Ideological Purity, Self Righteousness, Social Media and Isolation

Life presents us with many tensions.

Over the course of my life I have been privileged enough to come in contact with a diverse assortment of people.  Raised within a Christian home I have experienced the diversity under that "umbrella," from evangelical Baptist to Eastern Orthodox (and I'm United Methodist ((for now))).  As a salesman I've entered into relationships, often friendships, with Chaldeans, Palestinians, Jordanians, Indians, Pakistanis, and pissed off Caucasians.  As you may guess, these folk cover a vast array of political views and religion.  My wife is from Haiti.  My best man was African American.

I point this all out not because I believe it makes me better than anyone, but because it has made me a better person.  It has made me more empathetic.  It has made me a slightly better listener.

Where am I going with this?

Around two to two and a half years ago in the midst of one of the worst periods of anxiety and depression in my life, I believe God intervened.  I used to have a chronic need to get caught up in Facebook debates.  I had "established" myself as a progressive, liberal minded Christian and I practiced my faith by being a keyboard activist.  When I was going through this rough time, a friend posted something I disagreed with and I was ready to pounce; but then a strange thing happened:  I withheld my judgement and instead asked questions, listened, and entered into relationship with a community of people whose beliefs and worldviews differ from mine.....and that's OK!

I don't know for sure what made me stop and listen the first time.  I do know that the experience has shaped how I try to enter into dialogue with people.  How easy it is to judge people without knowing why they think the way they do.  It is much more difficult to challenge one's own view and let one's guard down and admit that maybe I am wrong.

Social media has only served, I fear, to exacerbate our own egos and sense of self righteousness, which ultimately leads to a lot of anxiety, depression and isolation.  I am not innocent in this matter.  Even sometimes recently I get caught up in outrage, which may be sometimes justified, but never to the point that we dehumanize others to the point where reconciliation, redemption, mercy, grace and love are inaccessible.  I was a tad shocked (I shouldn't have been) when I simply asked people I thought I somewhat agreed with about some inconsistencies in their expressions of a particular hot button topic, and the hordes descended upon me with tweeting insults.  I should have known that nuanced discussion and questioning are almost unforgivable when people can hide behind keyboards and online personas.  That said, the hurt is still real when people dehumanize you, however superficially, for not getting in line behind whomever's ideas of ideological purity.

So do I have any solutions?

I can only answer for myself and suggest to others, but what has been a life saver for me is the face to face interactions.  I don't know why it's OK to treat people like shit online.  Maybe it has to do with the fact that it's somewhat impersonal.  Maybe people spend their day to day suppressing pain and anger that they feel they can finally release.  I do know that for all my keyboard activism, I can't think of one debate that made me feel better about myself or the world.  What did make me feel better was engaging the world and entering into risky, diverse relationships, and that's from someone who is non-confrontational and hates risks.

To bring things full circle, life presents us with many tensions:  We can live trying to win.  We can live trying to be right and to especially make sure others know we're right, that they should also be right, and if they aren't right they should feel bad.  We can live only relating to those who look, think and feel like we do.  Or......

We can find victories throughout even what seems to be the most simple and mundane.  We can listen to others, understand where they are coming from, and even when agreement cannot be had, affirm their inherent humanness.  We can intentionally seek out new, diverse relationships to increase our awareness of our communities for the common good of each other.

  Put simply, maybe we should wean ourselves off of Facebook and Twitter and experience something with someone instead.