Political grandstanding, corporate siloes, the "revenge of the nerds" aren't resolving conflicts. Operating in a vacuum, isolated from each other, they don't question themselves even secretly. What will provoke each side to face the other?
I recently saw a special on public television featuring the "Laugh-In" television show, which aired on NBC from 1968 to 1973. It faced the cultural conflicts of the "Greatest Generation" and the "Baby Boomers" head on with really clever humor.
The humor was clever because it made both sides laugh at themselves.
I'd bet that was not the writers' intention.
"Laugh-In" aired over 5 years before I started worked in the advertising business, when we never would've cleared what they did through the networks' legal departments. Ever.
Seeing the show highlights retrospectively, I realized how much of the humor was about the clash between writers and the network legal department. For example, references to "Funk and Wagnall's" (a dictionary publisher) thumbed a nose at a legal department which probably wouldn't even let them use the word "funk." That insight may seem inconsequential, but I suspect that if the legal department had not existed and "Laugh In" writers had said whatever they wanted, the show would not be remembered today.
"Laugh-in" accomplished what some other shows, like "All in the Family" and "MASH," also did at this time of significant social change. They provoked everyone to question themselves and even laugh at themselves.
The writers may have set out to make fun of bigots and prudes, representing the thoughts of the younger counter culture. But I imagine pressure from the established networks and their advertisers forced the writers to also portray how silly the younger generation could be too. The result is that these shows became rich, multi-dimensional stories about social change and earned wide popularity.
I don't know if anyone has ever studied the influence of these programs on changing sentiments in the US during the 1970's, but in my own anecdotal experience, watching one of these shows with my Dad accomplished a lot more to bring us together on issues we disagreed about than arguing with him.
The point is that in today's fragmented media world, the counter culture quarantines itself from mainstream culture to avoid being compromised and mainstream culture isn't benefitting. What's missing is the place where they meet, they clash, and they laugh at themselves.
The remarkable creativity of the "Laugh-In" writers to overcome the challenge from the legal department instead of laying down their pencils and quitting is unacknowledged.
Today's communication technology encourages isolation. The great push to "personalize information" doesn't provoke people to face each other. It justifies grandstanding.
The real challenge is to design information so it provokes individuals to challenge the way they think and give them entertainment which encourages people with a common interest, but different perspectives, to laugh at themselves.
