One of the key elements in human society and human relations is the capacity for communication on a person-to-person basis.  People who have trouble reading emotions and responding appropriately to them – whether through a genetic factor, such as Asperger’s Syndrome or autism, or brain injuries – are severely disadvantaged. Humans are a social society. In interacting with others, we learn to read people’s body expressions, their tone of voice, the minute expressions in their eyes, and scores of other subtle signals.  These skills are increasingly more vital in a complex society because, frankly, the majority of people don’t understand the technology and the institutions.  What most people are left with is their ability to read other people. In addition, one of the factors that reduces hatred and conflict is empathy with others, and that’s generated through face-to-face experiences. Electronic technologies, particularly cellphones and hand-held texting devices, are expanding to the point where they’re largely replacing face-to face and even aural communications.  Texting, in particular, removes all personal interaction from communications, leaving only a written shorthand.

High school and college students walk around with earbuds all the time, ignoring those around them, often fatally, as when they walk in front of light-rail, cars, and buses.  But that’s not the only danger.  The excessive volume used in such devices, perhaps boosted to isolate them from others, has resulted in permanent hearing loss in roughly 20 percent of the teenaged population of the United States.  In addition, the self-selecting effect of electronic communications removes or limits the interactions with others who are different – at a time when in the United States in particular, cultural homogeneity is disappearing in a multicultural society.  Perhaps some of the impetus for electronic isolation or segregation is a reaction to that trend, because a less homogenous society represents unpleasant change for some… but ignoring it through the filter of self-selecting electronic social networking does nothing to address a growing cultural and communications gap.

The vast majority of users of Facebook and MySpace and other social networking sites reveal all sorts of personal information that can prove incredibly helpful to identity thieves, information that most people would balk at telling to casual acquaintances – yet they post it on networks for other users – and hackers across the world – to see and use.

Likewise, for all the rhetoric about multi-tasking, study after study has shown that multi-taskers are less efficient than “serial-taskers” and that, in many cases, such as texting while driving or operating machinery, multi-tasking can prove fatal.  Equally important, but more overlooked, is the fact that electronic multi-tasking erodes the ability to concentrate and to undertake and complete tasks that require sustained continuous effort and concentration.  In essence, it can effectively create attention-deficit-disorder.

Add to that the fact that even email is becoming a drag on productivity because all too many supervisors use it to demand more and more reports – and those reports only detract from more productive efforts.

So again… why do we as a society tout and rush to buy and gleefully employ electronic equipment that is ruining our hearing, reducing our abilities in assessing others and thus handicapping us in making good decisions while amplifying negative traits such as negative stereotyping, seducing us into often dangerous patterns of behavior, increasing the chances for costly identity-theft, and reducing the productivity of millions of Americans? Or, put another way, why are we as a society actively promoting and advocating technology that will effectively replicate the effects of such handicaps as Asperger’s Syndrome or attention-deficit disorder?

If the Islamic terrorists released a virus that accomplished these ends, we’d consider it an act of war… but we seem to be doing it all on our own, and, at the same time, denouncing anyone who suggests that all this personal and social-networking high-tech communications isn’t in our best interests as a technophobe or a“dinosaur”… or “not with the times.”

But then, thoughtful consideration seems to be one of the first casualties of extreme technophilia.

Earlier this year, my wife received a job application from a singer with a master’s degree who had not only sung professionally across the United States, but who made that very clear in her vita. She also knew my wife… and made a point of noting that in her cover letter.  In fact, my wife had taught the woman for the majority of her undergraduate years, but what was most interesting about the application was that the applicant’s vita never listed my wife as ever having taught her.  Yet my wife had spent more time teaching this singer than had several of those the woman had listed as her teachers – and the position the woman was applying for was to teach voice students on the undergraduate level under my wife’s supervision.

By comparison, such world-renowned singers as Rene Fleming and Kelli O’Hara make a practice of recognizing their first teachers.  Yet this applicant not only failed to acknowledge her undergraduate teacher, but had the nerve to apply for a job from her with a resume that didn’t even list her as one of her teachers.  If this applicant did not happen to be favorably disposed toward my wife – and that does happen – why would she want to work for her?  If she happened to be desperate for the position, why did she not at least acknowledge her former teacher?

It’s also possible that the letter and resume were “merely” general and sent to many institutions, but whatever the reason for such an oversight, the result suggests either a focus just on the applicant alone or a lack of care on the part of the applicant or a certain lack of respect – not any of which are exactly characteristics an employer prefers in an employee.  What was also somewhat amazing is that the applicant was not someone just out of graduate school, but a singer with professional experience in her forties.  Was the approach the result of having been a diva… or just stupidity?

I’d like to say that this happened to be an isolated incident.  I can’t.  I cannot count the number of times either my wife or I have run across similar cases – such as the time when I was guest of honor at a science fiction convention and I introduced myself, at the request of my editor, to an up-and-coming young writer.  His first words to me were, “I’m sorry.  I don’t know who you are.”  That was despite the fact that my name was on the front of the program.  Needless to say, although I never mentioned the fact, until right now, to anyone but my wife, the once young author has up and come and largely departed the scene.  I had nothing to do with his career path.  Like the singer I mentioned above, he took care of it all by himself.

At the higher levels of any profession, whether it be politics, writing, music, or anything else, the communities are comparatively small, and sooner or later, everyone tends to know more about everyone else than most of those entering the field have any idea or understanding.  Ability and even genius alone are usually not enough to succeed.  In the end, like it or not, we all need other people in order to succeed in what we do… and actions that offend or insult people, whether intentional or not, are less than career-enhancing moves.

Not matter how talented you are, it’s not all about you.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed an increasing trend with regard to the sales of my books.  When a book is initially released, it generally ranks much higher on the Amazon.com sales list than it does on the B&N.com list, and that ranking stays correspondingly higher for somewhere between one and two months after publication, and then plummets on the Amazon.com list.  This holds true whether the book is electronic, hardcover, or paperback, although the difference appears to be getting greater with regard to paperback sales of books more than three months past publication date. From what I can tell, the pricing policies don’t change in these time frames so that it can’t be that Amazon suddenly stops discounting after so many weeks or months or that B&N gives a greater discount for older books.

Although I haven’t the time to track the corresponding figures for other authors, I suspect that from my casual observations the same is generally true for most of them as well.

And, if so, what does it mean?

Put bluntly, it means that Amazon, as the cutting-edge on-line bookseller, appeals to a far larger proportion of readers who are more computer-innovation-invested and more interested in what’s “new” and that older, more stable Barnes and Noble appeals to, if you will, a  clientele somewhat less interested in instant gratification and computer glitz.

As a side note, I used the term “more computer-innovation-invested” advisedly, because there’s a tendency on the part of those who seek the latest computer and communications technology as soon as they become available to view those of us who only adopt new technology when it makes sense for our uses and needs as “out of touch” or “dinosaurs,” yet most of the difference is not whether those like me use newer technology, but when we adopt it and how much of it we find useful… and this is a different mindset that appears to be reflected in book-buying as well.

The problem with the approach taken by Amazon, especially with regard to bookselling, is that the appeal to the “I want it now” crowd tends to hype what is immediately identifiable as “popular,”  not to mention also increasing the sales of electronic books, especially those in Amazon’s Kindle format.  Because Amazon competes on price, this also has other ramifications.

Greater e-books sales at the expense of hardcovers, as I’ve noted previously, reduce hardcover sales, and such reduced sales result in lower hardcover revenues.  For Stephen King and Stephanie Meyer, the lower revenues don’t result in their not writing more books.  For hundreds, if not thousands, of midlist authors, it will and perhaps already has.  According to at least one large independent bookstore, some publishers have indicated that they will no longer even offer the books of some midlist authors in paperback format, only in hardcover, trade paperback, and ebook formats.   Because ebooks are not replacing paperback titles on anywhere close to a one-for-one basis, this will result in fewer and fewer midlist authors being able to support themselves on their writing income.

At the same time, scores of new ebook publishers are rushing titles into “print,” often at significantly lower prices… and I’ve seen enough of the works of these new ebook publishers already to observe that their content and technical presentation are, with very few exceptions, inferior to that of those soon-vanishing midlist authors of large publishers.  At the same time, I’m seeing these cheaper titles popping up on Amazon.

As it is, the electronic “revolution” has resulted in an erosion of grammar and style among supposedly literate individuals, to the point where the majority of graduates with advanced degrees are marginally literate.  The proliferation of lower quality ebooks isn’t going to be any help in improving that situation, to say the least, although it’s certainly likely to continue to swell Amazon’s profits and perhaps, after a suitable delay, those of Barnes & Noble as well.

And, after all, aren’t greater profits always paramount in this land of freedom and opportunity?

Over the past several months, I’ve come across more and more reader comments about my writing along the lines of “I don’t like his writing, but I can’t stop reading him” or “he’s not that good a writer, but there’s something that makes me want to finish the series.”  While I’ll definitely accept such comments over those that begin “What the f—?” the question that comes to mind is, if I’m, such an unlikable writer or storyteller, why do those readers keep reading what I write?

Some might say that it’s to see how things turn out, but that doesn’t make much sense to me, because, while I write long “series,” I’ve never written more than three books about a given character, and these readers write about continuing to read me, as if my work happens to be an addiction that they can’t control.  From the sales point of view, that’s not totally bad, but I have to say that, in a way, it troubles me.

One reason for my unease is that I keep asking what is it about my work that is addictive enough that it compels those readers to continue against their feelings.  Or is it that they somehow feel ashamed to confess that they might actually like what I write?  Is it that I’m somehow unfashionable among certain groups – in the way that many male readers hate to confess they read romances or women that they like macho thrillers?

Then too, if I only knew exactly what it might be…. Why then, I could distill it and make millions in advertising or other fields, as opposed to a merely financially comfortable living as a writer.

Perhaps it’s because my work, especially my fantasy novels, has never been classified as deep, ponderous, and earthshaking [all right, I’ll grudgingly accept “ponderous” for a few], but neither are the books fluff, not even close to it, not if one reads all the words.    And I’d be the first to admit that, for most readers, my books aren’t exactly “light” reading, although there are some readers who clearly skim them and dismiss them as such.  It’s easy enough to tell that they do, because their comments ignore facts, traits, and events in the books in favor of a superficial gloss of the plot, and usually not all of it.  Unhappily, some of those readers are professional or semi-professional reviewers, and, as I’ve noted more than once, I tend to view sloppy and slipshod reviewers with the same distain and disgust as I do of slipshod and sloppy work in any field.

Or perhaps it’s as simple as the fact that readers like to be able to characterize in simple terms what they read and why they do… and the complexity beneath the surface of my books makes that difficult.  In point of fact, that’s always been one reason why I’ve never sent my editor a synopsis of any book before he reads it.  Anything short enough to be called a synopsis would be overly simplistic and misrepresentative and anything long enough to be accurate would scarcely qualify as a synopsis.

Whatever the reason, I have the feeling that such comments will continue and that I’ll continue to puzzle over them in a few of the moments when I’m not writing.

Last week stories appeared across the media citing the facts that not only do 18% of Americans now believe that Barrack Obama is a Muslim, but that the number of such believers has been rising.  Now… I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been pleased with some of what he’s done – or failed to do – but the fact that his middle name is of Islamic origin doesn’t make him a Muslim.  Then there are the millions that believe Obama is not a U.S. citizen – except that he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961, of an American mother.  Since Hawaii became a state on August 21, 1959, he was born in a U.S. state, and, again, like it or not, that makes him a U.S. citizen.

Several other areas of “mis-knowledge” that have existed for so long that, while I still shake my head, I now know are a form of “folk stupidity” are the beliefs that “foreign aid” is a huge percentage of the federal budget or that all our deficit problems can be addressed by merely getting rid of the waste in the federal budget.  Or, for that matter, that reducing taxes will solve problems – or, on the other hand, that taxing the rich will immediately balance the federal budget.  Even a cursory look at the federal budget and outlays will show the falsity of these beliefs – beliefs that have existed for more than a generation and continue to persist.

Even supposedly intelligent members of Congress support stupid ideas – such as a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.  Two years ago, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service completed a cost study – and among other findings, the study showed that (1) a fence along the 700 miles most heavily crossed by illegal immigrants would cost $49 billion to build and maintain for 25 years, and (2) recently built security fences stopped immigrants in those areas, but did not change the total number of illegal border crossings because illegal immigrants simply crossed where there weren’t fences. Since the entire U.S.-Mexico border stretches some 1,952 miles, fencing the entire border would cost close to $150 billion – and wouldn’t stop the flow of illegals, not when the U.S. has over 12,000 miles of ocean coastline borders and almost 4,000 miles of borders with Canada.

History also offers an example.  The ancient Chinese built a massive wall on their northern borders – several times.  It cost tens of thousands of lives and who knows how much over scores of years – and it didn’t work, either, and that was in a time when rulers didn’t have to worry much about laws and civil rights…or immediately executing violators.

Politicians who opposed the health-care law on the grounds that the U.S. has the “best health care in the world” are pandering to another kind of stupidity – the idea that everyone else is “like us.”  Not everyone is – and that’s illustrated by the 44 million Americans without health care… and people do die because of that lack – like the forty-year-old brother of a neighbor who was turned away at the acute care center because he lacked insurance after being laid off, and who died that night of asphyxiation from a strep infection that caused severe swelling in his throat and tonsils.

Then again, most of what I’ve called stupidity isn’t really that at all – it’s a rationalization of what those people holding those beliefs want to believe. Because Obama points out that Americans who are Muslims have the right to built an Islamic cultural center two blocks from the 9/11 World Trade Center ground zero, a right reinforced by a law sponsored by that arch-conservative Orin Hatch, many of those who feel strongly, either about Obama or Islamic believers, insist to themselves that Obama must be a Muslim because they can’t conceive of any other reason for his statement.  Most Americans don’t want to believe that the vast majority of federal spending is actually spent on people here in the USA and with comparatively little outright waste [spending on dubious projects is not “waste,” just foolish].  And even the president is either pandering to that stupidity, or exercising it himself, when he claims that every American family that makes more than $250,000 is rich.  They may be well-off, but they’re certainly not rich, not when it’s difficult, if not impossible, to raise a family in what most Americans, if pressed, would consider middle-class surroundings and schools in the most expensive U.S. cities for less  than $100,000.  Yes… $250,000 is “rich”… in Plano, Texas, or Richfield, Utah, or Nampa, Idaho… but most people today live in bigger cities with higher costs of living because that’s where the jobs are.  Yet all too many Americans still think that a dollar is a dollar in value anywhere in the good old USA.  It’s not… and it hasn’t been for generations.

Stupidity…or self-serving rationalization?  Does it matter when the results lead to self-deception, hatred, pandering politicians, and poor public policies?