In the year my grandparents were born, radio communication was barely out of its infancy; there was no television; civil aviation had hardly started and space satellites were still in the realm of science fiction. When they drove down to San Pedro to see me for the first time after my birth, it took nearly two days by car to get there. In contrast, this last October, when I flew from Sacramento to Los Angeles for my Mexican cruise vacation, it took just one hour.
Travel, communication and technology have entered entirely new dimensions.
In Los Angeles, while visiting with a good friend of mine prior to the cruise, I went to see the many interesting sights in and around Los Angeles, including the exhibits at the
Getty Villa.
One of the tasks of that museum, or indeed any museum, is to not just show us they way things were, but to help us reflect on how much they have changed. To see not only where we came from and how far we’ve gone, but to help us imagine what we can still hope to accomplish.
In particular, I have been reflecting of late on advances in the area of communications and computers, particularly in the arena of social networking. All this astonishing and very rapid development has changed the lives of almost everyone. Leaders and specialists can meet and discuss political and technical problems; news travels faster and there is more of it; new opportunities for world trade and commerce have been opened up by this communication revolution; perhaps more important, modern technology has touched most aspects of life throughout the world.
But in spite of all the progress that has been made, the greatest problem in the world today remains the gap between rich and poor countries and we shall not begin to close this gap until we hear less about nationalism and more about interdependence, less about real or imagined slights and insults and more in the way of cooperation and consideration.
The keyword for world peace should be, first and foremost, cooperation.
With social networking sights like MySpace, Twitter, and FaceBook, there is a flow of information in all directions, with Canadians helping in the Caribbean, Indians in Africa, New Zealanders in India, Australians in Papua New Guinea, British in Kenya, and Americans just about everywhere. The list is endless. The web of contacts provided by the Internet is an intricate pattern based on self help and cooperation.
Yet in spite of these advances the age old problems of human communication are still with us. We have the means of sending and receiving messages, we can travel to meetings in distant parts of the world, we can exchange experts; but we still have difficulty in finding the right messages to send, we can still ignore the messages we don't like to hear and we can still talk in riddles and listen without trying to comprehend.
Perhaps even more serious is the risk that this mastery of technology may blind us to the more fundamental needs of people. Electronics cannot create comradeship; computers cannot generate compassion; satellites cannot send serenity; and cell phones cannot text tolerance.
And no amount of technology could have engineered the
esprit de corps and sense of joy that was so evident in my work with the
Stockton Civic Theatre this last year.
It is friendly and understanding communication that makes such happiness possible.
I hope that Christmas will remind us all that it is not how we communicate but what we communicate with each other that really matters.
Let us therefore make the most of it; let us all resolve to communicate as friends in tolerance and understanding. Only then can we make the message of the angels come true: 'Peace on earth, goodwill towards all'.
I always look forward to being able to talk to everyone at Christmas time and at the end of another year I again send you all my warmest greetings.
His serene & sovereign lordship,
Wesley,
Baron of Nonsuch
