities of the feeling of being directly responsible for where they live. Every relationship becomes a transactional one: Thinking - What am I getting out of this?
All the masters of the Simulation want from you is your compliant voice echoing the narrative that they release through politicians and the news media. They don’t want persons of impact. They don’t want people who think for themselves. They don’t want you to feel responsible. They want you to be dependent and quiet until they need your voice.
Am I saying that you have been programmed to respond as you do? Yes, I am saying that you have.
You have been fooled and seduced. As a friend told me, “People would rather be fooled than admit that they have been fooled.”
I am also saying that you can change. You can change your mind, change your lifestyle, change your relationships, change your local commitments, or, simply put, change your life. You do not have to be dependent, living in a seductive dependency upon some social narrative that leads to a false sense of how you are. You can know yourself and be able to enter into any situation and thrive.
This is the difference between The Culture of Simulation and The Culture of Reality.
What Am I To Do As A Local Citizen?
Be careful in what you say.
Speak authoritatively only about what you have direct experience, and only about that experience. As I was told as a child, “You have two ears and one mouth. Use them accordingly.”
Be informed. Don’t Trust Hearsay / Gossip.
Learn about what is happening in your community regarding how law enforcement and mental health professionals are addressing issues in your community. Look at it this way. Social media is a gossip platform. You trade in gossip. It will come back at you eventually.
Be engaged with the people in your community.
Go meet elected officials. Volunteer in agencies that are addressing local human needs. Do your own survey. Ask people what they think. Listen. Ask questions to clarify. Thank them. And tell them what you are learning.
What Am I To Do As A Local Organizational Leader?
Do the three listed above. You are first and foremost a local citizen. Second, you are a local leader.
Be realistic about any change initiative.
When the call goes out “To Do Something”, follow up with a question, “What is the impact that you want?” Impact is a change that makes a difference that matters.
Be careful of grand gestures.
The temptation when a crisis erupts is to do something to demonstrate your care and concern. It raises expectations that make it more difficult to implement needed change. Instead, do small things that matter. The fifth principle of the Circle of Impact model of leadership is “Start Small. Act Locally. Share Globally. Take the Long View.”
Be the champion of your people.
Champion people, not the community. The difference in focus is that people identify with people and identify community with organizations. They need to see that you believe in them. I have learned that “when you believe in them to be persons of impact, they will begin to believe that they can be persons of impact.”
Be humble and focus on the values that unite the community.
Don’t play politics. Constantly remind people of the values that unite them as a community. The community already is constituted by “a persistent, residual culture of values.” How do you know what those values are? In every conversation, you have just to ask, “What are the values that matter most to you?”
Be resolute and resilient in strengthening your community in preparation for a crisis.
Assume that The Spectacle of the Real is ready and waiting to come to your front door. Just as most communities have crisis response protocols for organizations, create them for your people. Prepare them to be resolute and resilient with the moment arrives.
The Transformation of Leadership
There has been a split and a shift in how leadership is understood and conducted in our society.
The shift that I see is how institutional leaders feel less and less accountable to the people that they lead. They are now accountable to the masters of the Simulation.
The split that I see is between the executive level of an organization and the managerial and worker level in organizations.
The split and the shift have had the effect of eroding the integrity and the trust in the relationship between people and organizations. As a result, greater pressure is placed on managers to lead their worker teams.
This split and shift mean that there is an opportunity to elevate the leadership capacities of people. The Spectacle of the Real points to communities becoming leadership-starved. To reverse this, we need to help your local community members to gain the confidence that they can take responsibility for the welfare of their community.
The future is local. Now is the time for local leaders to lead their communities to find new strength and hope for the future.
Reality and The Culture of Simulation
1 Understanding the Context of the Spectacle of the Real
2 The Difference in Context between the Simulation and Direct Experience
3 Learning to Observe and Understand Cultures
5 The Spectacle of the Real comes to Uvalde, Texas. What should leaders do?