The 'me' epidemic
June 21, 2012 Scott Benhase (http://www.faithandleadership.com/blog/06-21-2012/scott-benhase-the-me-epidemic) In last spring’s issue of “The Hedgehog Review,” Thomas de Zengotita writes about what he calls “the flattery of representation.” He writes: “We have been consigned by it to a new plane of being, a new kind of life-world, an environment of representations of fabulous quality and inescapable ubiquity, a place where everything is addressed to us, everything is for us, and nothing is beyond us anymore” (emphasis added). Zengotita contends that ubiquitous media flatter us with attention. We get our own personal mobile ring tones and our choice of individualized media when we go online. In this age, life is designed to focus on us and for us. As social media leads to social movements like MoveOn or the Tea Party, it thrives because it creates the illusion that each participant is indispensably at the center of the movement. The reality, of course, is different. Each participa...