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Wednesday, February 18, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I N I O
N
Rachel
Marsden
American Voices
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone
number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not neces-
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To the Editor:
There are some basic reasons why I am
engaged with this paved trail discussion. I see
alignment here with all levels of government.
Senator Wyden has called out his interest to
invest in recreational assets on public lands. He
has convened a recreational assets committee
in the past and out of it are some new biking
connections between communities. Building
on Senator Wyden’s vision, the Forest Service
is exploring how to improve non-motorized
access to the Deschutes National Forest, and
this trail from Sisters to Black Butte Ranch is
one of the more promising possibilities.
On a state level we are hearing from the
Oregon Transportation Commission that our
transportation system needs to be multimodal,
that we connect our communities and promote
healthy alternatives for people.
At a Deschutes County level we are find-
ing a lot of interest from locals and tourists
who come here to ride our bike routes and
spend money in our communities. Sisters and
Black Butte Ranch have had a synergistic
relationship. The business done in Sisters from
Black Butte Ranch has been good for Sisters.
For these reasons, I see a lot of value in
this paved trail. It is my understanding that the
Forest Service is awaiting a resubmission of a
trail proposal supported by the community. I
have convened a planning committee to create
a process for a community discussion regard-
ing a paved path from Sisters to Black Butte
Ranch.
I have asked Oregon Solutions to engage
the community through an open dialogue to
determine the community’s interest in request-
ing the Forest Service reconsider it’s decision
to withdraw from construction of the trail that
was proposed last spring. Oregon Solutions
will come to Sisters and meet initially with
community leaders as a step in preparing a
process for holding a community-wide con-
versation that is open, robust and inclusive
where we can all come together to listen,
learn and talk in a respectful and productive
See LETTErS on page 27
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PARIS — Massive inter-
connectivity in our era has
ironically resulted in self-
isolation, self-delusion and
aggression — for individu-
als and nation-states alike.
Did anyone predict that the
perception of close proxim-
ity fostered by globalization
and interconnectivity might
lead to blowback?
Yes, in fact several scien-
tists did.
In 1971, Charles South-
wick wrote in the Ohio Jour-
nal of Science: “I think we
could agree that the dramatic
multimedia approach of our
communications networks
affects the sense of crowding
and crisis that individuals
and social groups perceive.”
Southwick theorized
that increased social con-
tact and irritation leads to
more aggressive and violent
behavior, as well as “abnor-
mal clusterings of individu-
als.” In other words: self-
isolation from all but a select
few.
Experiments on rats by
ethologist John Calhoun in
the 1960s showed that some
subjects drop out of social
interaction altogether and
go into a “spiral of dete-
riorating health” as a result
of perceived overcrowd-
ing. Psychologist Jonathan
Freedman later demon-
strated that excessive social
contacts and interaction (as
opposed to physical over-
crowding) were the primary
cause of these deteriorations
— which is the precise phe-
nomenon exacerbated nowa-
days by the Internet and
social media.
Consider, for example,
the guy who doesn’t go out
much, spends hour upon
hour carefully crafting an
image on Facebook or Twit-
ter, gauging his success, pop-
ularity and self-worth on the
number of “likes” from peo-
ple with whom he has never
had a real conversation. He’s
“clustering”: deliberately
limiting his world to a select
few, despite having the
world at his fingertips.
This person would be
devastated if anyone tapped
him on the shoulder and
burst his bubble of self-
delusion by critiquing his
lifestyle. He has created a
world of his choosing to the
exclusion of the onslaught
of humanity that he consid-
ers omnipresent — if only
online. After all, his entire
life is now online. He may
even lash out violently if his
worldviews are challenged
— the phenomenon of cruel
Internet trolls fits perfectly
with scientific theory on per-
ceived social fatigue.
If this kind of lifestyle
proves to be unsatisfying
for our hypothetical bubble
dweller, behavioral experi-
ments suggest that he would
simply further self-isolate
— perhaps even give up on
society rather than realize
what he’s doing to himself
and simply log off for his
own benefit.
What should really raise
alarms is when we start see-
ing globalization lead to iso-
lation and aggression from
individual nations.
We’re witnessing the
world being split back up
into Eastern (led by Rus-
sia and China) and West-
ern (led by the USA and
Europe) bipolarity—and at
a time when we’ve never
been more interconnected.
The worldwide information
boom of recent years, with
the vast global expansion
of the Internet and social
media, correlates with the
re-emergence of the old
Cold War bifurcation and
aggression between the two
spheres: verbal sparring,
economic sanctions, cyberat-
tacks, propaganda wars, etc.
This increased nation-
state aggression at a time of
unprecedented interconnec-
tivity seems counterintuitive
— except to the science that
has long envisioned this pre-
cise outcome.
One could also argue
that the sense of proximity
and competition sparked by
globalization has led to insu-
lar self-delusion as a means
of self-preservation. Many
believe that domestic poli-
tics have never been more
blindly and aggressively ide-
ological, for example.
For all the perceived ben-
efits of an interconnected
world, we have yet to realize
the full repercussions. We’re
just beginning to see the
downside of the lack of self-
awareness that comes with
greater use of the Internet
and social media, and with
our expanded engagement
of the world through these
relatively new channels.
© 2015 Tribune Content
Agency, LLC.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.