This week in class we discussed communication. Actually, we discuss communication every week. That tends to happen in a class titles “Social Stratification.” If some hapless student were to wander into our class at any given moment, it would look like chaos. Desks are scraped across linoleum floors to create something that we intended to look like a circle, but really resembles a misshapen uterus. Cell phones and laptops are splayed across surfaces. One student has pulled two desks together and is lying on her stomach, propped up on a worn backpack. Another has opted to crouch in her chair as the conversation flies back and forth, multiple steams of communication operating at the same time. The professor is pulling a clip up on YouTube about privacy and how cctv’s are documenting our every move. A vlogger is giving a tutorial on how to use makeup to avoid being recognized on said cctv’s. In another corner of the circle two students are madly searching their social media feeds to find that one item that relates directly to the class. In the opposite corner a lone student sits with their eyes closed and earphones in, taking a moment to focus.

It looks like chaos.

So does communication on the internet.

Yet, it is all connected.

Connected by fine lines and blips of information that come and go, the chaos within the room is broken up by small periods where everything intersects and we all burst out in laughter at a miscommunication due to the dual use of the spoken words gays vs gaze. Here the communications between 10 vastly different people collides and spills forth in a bubble of excitement as the verbal wires that crossed untangle for a split second and we are all brought together in the solidarity that brought us to this place.

This is the level of communication that is used now across the globe. Our communications cross and intersect, mashed into a mess and then one by one we unravel the chaos and come to understand the way that all of our communication comes down to one small intent.

This is how I view social stratification. Global stratification is causing us to cross our wires and misunderstand but over time the strands are separated, organized and understood, solving whatever problem was at hand. It’s social poetry, the decoding of humanity. It’s beautiful.