Who Put the Me in the Me Decade?

Who Put the Me in the Me Decade?

            Was it real? Did it really happen? Did self-improvement really get over the tipping point and turn conscious seekers into self-loving cretins? You bet your ass, and all of its glory, it did. I was skeptical when I’d first learned of Tom Wolfe’s label. The seventies were screwed up enough. We didn’t need to obsess about something as dire and chaotic as me. The Human Potential Movement had it down though. Werner Erhard and Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra all tapped into the collective willingness to spend money to have your doubts and guilts and repressions stripped away so we could worship at the temple of selfishness. “I’m okay, you’re a hopeless train wreck,” became the new mantra and it survives to this day. “Don’t tax me and waste my money: I am incapable of wasting my own money.” Even the Jesus Freak movement adopted the zeitgeist. Those who were “born again” joined the flock for personal salvation rather than to embrace the altruistic spirit of community that church membership also provides.

            So we abandoned community. Service clubs, and organizations, are wanting for members, and few are able to volunteer for anything other than a buck, or two, and the odd mouse-click when one of our Facebook friends invites us to join a cause… which might be the start of something really good.

            Many of the me gurus, like Chopra and Dyer, realized that the Human Potential Movement stripped away the generosity of spirit. So, they infused their ramblings with dogma lite and implied that there was something greater than our selfish old selves. The magical thinking was just that though. Without evidence, and proof, they were concocting new flavors of the same old kiddie cocktail of spirituality designed to preserve the individual’s feeling of being at the center of all things, but cautioning the imbiber that there really was an all knowing entity judging their deeds. Their claims may salve the psyches of the more readily hypnotizable, but it leaves the not-so-easily-hypnotized with feelings of disgust regarding the whole buy-my-book, attend-my-seminar, psuedo-psycho-spiritual gang of charlatans.

            At first glance, it seems that Facebook is the logical result of the Me-ness that permeates our society these days. It’s the public face of our egos. It lists our education, our workplaces, our politics, our dogma (or lack thereof), and our family and friends too. And our walls are invariably populated with our concerns, quirks, prejudices, and even some confrontations. That’s the key. What looks like a shrine to our selves is actually a community made up of… Us. And we share. Music, video clips, opinions, photos, and the result — whether we know it, or not — is a continual group therapy session. It’s more than just a conversation because we actually — at times — feel heard, understood… and affirmed. That’s what the me gurus missed; a  reoccurring place for us to come together. Once they took our money, we were just as isolated and insufferable as before, only more selfish. Perhaps, by visiting on Facebook, we will renew our sense of community and regain our empathy. Maybe we’ll even get our sympathies reawakened.