The Frazzled Scribe

This is going to be quick. I hope I someday come back to this as I have a LOT of thoughts about it.

My friend Pam told me today she’s annoyed with Facebook. “Nobody talks on Facebook anymore,” she said. “They just post pictures and share videos.”

As it happens this coincides with a good example of why abstaining from social media has been weird these last 40-some days.

Like I said before, Nikki is on social media diet but Bariatric Foodie is not. But when I use Facebook as Bariatric Foodie I cannot see what’s going on in the general populace of Facebook, only what relates to my page (which is mostly connected to other health and nutrition outlets).

Well today I notice everyone’s profile picture seems to be an equal sign. I’m assuming this is in reaction to the Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of banning same-sex marriage. I also assume those who changed their profile picture to an equal sign are supportive of same-sex marriage.

I think this is the power and the curse of social media, frankly. The power is that people can communicate, affirm, deny and rebuke things en masse very quickly. And with social influence, those decisions can easily become movements that affect social change.

The curse is that all this is being done without a lot of discourse.

Discourse? Yes, discourse.

Back inna day people used to talk about these things and debate them. Those who relished a good debate (present company included) would go point for point against people with opposing thoughts. We’d examine and cross-examine each other’s arguments, looking for fallacious thinking, biases or bigotries — and we’d expose them!

Now there is an equal sign as your profile picture. And that’s all you need to say about it.

But when I see that icon, I wonder, “why?” Why do you support gay marriage? (Not that I don’t support it but still) Do you know why? Or is it because everyone else does? Does this issue affect your moral platform? Does it partially define who you are as a person? It probably does because if you support same sex marriage one could easily assume you are at least a little bit egalitarian, open to change, maybe you’re compassionate or maybe you’re just practical (denying gays marriage is a messy business since they have forged forward with creating families and shared property and whatnot).

So why? I’d like to know. And why not (if not)? No matter where I sit on this or ANY issue, I can stand to learn something new. And your perspective might be something new I need to learn. But I’ll never know that if we don’t talk about it, if we don’t engage in discourse.

To me, the whole thing is a sad testament to our society. Political correctness has become this religion to which we have prescribed. The religion of “being a good person.” In this religion (which I believe to be an attempt to take God out of the equation but that’s a whole other blog post) the supreme value is political correctness. And the etiquette is to make a stand without offending anyone, which is a most obvious oxymoron in my opinion.

Social media, being what it is and evolving the way it is evolving, serves as a perfect platform for this religion. It is a space where you don’t HAVE to state your beliefs or engage in discourse if you don’t want to. In fact, with sites like Twitter, you are actually encouraged NOT to. Instead you have icons. Equal signs that you make into your profile pictures en masse. Those are your proxy votes. They speak for you because you choose, for whatever reason, not to speak for yourself.

I’m not quite sure how to feel about that. On the one hand it has the power to undermine unjust systems (a digital “Underground Railroad” if you will). But on the other hand it drives our society, culturally, toward a view of the world that discourages friendly debate impassioned discourse, agreeing and disagreeing in “gentlemanly” ways. I kind of miss that about the world. And I for one can begin to see the lack of critical thinking skills this new way of communicating is promoting. Frankly, I’m not sure most people know HOW to put together a good argument or defend it. And do people even know fallacious arguments when they see them? Or is everything a function of marketing, and by virtue of marketing, anything can be right and logical?

I dunno. More questions than answers on this one.