FaceBook foibles

I'm eventually coming to face a disconcerting fact about FaceBook. The status bar simply cannot sustain subtleties of thought or the nuances of emotion. Recently, I posted a comment about my frustrations with politics-or at least the way people post political opinions. I am not a little amused and outraged by those status bar items which rail against other groups as being "hateful, vicious, narrow-minded, idiots," while claiming all along the moral high ground of moderation and sweet reasonableness. They will post links to other pieces that decry the ignorance and stupidity of their political opponents all the while holding to the semblance of sophistication and sanity. My status bar recently announced that for these and other reasons I hate politics.

Next thing you know, a couple of old seminary buddies chimed in with dead serious mini-lectures on the significance of politics in the course of human events. Good points were made about the place of influence on the lives of people and the theological implications of that interaction within communities that we call political. One fellow even pointed me to a sixteenth century religious document to underscore his point!

Flabbergasted by such outpouring of pedagogy, I replied with a rather tongue-in-cheek qualification that my "hatred" of politics bears closer resemblance to my hate of calculus or chemistry than to any intrinsic pathological position. Hey, I also hate sea cucumbers and tripe. Does that require counseling or anti-depressants? One might get that impression from the follow-up comments I received. Now let's be fair. My old alums, whom I haven't seen in nearly thirty years, were just being big teases. But FaceBook has the distinct disadvantage of not making that fact readily evident. If I had lost the ability to reach back into fond memory and picture this exchange as a friendly banter over beer, I would have been quite offended by their remarks-especially when one of them alluded to my ethnic background. Them are fighting words! But then I realized that in an awkward way, the banter of long ago continued in a new communications platform.

FaceBook has got its limitations alright. Of course, it cannot convey body language through facial expressions, twinkles of the eyes, a curl of the lips. Yet neither can it convey the nuances of powerful words like "hate" or "like" or even "love." FaceBook is fun and I'll continue to use it until it starts to take over my life. But be warned: I just might post stuff that some of my fb friends will misconstrue in their zeal to hunt for heresy, or merely take entirely out of my life's context. A status bar cannot always serve every flavor offered out there.