Memory and context

The turning of the year is a natural time for introspection, a time to look back at the months that passed and take stock. It is a time to remember, and to forget and let go; for what we forget is as important as what we remember.

Unfortunately, as individuals and as a society, it seems forgetfulness is no longer a luxury we can afford.

Every moment of our lives is captured in digital media these days, via tweets, posts, blogs, and sundry other devices as we upload, download, and sideways load our every waking moment.

These digital memories, unlike our organic ones, do not fade. They do not become rosy tinged with nostalgia, or yellowed at the edges and stained with the passing of time. Years later, they remain as stark and unambiguous as the day they were born, even as the context of their birth fades away.

Ever so frequently, we hear news of some schoolteacher or public official who was ousted from his job because a hoary old picture of the individual surfaced showing him in a compromising or unflattering light. Stories abound of employees fired after an injudicious tweet or Facebook post surfaced from his digital past.

These are the dangers of the inability to forget, and the shortcomings of a never-ending stream of information, which is becoming ever richer in sound bytes, bullet points, and 140-character long non-sequiturs, while becoming ever poorer in context.

Cursive irrelevance

I read recently that many school districts in America decided to drop cursive writing from their curricula, on the grounds that technology had made the art of cursive irrelevant. On a purely pragmatic level, this would seem to make sense. Students are increasingly using their computers for writing assignments, and one could make the argument that typing is more essential to the modern writer than cursive.

Yet, cursive writing is more than just beautiful penmanship, though that is certainly a worthy goal in itself. It is an early introduction to ambiguity and context – cursive letters often look like each other as they run into one another, and meaning is often to be found in the context of the letters. Shades of grey are embedded into cursive writing.

As for beautiful penmanship, the skill deemed by the powers that be to be so utterly useless, I need only turn to the greatest technical creator and businessman of our times – Steve Jobs. Jobs credited his early education in Calligraphy at Reed College with helping to create the Apple design aesthetic that continues to be the driving force behind the Apple product line. I wonder what the Mac would look like if Reed College had decided that Calligraphy was an outdated skill not worth teaching!

Political bites

The irresistible power of a collective digital memory that never forgets is shaping our political culture as well. No politician is immune from the random sound bite or video clip taken out of context and regurgitated endlessly on prime-time TV.

Politicians have responded by refusing to say anything of substance, a tactic that comes naturally to them. Thus, we have the spectacle of debate after public debate, where a candidate refuses to answer the question that is posed, and instead rambles on about some irrelevant trivia.

Recently, Mitt Romney was raked over the coals for telling a heckler in his audience that corporations are people. Poor Mitt, who had until then tried valiantly to get by without saying anything that could get him in trouble, couldn't resist taking one for the team. He chose the wrong words, and the public anger at him has been a sight to behold.

Yet, he was merely stating a simple truth. According to the law of the land, corporations are indeed people, with the rights of individuals. Most coverage of his gaffe – indeed, speaking the truth accidentally is the biggest gaffe of all for a career politician – omits this inconvenient truth, because context and nuance cannot be expressed in a neat little tweet. Mitt learned quickly from his mistake, as all successful politicians do, and since then has refused to speak except in sound bites.

So, as we move into another year, let me remind you, dear reader, that this column itself is an anachronism, and you are a rare and endangered animal, for you continued to read past the first paragraph. I am willing to bet you even know how to write in cursive.

(The author is a San Francisco-based techie.)

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