This is more than a bit of an offbeat piece, but it’s come about as a result of private notes I’ve gotten from others on my Facebook page and extensive ruminations I’ve given to the subject.
A starting point is to offer some perspective. And politics is a good beginning: I don’t think Joe Biden is without flaws, nor is the Democratic Party. And they haven’t done everything as well as I’d wish. I’ve written about my disagreements over time. That said, I disagree with my friends regularly, and with my family members, too, and even with myself on occasion and change my mind or go back and forth when I’m unsure about something. I have strong opinions, but am not 100% sure I’m 100% right 100% of the time. Really good arguments convince me to the contrary. So, disagreeing with someone doesn’t discredit everything about them. Or even discredit most things. But overall, I clearly do generally agree with Democrats and liberals and President Biden. Far more to the point, whatever my disagreements with them, they pale compared to the white supremacist, quite-literal fascism of Trump and today’s Republican Party. A party where unanimity of thought is the guiding standard, where if you disagree on almost anything you’re called a Republican in Name Only, where Ronald Reagan set the GOP 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not disagree with another Republican.” Which is why we see so many near-unanimous votes by Republicans in Congress and state houses, marching in close-minded lockstep. As a result, any comparison of the two parties today that tries to offset a Republican attack against the democratic process, minorities, women, human decency, or the reality of facts on the one side with a supposedly-balanced “On the other hand…” is almost always a false equivalence. After you've discussed Trump calling Mexican rapists, and Third World countries sh*tholes, and talking about grabbing women by the p*ssy and saying that there are many fine people about the neo-Nazis, and telling the white supremacist Proud Boys to "Stand back and stand by," there is no "On the other hand..." among Joe Biden or any Democratic leader that offsets that at an equal issue. And any “But what about…” effort to change the subject or make a false point is a deceitful, empty universe compared to the monumental list of GOP transgressions. No, “But what about Hunter Biden?” isn’t the equivalent of Trump saying the pandemic that’s killed 6.2 million worldwide would go away like a miracle and suggesting to drink deadly bleach. “But her emails!” doesn’t offset taking children from their parents and putting them in cages. And from having to answer about Trump saying he believes the despotic butcher Vladimir Putin, not U.S. intelligence. And Trump saying Putin is a genius. And that he’s in love with Kim Jong Un. And that Trump withheld defense funds from Ukraine and tried to blackmail its President Zelensky. Reality counts, too – the Republican Talking Point that the election was stolen doesn’t let you ignore the facts that there is zero evidence to the lie and that 60 lawsuits were filed and every one was lost. The Republican Talking Point criticizing two days of a terrible withdrawal from Afghanistan doesn’t let one get away with ignoring that it was Trump who actually signed the agreement actually handing the country to the Taliban, and that it was Trump who actually forced an early date on the withdrawal, and Trump who actually signed an Executive Order that made it near-impossible to get Afghans out who had helped U.S. forces. Nor does one get to ignore that after those two awful days, the American withdrawal went impressively, stopped a terrorist attack, and every American there was gotten out. Facts matter. Reality matters. History matters -- as much as Trump wants to tell us that there were airports during the Revolutionary War. That is why I wrote my “Don’t Let It Be Forgot” article here. Any attempt now to change a discussion with me by using a “But what about…” will get a link to that article, along with an admonition that if you first answer these several hundred ghastly offenses of Trump and today’s GOP built up from over the past five years, and then finally address whatever the topic is being discussed before you tried to hijack it, then I’ll consider diverting to your “But what aboutism…??!” Which brings us to social media. Which is the main topic at hand. Though I think social media is a good thing, an interesting endeavor, it is not without huge flaws. I block a lot of people on Twitter since life is too short not to – the way Twitter works, when comments get shared they’re passed around with particular ease, becoming part of discussions which get to be part of other discussions. So, you often find yourself answering the same “complaint” relentlessly from random strangers who never see your repeated answer to other strangers. And because a Tweet can be pulled away from its original context like by a giant wave’s undertow and end up in one of Twitter’s dark corners, many of the replies you get can become quite racist, abusive, conspiratorial lunatic, ad hominen and more. And because Twitter has few controls on who can read what you post, your options are generally to be dragged into hell or block the person. And so, block wins out because life is too short. Facebook is different. Discussions tend to kept more-reasonably to the topic at hand. And there are options for who can read one’s feed. So, the vitriol and intentional offensiveness is generally less. Indeed, having different opinions is not only fine, but what can make discussions vibrant. As a result, I think I’ve only blocked two people on Facebook. And that was for continued racist comments and abusiveness that got out of control. Still, there are lines where participation crosses from mere annoying to abusive, pushing people away. It’s a blurry, flexible line, but it’s there. It’s like at a pleasant party filled with lively conversation on many sides, but one person has had a few too many beers and begins talking a bit too loud, keeps telling others that “Oh, I’m just joking, can’t you take a joke?”, and soon starts getting in people’s faces saying “I’m just being honest” though he’s really only trying to have his voice dominate the conversation, and as they look for other conversations to join he snipes, “I’m just giving my opinion, you elitists think your opinion is better than mine, don’t you?” – even though he’s a sales executive, the topic is cardiology and he’s talking to a heart surgeon…and guests start to leave. And the party empties to the point where the last people getting their coats have to listen to his stream-of-consciousness cries on what the hell is wrong with the rest of the world. So, the challenge is always how to deal politely with such people so – a difficult task when they only want to hear themselves. Or troll others just to annoy them. And it’s all the more a task when they mistakenly see Facebook as just one, big public forum, a “Bughouse Square” where anyone can get on their soapbox and yell at whoever is passing that they’re sinful and unless they repent the world will end -- when in fact it’s not that at all, but rather they’ve arrived at a personal page, in essence a private home, where the foundational point is for that person who created it to have their very own place to express their views. And if anyone feels they want to join in, it’s for the proprietor to facilitate discussion – setting conditions and giving consent. And just as there are no “Rules of Entry” taped to the wall when you enter someone’s house, it’s still accepted that when the householder says, “You’re shouting much too loud and making a nuisance,” it’s their right. The great thing about Facebook is that if anyone doesn’t like it there, if you want your own soapbox, you already have your own personal page to rail at the world by your own rules. This all came to mind when a couple months back, someone I knew when I was a kid over 50 years ago found his way here. And while his participation, like everyone’s, was welcome, it got to the point where it was clear he just wanted to troll, change subjects and hear his voice. And I quite literally had no interest in that. And I said so, publicly and directly -- that I wouldn’t be reading anything more he wrote here. And I haven’t since. Nothing. Apparently thinking I didn’t mean what I said, he regularly sends me dozens of private Direct Messages, and I’ve never read even one but just click the “Mark as Read” button. For all I know, he’s telling me how he’s become convinced by the brilliance of my articles, and he now agrees with me on everything! But I don’t read them and don’t respond. Yet what’s weird is that despite me never once replying, he keeps sending them, many dozens, for reasons unknown to man. Which I think says a lot about his need to get in an open field and bray at the moon, just so everyone can hear his voice. He also keeps responding publicly to discussions here, which is fine. A wide range of views is welcome and encouraged. I get a notice when all new posts arrives, although (as I said and meant) I don’t read any of his. Life is too short to get dragged into a faux-debate where the other side is always braying at you, dumping untruths (the polite word) he picked up on alt-media, changing the subject when reality is too inconvenient, and continually throwing in “Well, what abouts…” as if that’s an answer – and which ignores several hundred far-worse “what abouts” that could be thrown back in return. What’s less fine, though, is hearing from people about how abusive and “insane” some of what he posts is. I trust judgement of these people, since I know their judgement. No one has yet said they’re leaving this page, though some have said they just won’t participate because they don’t want to get dragged down into his hell. And that’s where the line begins to get blurry, as I noted above. And I don’t know where that line exactly is. I do know that sending unrelenting private messages to someone that go unanswered is abusive and crossing the line. And if it continues, it qualifies for blocking. But where is the abusive line crossed when making public comments in a discussion? It would cross that line when it pushes many others into leaving. But it dances on the line when it keeps some people from participating. I have no problem blocking people on Twitter. It’s the nature of the beast. But I don’t like blocking people here on Facebook. I have, though, when one crosses the line too far. And I will again. Because life is too short. And for the people who participate here, I welcome them with great pleasure, and want to help make the experience a good one for them, for as many as possible. I think the line becomes even more flexible when you know someone. But when “knowing someone” is itself a flexible term, then it becomes trickier still. There are people we know since kindergarten, which (thanks to the word “since) on the surface has the patina of deep closeness, though in reality we haven’t spoken to since they moved away in the fourth grade a great many decades and a lifetime ago. There are people we know from having met them only a very few years before but are in touch with regularly, having become good, close friends. There even are people we “know” but have never met or even spoken to, who we have nonetheless had countless exchanges online. So, it’s all flexible. The mystical line of what is enough, what defines who we know, where do disagreements sit, sliding from the public into intruding on privacy, and so much more. But weaving its way through all of that, though I rarely use it, I nonetheless keep my eye on the “Block” button all the time, poised to press it at any given moment. Because life is too short.
2 Comments
Don Friedman
4/6/2022 05:27:18 pm
Some random thoughts on this:
Reply
Robert Elisberg
4/6/2022 09:39:14 pm
Don, thanks for your thoughtful note. I largely agree with all of it. And I know you're one of the few you understand the subtext of my article today.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
Categories
All
|
© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2024
|