The weather is still good out here—between high 30s and mid 40s F. Still
safe from “The Coming Anarchy” – white, cold, frozen and gloomy! But who knows how long it will last! After all, we are in the Northern Hemisphere, on the North East coast of the good US of A. Not too far from British weather!
In fact, child of mine assured me today that, the United States and Europe touch each other, some where; don’t ask me where he is learning his second grade geography! For what I know, tomorrow might snow, or rain, or sleet or fog, or whatever…it might just…
Dear winter, could you please wait a little longer? I thank you, in anticipation. But, as long as the snow comes before the month ends, we’ll be fine…or Santa’s sledge will have trouble getting to us!
Talking about “The Coming [winter] Anarchy,” I have learned the same about Facebook. Sometimes, it can be a mixed bag, of unintended anarchies!
See, I joined Facebook for the ease of connection with family and friends on Facebook, whenever I am unable to pick up a phone, send an email, text or snail mail [yeah, “snail mail” is so ‘90s!]. I enjoy the quick regular updates on family and friends scattered across the globe.
Through Facebook, I have reconnected with friends not seen or talked to in ages. I have added new Facebook friends, via friends, social networking, and other social media. Here, I make a distinction between “friends on Facebook” and “Facebook friends”. The latter are those I met and friended on Facebook, probably never met all in person. The former are/were my friends before Facebook.
Facebook also gives me a chance to ’smear’ the world with my opinions, my craziness, and my family life and routines. It allows me to participate in intellectualism, and to salvage the world from itself!
I call Facebook the real United Nations, besides HONY —Humans of New York. Facebook is the school of International Relations, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, equivalent to an IR class. Am I being overoptimistic, presumption or simplistic?
I tend to think that Facebook is a good representation of the real world we live in, with all its discomforts, disagreements, verbal fist-fights, verbal and visual artillery, along with inconvenient truths, facts, great love, laughter and enjoyment.
So, I have learned not to take postings from Facebook friends personal, unless they intentionally seek to denigrate me, character assassinate or ridicule me on a personal level. Even then, I make exceptions!
Like one of my Facebook friends, who has no decency to bite his tongue, even when interacting with me. He has called me scrambled egg brains, delusional, namby-pamby, befuddled, any name under the moon and stars, whenever my view do not please him. At times, he is outright impudent, callously attacking people who have not engaged him. Sometimes, he is plain evil, projecting his inflated sense of entitlement to opine at anything/one that crosses his eyes!
Yet, I have not unfriended him, nor will I. In fact, we have constant exchange of opinions, with plenty of disagreements, but lots of laughter, too. We engage each other’s FB posts, and tag each other in our posts. Beyond the disagreements, verbal fights and mutual disdain for some of opinions each posts, we enjoy learning from each other. We enjoy the unique outlook on life, each of us projects, and have places of mutual convergence, interests, concern for social issues, and love of knowledge.
But that is not a unique case. Some of my Facebook friends post pictures of white people, putting their bare naked ar$e against Obama’s face on TV! Or religious scriptures and writings lampooning the president, as America’s worst evil. Yet, I still have not unfriended, blocked or berated them. Others post excessively derogatory and generalizing remarks against muslims. I often counter them, by reminding them that I have muslim family and friends, whom I do not recognize from their character assassination. Most importantly, I remind them that we are all members of the same global society.
Still, I have not unfriended anyone on Facebook; “blocking” is the worst I have gone. And that is only four people —two for being a misogynist, another for called me names, and another for repeatedly calling all black folks indolent.
I do not have patience for folks posing as intellectuals, when they cannot cite an academic writing or socially researched piece of writing to justify their arguments. Perpetually pandering personal opinions as “observed facts,” grounded in popular stereotypes drawn from the media and society. I do not wish to entertain anyone who builds a clout by dispensing personal views as facts and truths!
I am absolutely fine with opinions at par with mine. My personal conviction is that, our views and knowledge are largely shaped by our personal experiences, social relations and life trajectories. I am comfortable with counter arguing, defending and justifying my position with evidence. I do not believe that any of us possess the penultimate argument nor hold monopoly over the truth.
On my part, my vested commitment to reading, learning, listening and social networking, have opened my mind to a wealth of knowledge, diverse views and experiences about life. I do not take personal, any back and forth exchanges we have on Facebook because in my opinion, they are responses to my views/opinions/arguments, not personal attacks against me.
So, I was caught off-guard when I learned, sometime last week, that a “Friend on Facebook” had unfriended me! I tried to tag her on a newspaper article published about her in the Uganda dailies, but her name did not come in my friend’s list. My initial reaction was, perhaps she was reorganizing her Facebook account or creating a new account, and forgot to add me back. So, I FB messaged her to ask, when she had unfriended me.
A few days later, she responded that she had unfriended me a year ago, to paraphrase:
“I could not stand the arguments we were having on FB."Arguments? I was totally shocked, because I could not recall the arguments she was referring to. I did not even imagine, she could unfriend anyone whose views are contrary to her own!
She and I know each other from that not-so-square Cambridge, where we both attended school. As a celebrated “square” for scholarly rigor and intellectual stimulation, we both engaged in animated academic debates, not kissing up to each other. There were moments of discomfort, encountering strangers with opposing viewpoints, alien experience, hard talk and contradictions. Every engagement was not for the faint-hearted, but a battle ground for advancing one’s ideas. You had to be capable of taking in uncomfortable arguments, as well as stand by your own, similar to the everyday FB experience.
But, that’s life too! To each her/his own. No hard feelings toward her, nor anyone else “who got away” because they wanted to get out of the fire! For those who are still hanging out with me, I appreciate, knowing that we can still hangout together, probably for keeps. We will agree, disagree and agree to disagree; and that is how we roll in this world.
The only people surrounded by only their kind, or listening only to their type, are watching Faux News, listening to Lush Limbaugh Radio, breaking religious bread or fast together, and, as my mother told me, did not leave the hospital!
The rest of us will keep Trailing the Goodness of Facebook!
Happy Facebooking!
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