~pioneers of the internets frontier~

April 17th, 2009

Today I was unfriended on Facebook. Because the event that lead to this relates to something I have been pondering all week and I’m interested in your thoughts, I will tell the sad tale:

We were best friends for many teen years. We worked as wenches at the Renaissance Faire together; we sun-bathed in her backyard with immortal abandon. We saw each other through the loss of one of our friends in a car accident, and other things I won’t write about here. I never laughed with anyone the way I did with Sheri (not her actual name, but dotted with a puffy heart just the same). I didn’t adore INXS, she didn’t adore The Cure, but we found middle ground and went to both concerts because that’s what friends do.

We lost touch, and about a year ago I found her on the internet. She seemed truly glad to hear from me and before long we were writing like the old girlfriends were were, about joys and disappointments and struggles. This morning I had to go back to those emails, to help make this old friend a person in my mind again, not a “them,” not an idea. I had to remind myself of our history because yesterday I opened my Facebook page and found she had posted this image:

I am not generally an “active” political person, I think to be alive is a political act, how you move through the world and treat others says plenty on the world’s stage. I am also grateful there are people who choose to make bigger gestures. However, in a moment lacking my usual (aimed for) tact, I wrote to this friend and expressed my dismay: “Is whatever Obama is doing that bugs you actually the same as murdering millions of people? Have you thought about how that suggestion might seem to the families of victims and survivors of the camps?”

I got an angry, shouting response which did not make mention of the supposed Socialist connection between the two men, but instead made some extreme and personal statements I choose to believe were motivated by feelings of defense. What does being “a Christian” have to do with the way one chooses to publicly express political ideas? How does my objection to equating Obama with Hitler make me part of the “THE IMMORAL AND IGNORANT MASSES”? I find that image tasteless, daft, sensational, so I’m immoral?

In the words of my pal E.M. Forster, Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch, which ought to be applied as sparingly as possible…Herein I probably differ from most people, who believe in Belief, and are only sorry they cannot swallow even more than they do. My law-givers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul. My temple stands not upon Mount Moriah but in that Elysian Field where even the immoral are admitted.
Avail yourself of his What I Believe for some tasty food for thought.

Faith, according to Merriam-Webster, is “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” In other words, I just think this because I want (or need) to.

Which many of us do, about many things–generally we call these thoughts opinions. Green is superior to blue, for example, or spaghetti is the best food. However, groundless personal convictions have no place in discussions that are empirically based in the world most agree upon, where the earth is a sphere, gravity pulls, and Republicans and Democrats sometimes offend each other. Would-be filibusterers take note: if you’re talking to me about anything other than religion, kindly check your Jesus at the door.

A year ago Sheri wrote: “i have actually become a christian and a republican!!! DON’T freak out and let me explain…..” which is all I can quote in respect to her privacy, but suffice it to say she did not explain, nor did I feel I was owed an explanation. What business is it of mine? I also did not comment on her Republicanism (or mention religion, Maude forbid) when that picture was sitting on my personal homepage and making me wish that in addition to the “thumbs up” and “Kim likes this” options there was also “Kim is appalled”. I simply questioned the sentiment of the image itself.

I didn’t care for being referred to by Obama in his Inaugural Address as a “non-believer,” but that won’t cause me to call the man a fascist. I recognize it as a step, albeit a reductive one. What is wrong with Atheist, Agnostic, Freethinker, Naturalist, Rationalist, Secularist, Humanist? I’m just asking.

I consider respectfully agreeing to disagree part of what we call civilization. In the case of friendship, I’ll even go see INXS if you’ll go see The Cure. But provoking public statements may receive a questioning response. My old friend countered, “As a conservative, I do not impose my views and judgments on others.” But what is posting on Facebook if not this? My favorite movies, albums, social causes, one is constantly pinging and pinged by everyone: commenting, approving, sharing the results of inane questionnaires. In the minutes Sheri had posted it before I saw this image, one of her friends had already given it a “thumbs up”. There is a reason there is no “thumbs down” icon. For most, FB is not a forum for debate, but a place to preach to the choir. That is a social contract I broke.

Whereas by my sense of netiquette, tossing that image in my path was simply inappropriate. Like the Christmas when one of my relatives gave me a golden brooch in the shape of a tiny pair of feet, an anti-choice statement. Happy Holidays!
I doubt my old friend (or old aunt) would appreciate an I ♥ Abortion! graphic landing in her inbox either. But my netiquette (among other things) would prevent me from posting such a thing and my common sense would prevent me from being shocked if I did and people objected because a. I know hollow rage-baiting when I see it and b. I don’t expect every person (even in my facebook sphere) to think exactly as I do. Knowing they don’t doesn’t shake my core principles, but a thoughtfully posed query (or even an emotional and snarky one) would not cause me to run away, and might lead me to question them from time to time. (Though regarding INXS I stand firm as ever.)

What a weird, wild terrain the internet remains. All over the place–Facebook, Twitter, blogs–we each have to define what is TMI (too much information) and what is appropriate in a public forum, and this is clearly extremely subjective. I spent the morning reflecting on how this exchange might have gone differently.

For me, Facebook is a lot like a school reunion, which has been for the most part surprisingly lovely. Hatchets have been buried, and perspective gained as a result of reconnecting with and seeing into the lives of my peers. It’s a perform-y world, but one I embrace, especially as I am so geographically isolated these days. Sometimes a little ping of contact is all you need.

Still, it can also be strangely blithe and impersonal: this rift would never have come to pass in person, or even over the phone. And the immediacy can bring with it a lack of filter that is not so refined. We could all stand to grant a little grace to each other as we figure it out.

I have been pondering this lately because it’s been an internet-angst kind of week: one blogging friend was hurt over her readers radically dropping off, another blogging friend hurt that no one leaves comments, another friend read something about her that hurt her feelings, and another recently made a comic about his own hurt facebook feelings. Yet another took some profound courage to speak about something extremely painful for her (putting aside her “facebook neurosis”) and was flooded with love.

As for Sheri, I sincerely apologized for my regrettably hasty email and not surprisingly, received no reply. Hope springs eternal. In hindsight, I’m not convinced that she is convinced by much of her off-topic rant–but perhaps the first line: “We’ve OBVIOUSLY taken different roads.” In fact we have always been on different paths. It’s never been a requirement of my friendships that they mirror me. It’s far more interesting that they be with those who are curious and take pleasure in occasionally hashing it all out. Unless, that is, you don’t share my deep and abiding faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, in which case I’ll pray for your soul, but don’t call me.