Courage

If you want to see how low we’ve allowed social media to take us, don’t look at Facebook. That’s what it’s there for: to bring out the worst in us. Twitter? I don’t know since I avoid it. It sure seems not only to lower the standards of its users, but to monopolize the press in doing so. It may end up being the single most telling artifact that the aliens find among the rusted ruins of our civilization.

No, if you want to see the epitome of lowlife, the pire que tout of the proof of our social and intellectual downfall, go to YouTube. Once there, find a wondrous Mozart piano sonata. I’m fond of the 21^st, but choose your favorite. Find a good, but not legendary performer. Young ones seem to bring out the worst in us. It is quite possible that, if you start down the comment string, you find an untoward comment. It may have to do with the music. More likely it will address the type of instrument, the performer’s sexual appeal, the conductor, or even the lighting.

The next comment will be directed at the previous commenter. From there it may descend into the type of verbal exchange that, if made face-to-face in my hometown, would have caused a “shootin’ scrape.”

This for a Mozart sonata. Here’s an actual exchange from a Schumann concerto featuring a female in somewhat modern attire.

First comment: “Who else wants to put their hand down the back of that dress?”

Second comment: “The woman can wear whatever she god damn [sic] want to.”

This all makes me recall that a writer or interviewee will on occasion, make a statement that I envy immensely. (My favorite described Oliver North when he ran for the Senate. A national journalist observed, “I have nothing against Mr. North. It’s just that there is a faint smell of sulfur about him.”) But, back to our point here, someone on NPR once commented about a tirade by someone that, “It had all the sophistication of a YouTube comment thread.”

They say that anonymity and/or distance are the keys. Social media allows us to say things we would never say either in polite society or a small-town saloon.

What is odd to me is the transition that I see in old and dear friends. I attribute it to a combination of social media and political organizations that operate beyond the “pale” of human decency. I see posts by people, some who claim to be, and some I know to be, ministers of some Christian group or another. I knew them once as kind, generous, loving people, literally brimming with the “milk of human kindness.” Now there’s no Russian-made meme viciously attacking an innocent person or family that they won’t post for, literally, the world to see.

That world includes old friends, grandmothers, associates, colleagues, parishioners, and young, impressionable minds. It sure confuses me. Myself? I stop with “grandmother.” Even though she attained only a third-grade education before her father, a Civil War veteran died, I just wouldn’t want her to read some things. That being said, she was a bit of a character, so I feel empowered to push the boundaries at times.

That’s why I don’t mind sharing my third-favorite journalist quip. I thought of it last night when a supporter claimed something awful that the president of the United States of America said was intended as just a joke. The quip was by the late William F. Buckley, Jr. He responded to some argument by an adversary with, “That’s a bit like getting a charge of sodomy changed to following too closely.”

Feel free to share your favorite, but remember Grand-mamma Rodgers may be watching.