Click like if you agree.
I stared at the Facebook article on my computer screen, entitled “Explaining Democratic Socialism to a Republican.”
I had just read the article – and now my finger was itching to click “like.” What made me pause was imagining how my conservative friends and relatives would react. They would never read the article; they would likely only see the word “socialist” and shake their heads sadly. I imagined them saying, “She does not seem like the sort who would admire Stalin.”
Maybe I would have to explain to them, if I saw them, that democratic socialism does not mean I want to see cold war style Russian Gulags built in America, or that I think Stalin was a good guy.
It only means the historic pooling resources for services that benefit everyone; examples are the fire department, public schools – and healthcare, being the newest and most basic.
My edginess is partly to do with the time, and partly to do with where I live: a small town in South Carolina one month before a presidential election. Most of the friends I grew up with are fiercely conservative – and enraged with the current government.
I cannot remember any other time in my life when liking and supporting the president of the United States was a subversive act, punishable by shunning or worse – but where I live, it is.
I see Obama as a level headed intellectual able to grasp the complexities of modern life, doing his best to manage the broken system left to him by his predecessor; in spite of his inability to fix every problem, he has saved the nation from economic disaster brought about by reckless Wall Street behavior, and taken a bold step toward fixing the broken healthcare system.
Most of my family and friends do not share this view. Some of them actually see Obama as a sinister, secret supporter of Islamic terrorists, possibly one himself, who may soon usher in the apocalypse.
They think that his is at war with God. I am still waiting to see the news stories about Obama having imprisoned anyone for their beliefs, stripped believers of voting rights, or made church illegal.
Because Obama does not pepper his speeches with the word “God,” and supports gay rights, they do not credit him, or any Democrat, with a moral compass. They think Obama is leading the nation into economic ruin and moral bankruptcy.
I understand that people where I live are mostly conservative – but I would not know the intensity of their hostility if it were not for Facebook.
When I am with my conservative friends, we usually talk about cats or ice cream, and get along very well. They do not know I am part of a demographic that they hate; the incendiary topics rarely come up.
However, there is something about Facebook that makes you want to express completely who you are and how you think. Facebook offers a tantalizing opportunity to to define yourself to yourself and to others – to encapsulate the whole confusing, complex mess of your identity into the rectangle of a profile page on your computer; to champion the ideas you most support with a volley of clicks.
When I see others expressing who they are and how they think, I want to do the same. I admire those who think the way I do – and are willing to say it.
However, I am always aware that other Facebook friends think differently, and may not admire me for the qualities I consider most important in myself.
As a result, my Facebook experience sometimes becomes an agony of inner conflict that occasionally graduates to epic moral struggles on a Homeric scale. The thinking goes something like this: My friends are wrong, and it is my obligation to correct them. I am failing both them and myself if I cannot summon the moral courage to make the point that Obama is not a champion of Islamic terrorists.
And yet I know if I say such things – which seem absurdly obvious to me – I risk knee-jerk disapproval and hostility from people who ordinarily seem to like me.
Anyone with an opinion not shared by the majority of those around them are vulnerable to this kind of conflict: libertarians who cannot see how everyone does not understand that government poisons everything; vegetarians who want to urge compassion for animals, but who are afraid to preach; paranormal enthusiasts who think rational skepticism ruins the mystery of life; skeptics who who prize empirical evidence as the best way to know reality.
Everyone has a point of view. Everyone tends to be passionate about it, and certain about how right it is, and how wrong everyone else is; if people did not believe they were right, they would have a not have that point of view.
With all the diversity of opinion, is there anything that we all share? The belief in the rightness of cherished opinions seems to be a common trait, and the technology of Facebook has become the ultimate battleground for idea supremacy.
We are becoming a nation of Facebook warriors, vying to be heard and understood, each struggling to promote the ideas that matter most to us – to transcend the insignificant control that we have by making as many people as possible agree with us, sometimes with cajolery, and other times with chest-thumping, angry intimidation.
Ideas clash and bounce off each other in a never-ending cyberspace war dance. Some warriors are in the thick of the fray, and others eye the battleground hungrily – or timidly – from the sidelines.
I stared at the article about democratic socialism again. Which kind am I, I wondered. Do I want to become drawn in? If so, for what purpose?
I thought about the demonizing portrayal of Democrats where I live, the angry posts that seemed to warn, “If you disagree with me, you are evil.”
I stared at the verbal prompt again, feeling subversive. Click “like” if you agree.
My hand answered the call with a decisive click.
With mild surprise, I read the message that appeared on my screen beside the thumb icon. The words were both simple and profound:
You like this.