Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Revine Blog Mooch - political stati follow-up post
After I wrote my post on political stati, a fellow rebelutionary over at "Revine" wrote a post about profanity in the kind of arguments that I wrote about. I really enjoyed his thoughts and wanted to share them with those of you who read my thoughts. http://revine.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/walk-the-talk-and-talk-the-walk-too/
Friday, February 11, 2011
Do political stati have a place on Facebook?
Something I have had issue with for a long time are people posting highly opinionated political statements on Facebook. In fact, I have de-friended people based on their left-wing or right-wing stati and/or comments. However, I am not entirely satisfied with my own thoughts on the subject, and I would warily like to open a discussion on the question, realizing that this could lead to some of the things that bother me most about political stati.
Reasons I do not like political stati:
1. the nature of Facebook means that any comment I make on your political stati will be seen by all of your other friends. This often leads to misinterpretations and debates with complete strangers, which are rarely enlightening because they are backed by emotion and misinterpretation of text. Nuances of a relationship between me and you are lost when I comment on your Facebook status because your other friends do not know me and they therefore assume the worst about me and my comment.
2. the nature of the internet (and this is expanded) means that the person I am arguing with, be it you or a Facebook friend of yours, can go on and on and on writing a block of text about a subject that I find unrelated, or that has misinterpreted my thought, etc. In an actual discussion, I'd have the opportunity to raise my hand/interrupt and change the course of discussion (either by asking how it's related, pointing out their error in interpreting my thought, etc). On Facebook, I cannot do that AND I am required to explain my objection AFTER they've made their entire thought. This leads to a lot of unnecessary thought and frustration.
3. Political Facebook stati seem highly out of place and lead to a lot of misdirected passion. Facebook's newsfeed design allows me to scroll along, happily reading posts like "got an A on my test", "going to a party tonight" from people or "how to fix your computer", "want to win a free towel? like this!" from pages, etc. and then, all of a sudden, there's something that scratches me the wrong way politically. The way we've been programmed is to immediately comment on this with our own political response. The social rules like "never talk about politics or religion" that required us to remember how to be civil when we talk and think about what is coming out of our mouths, those rules are gone. We spew whatever comes into our head, consequently ticking off an infinite number of other internet users, because I heatedly comment on your status and your friend reads it and posts a status about how he hates people like me and his friend posts an agreement comment, etc. In real conversation, you may hate what I say, but you are polite enough to not say it to my face. On the computer, we all get as nasty as we want.
There are probably more, but you get the idea, and they all end up at similar conclusions - the impersonal nature of the internet, the lack of nuance.
Reasons I do not like political stati:
1. the nature of Facebook means that any comment I make on your political stati will be seen by all of your other friends. This often leads to misinterpretations and debates with complete strangers, which are rarely enlightening because they are backed by emotion and misinterpretation of text. Nuances of a relationship between me and you are lost when I comment on your Facebook status because your other friends do not know me and they therefore assume the worst about me and my comment.
2. the nature of the internet (and this is expanded) means that the person I am arguing with, be it you or a Facebook friend of yours, can go on and on and on writing a block of text about a subject that I find unrelated, or that has misinterpreted my thought, etc. In an actual discussion, I'd have the opportunity to raise my hand/interrupt and change the course of discussion (either by asking how it's related, pointing out their error in interpreting my thought, etc). On Facebook, I cannot do that AND I am required to explain my objection AFTER they've made their entire thought. This leads to a lot of unnecessary thought and frustration.
3. Political Facebook stati seem highly out of place and lead to a lot of misdirected passion. Facebook's newsfeed design allows me to scroll along, happily reading posts like "got an A on my test", "going to a party tonight" from people or "how to fix your computer", "want to win a free towel? like this!" from pages, etc. and then, all of a sudden, there's something that scratches me the wrong way politically. The way we've been programmed is to immediately comment on this with our own political response. The social rules like "never talk about politics or religion" that required us to remember how to be civil when we talk and think about what is coming out of our mouths, those rules are gone. We spew whatever comes into our head, consequently ticking off an infinite number of other internet users, because I heatedly comment on your status and your friend reads it and posts a status about how he hates people like me and his friend posts an agreement comment, etc. In real conversation, you may hate what I say, but you are polite enough to not say it to my face. On the computer, we all get as nasty as we want.
There are probably more, but you get the idea, and they all end up at similar conclusions - the impersonal nature of the internet, the lack of nuance.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Song of Solomon
This morning, I read the Song of Solomon. It's only 8 chapters, and it's got a lot of content that is specific to marriage. But it's also a love story, a beautiful poem about sexual purity and ultimate fulfillment. Sort of like chick lit, but far better than any of the fluff that is written today.
I once read (in Eric Ludy's companion study to his wife's book Authentic Beauty, if anyone cares where), that girls should read Song of Solomon and Revelation at the same time, to see the side of Christ that is loving and sees her as his precious bride, but also the side that is powerful and victorious. I have yet to read Revelation, but I greatly enjoyed the bride of Christ aspect of SoS this morning.
"You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride. You have captured my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace." SoS 4:9
I once read (in Eric Ludy's companion study to his wife's book Authentic Beauty, if anyone cares where), that girls should read Song of Solomon and Revelation at the same time, to see the side of Christ that is loving and sees her as his precious bride, but also the side that is powerful and victorious. I have yet to read Revelation, but I greatly enjoyed the bride of Christ aspect of SoS this morning.
"You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride. You have captured my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace." SoS 4:9
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
February 1st
Back online - actually, I have been for a while but school started and I was moving back into the dorms. A few quick thoughts about the experiment, now that it's over:
- people had a hard time getting in touch with me
- most people thought I was crazy
- I realized what FB friends I didn't need anymore
- I spent more time reading (Sherlock and Shakespeare)
- I need a better phone plan :^P
just to catch you up, blogging audience.
- people had a hard time getting in touch with me
- most people thought I was crazy
- I realized what FB friends I didn't need anymore
- I spent more time reading (Sherlock and Shakespeare)
- I need a better phone plan :^P
just to catch you up, blogging audience.
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