08/08/2022 –
By Tod Worner
In the golden age of social media, it has become a cliché to talk about the sarcasm and pettiness that comes from every corner of Twitter and Facebook, SnapChat, Tik Tok or Instagram. Somehow, when their thumbs start scrolling through social media and land on a post of particular interest, certain people, whether they’re seasoned politicians or elementary school teachers, pedigreed academics or blue-collar workers, just can’t help it. For whatever reason, many people feel empowered – no, called – to drop bombs of unfiltered truth on whoever detonated them.
But it hasn’t always been that way. Can you imagine if someone walked up to a complete stranger and confessed, “You’re making me bored,” or ended a conversation with a resounding “You’re a $#@%# idiot. Leave away”? Given the chance to say those things “in person,” I imagine there would be a lot more restraint or a marked increase in broken noses.
The reason for the aggressiveness
So why do people behave this way on social media?
Maybe it’s anonymity. Anyone can sign up for a social media account under a fake name and then troll complete strangers. The least brave person in the world is the instigator of a Twitter mob who drives everyone into a bloodthirsty frenzy, ruins someone’s life with a tweet, then retreats to the couch to watch Laverne and Shirley reruns while eating Funyuns. .
Perhaps it is the vulgarization of our cultural discourse. After a while, the screaming, cursing, and take no prisoners policy insidiously become part of the background noise and seep deep into our consciousness. Or borrowing from Flannery O’Connor, it becomes “the air we breathe.” Remember when Jerry Springer and Morton Downey, Jr., Howard Stern and George Carlin were considered shockers? “Shocking”, to quote Paul Westerberg, “when nothing surprises anymore”.
Are we elevating the aggressive?
Or maybe it’s because we’ve somehow glorified outspoken behavior as a form of twisted virtue. The person who speaks rudely and bluntly is praised for his or her “refreshing directness” or “brilliant authenticity.” These people dress up as Cassandras (if you prefer Greek tragedy) or John the Baptist (if you like the Christian parallel) fearlessly speaking truth to power, living in fierce nonconformity. In fact, these are the least rebellious and non-conformist people out there. Sassy outrage is now totally in style. What is more common than being rude, obnoxious and vulgar in the most public places? What is more banal than being critical, sarcastic and ruthless? Proud impudence? Yawn, pass the peanuts.
Throwing out “truth” with indignation
Our faith continues to insist that “judge not that ye be judged” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” But in the AGE OF TRUTH, we are told, these quaint platitudes simply won’t do. If we are going to change the world, it is insisted, we need to be volcanoes of righteous indignation. Let us present our virtue to this Philistine foreigner, and let us do it by shoving it down his throat.
I recently came across an essay by GK Chesterton that not only sheds light on our modern conundrum (the glorification of petty candor), but hints at a thoughtful path forward. While directness is defined as “the quality of being open and honest in expression,” Chesterton reasons that we are wrong to idolize the disarming directness of directness. In fact, we have mistaken our fleeting moods for the more enduring stability of our minds.
bathed in nervousness
In a play that extolled candor, Chesterton winced at the needless drowning death of a suicidal girl who jumped into the river and her boyfriend who jumped in to save her:
A young man has the painful experience of being harassed by a girl who loves him and whom he does not love. His reaction is to jump up and yell at her, “Don’t blow my neck off.” That’s what he says, but it’s not what he means (italics mine). Then he drowns himself trying to save her life, just to show that it’s not what he means.
It seemed to me that people often don’t speak their minds, but just babble about their moods. A man was disguised as temperament, as an old man would be said to be disguised as liquor. The practical effect of this spontaneous speech was just that each person poured out her nerves on another. But his nerves are no more himself than his speeches or his sonnets or his sublime translations of Virgil.
It’s liberating to consider that people who say terribly insensitive things may not really feel that way, or if they do, it’s because they wrote their rule in the middle of a fiery moment. It also reminds us, with humility, that our feelings are not always the facts. “The man isn’t saying what he thinks,” Chesterton observes, “he’s talking about all the hassles and entanglements that have come between him and his mind.” With discipline, perhaps, we can recover a little of what we have lost.
In all honesty, I don’t think anyone who specializes in exclamation points or revels in CAPITAL-ridden rebuttals is a bad person. Everyone can get cranky. I think they visit their mother, hug their children, try to find purpose in their day job, and maybe even let someone cut them off in traffic (well, most of them anyway). Most of the time, their moods do not truly represent their minds. Their minds, it seemed, simply lost control.
Without fight
I think it’s time to rethink the virtue of candor in light of the vice it can easily become. It is time to put the reins on our tongue and fight for an equal mind. It is time to rediscover a refreshing civility rooted in humility and charity, honor and decorum. It’s time to put yourself in the other’s shoes and avoid throwing those stones; to discuss in good faith, yes, but to do so without fighting. And it’s time to say what we mean, but to be extremely noble and generous and thoughtful to discern exactly what we mean.
Frankness is good.
But the best thing is a conscientious and well-intentioned frankness.
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