Facebook: Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing?

When Shakespeare wrote, some four hundred years ago, that “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” might he have somehow imagined Facebook in the throes of the 2012 elections? So many words, so little truth … So much venom, such little understanding … What confounding furies drive honest, intelligent friends, otherwise full of good will, into this blasted wasteland? Why do we mutilate each other in this Hell?

The answer is obvious, if you consider the source: almost all of these cancerous, toxic political posts seem to be “shared” content originated by partisan ideologues with self-serving agendas. But the word “shared,” in this case, is a misnomer. Sharing is generous and loving. We share personal photos, news, etc; or we share personal hopes and aspirations, often for each other; and sometimes, we even share our personal thoughts.

Most political posts, however, are not shared so much as cloned; witlessly reproduced “as is,” though often augmented with a few scathing words amplifying the cloned core. But given the biased source, something critical is almost always missing, and that is an honest, intelligent, unbiased consideration of the raw content. Were it present – this missing, unbiased analysis – then we would indeed be sharing; but in its absence, we are witless tools of self-serving, partisan ideologues.

Hence the sound and fury, signifying nothing but our own witlessness, our own idiocy.

We are, potentially, better than this, but there are costs: the effort of inquiry and the loss of certainty. Every significant political issue is complex, having not one truth and two sides, but many sides and many truths.

Truth is kaleidoscopic – it depends on how you look at things, and small shifts in perspective can generate very different conclusions. Furthermore, genuine inquiry is usually difficult at best. Lay citizens often lack the knowledge and time necessary to evaluate the complexities, while “the experts” often are, or are paid by, the self-serving, partisan ideologues responsible for our political dysfunction..


So to be honest, we must admit our uncertainty. And since honest uncertainty is better than certain idiocy, might we then, with a measure of humility, simply vote our conscience, and abandon the political sound, fury, and idiocy that have characterized Facebook for so many months?

Out beyond ideas of right and wrong doing, there is a field. I will meet you there ...

(quote by Rumi, the 13th-century Persian Muslim poet and Sufi mystic)

 

Click here for an overview of my blogs