The Usual Lament

Last updated on: February 1, 2017 at 9:10 am by Anne Kennedy

The Usual Lament 2017-02-01T09:10:29-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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Today I am going to indulge myself in a Lamentation, ignited, once again, by the ridiculous speed of modern life and discourse. There I was, last night, patiently still wrapping my mind around the immigrant thingamabob, when suddenly the whole internet world moved on to talk about the Supreme Court nominee. Apparently, everyone knew the subject was going to change but me, because I haven’t had my ear glued to the radio and TV. I only glance at Twitter at night when I have time to steel myself for the usual blasting by the fire hose of emotion.

Others have written more soundly about the Facebookization of America, untangling the many different effects it is having on public life and discourse. I can’t comment on it so broadly as it is impossible for me to see into the souls of other people. I can only know what it’s doing to me. And for me, I think the muddy stream of Facebook and Twitter, flowing through my screen and my mind, have made me more judgmental, quicker to lose my political cool, and less patient with people not like me. Which, you’ll be sad to know, is every single person in the world. No one, not even those closest to me, can line up perfectly against my convictions. And so I’m irritated with almost everyone I know and don’t know in the course of a week.

I feel unmoored by this sense of irritation. I haven’t, up until the last two years, been in the place of knowing the political proclivities of Every Single Person I might have contact with. Politics and religion, like someone’s personality or family background, had to be discovered through face to face conversation. You didn’t leap in and ask someone who they voted for first thing, and then when they told you, it was unlikely that you’d berate them for being wrong. Especially strangers. Now, the far away stranger is right in your face, and the person you know IRL thinks you’re a lunatic and the feeling is mutual. What used to be private and guarded is now the stream that carries you through the day.

I have gotten around this Narcissistic proclivity by on the one hand unfollowing people for periods of time (like election night) and on the other hand periodically hiding everything political in my Facebook feed before I have time to digest it. This sensibly robs me of the opportunity to judge the person who I might desperately want to like. I’ve been doing this for almost a year. Trump? Hide. Hillary? Hide. Debate? Hide. More lately, Inauguration? Hide. Then, at the time I set forth for myself, I go to websites and news agencies that I trust and read what I want and then go away. It’s sort of laborious, but it has kept me from hating people I’m ordinarily fond of, and whose politics are really none of my business. If I was siting in their living room, we wouldn’t be talking about Steve Bannon, we’d be catching up on mutually interesting gossip that concerned us both.

But, of course, by not engaging, by trying not to hate my neighbor, I open myself up to criticism and judgement. Not having an opinion in many cases it counts as having the wrong opinion. I was rather knocked back by the clearly demarcated lines around the immigration whatever you want to call it–something that should, in my mind, be worth slowly thinking and reading about. Just because there’s a SCOTUS pick doesn’t mean the other issue is resolved. But it was murky, wasn’t it. People were–why am I speaking in the past tense already! Agh!–being manhandled in the airport, but at the same time the substance of the order seemed rather similar to past policy. If I stand around trying to get my bearings, and don’t immediately shout my love of immigrants, I’m A Bad Christian. But the people who think such a thing wouldn’t ever say that to my face. If we ran into each other in the checkout line we wouldn’t think to mention immigration at all.

The speed, the distilling of complex political policy into 140 characters, the swift rush to judgment, the discussion of private matters publicly–it’s not only disorienting, it’s depressing. It creeps in and poisons ordinary life. I think most of us were willing to endure it during the endless campaign period, hoping, wrongly, that everyone would go home and cool their jets for a year. But Trump is Trump and trying to be moderate and thoughtful about political matters is obviously as foolish as trying to be a unicorn.

So, I guess this is just a solution-less lament. I don’t have any way to solve my own irritation, let alone anyone else’s. I don’t really want to dump Facebook and Twitter because there are enough good, friendly interactions to make me want to stay. I have made some fantastic friends in the last few years, and these platforms are the only way to keep up with them. But also, all people are sinners and so any nice thing that we have, like a place to share pictures of huge Russian Bunnies, we are going to necessarily garbage up with politics. As a dear friend said recently, we deserve what we get. In the age of internet trolls, it is fitting that we’d get to have one as president. But instead of retreating in horror and repenting of trolling, we all (me included) leap into the fray to troll with all our might. It’s too bad. Now, where is my phone? I haven’t checked Facebook yet this morning.

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