In the cartoon “Futurama”, the character Fry, a 20th century man who wakes up in the future, when confronted by a breakdown in the spaceship’s technology screams “Fix it Fix it Fix it” to all within ear shot. Part of the humor depicted in this cartoon (yes, at 51 I admit to watching cartoons) is that the character has no clue how anything works, and therefore takes all of the “new technology” of the future in stride – happy in his ignorance.
I think that is particularly insightful, because I am surrounded by people who neither understand the technology nor appreciate all that went into its workings – they use it, and if it breaks or doesn’t behave the way they want it to – they scream (or at least raise their voices) and say “Fix it Fix it Fix it”.
They don’t accept responsibility for understanding – they just want it to work. They don’t understand how their cars work, their plumbing, their electricity, let alone their computers. It is a willing ignorance – many are lured into thinking that someone else (usually in a lower social position) will be therepair person, and make it all work. Or if they foray into the realm of trying to fix it themselves, rather than actually taking the time to learn about the thing, they duct tape or come up with a workaround that will, in the long run, cause more problems or cost more money. But hey, it is the instant gratification that is all important, not the understanding…isn’t it?
When someone like me tries to explain the inner workings of some problem, I generally am either talked over, ignored, or worse humored – because usually if they spend the excruciating time to listen to me drone on, I will probably fix their problem for them for free. When I ask them why they don’t want to understand their computer or their email – I invariably get the answer that I am “technical” and so somehow magically understand these things, and they are not (and this is usually said with a tone of superiority, I might add… as though being technical is some sort of genetic disease that just happened to be useful this one time and otherwise shouldn’t be mentioned).
Ah well, a curmudgeonly disposition accompanies being technical today… Fiddle-deedee, tomorrow is another day!
