Inaction for Action: The Lie Twitter Told You
This golden age of technology has given us so much — and yet it has clearly taken something precious from us. Something integral to our person-hood. At the same time as it connects people across time and space, enhances our knowledge, and increases our potential, a lie has been planted and allowed to grow. Now, the vast field of dandelions it has become threatens our nation, the roots creeping into our foundations and ripping them apart.
No, that foundation has nothing to do with the constitution or any of its articles. It has nothing to do with gun control, abortion bans, or international rhetoric. Its not our politicians, our armed forces, or our capitalist scum. Its not the left, the right, or any exact point in between.
It is us. It is we, the American people. Social media has given us a platform to raise our voices louder than ever before, a true miracle fitting for the land of the free. But in the mess of noise those platforms have become, is anyone of consequence actually listening? Is anything actually being done with all the outrage and clashing opinions?
As far as I’ve seen, the answer is no.
Twitter fascinates me in particular. Brevity is the soul of wit, as I understand it; so I love seeing how people use the strict limits of a Tweet to cleverly restate a previous point in a new way. Its an art to take complex issues like the ones we face today, and distill their essence in less than 200 characters (including spaces, what??), while still striking a coherent chord.
I’m impressed, moved, and inspired by what I’ve seen from Twitter lately. You can clearly see what the American people care passionately about, simply from the words they’ve carefully crafted and chosen for this medium. As a fellow creator and wordsmith, I can’t help it.
But therein lies my concern: the voice of the American people rings so loud here. It’s impossible to mistake what we want, and why, and how absolutely reasonable those wants are. So why is no one answering those cries? Why is nothing being done about it? In fact, why are those cries being ignored so that the complete opposite of what we wanted is happening, instead?
It is because what America needs most right now is for her people to act. To put away distractions and focus on what needs to be done. To stand up for themselves, and fight for what they know is right. Heck, to maybe even take up the arms they’ve so militantly horded and physically demand better policy — its what they’ve stocked up on AK-47s for anyway, right? To rise up against the government, in case it infringes too far on our liberty, right? If there ever was a time for that, to actually do something, it seems like here and now.
“But I am doing something,” says the NRA member, surrounded by a collection of dusty, unused arms, posting another carefully crafted tweet about how gun control will ruin the country. The likes and the re-tweets and the angry responses from gun control activists flow in, like milk, honey, and sweet dopamine. Civic duty done. That’ll teach ‘em.
“But I am doing something,” says the 30-something in a cramped apartment, tweeting again that the planet is literally dying. Their followers liked and re-tweeted the last post, so someone must have cared. Something must have been done. But nothing has changed… So lather, rinse repeat. Surely this Tweet will wake them up. Surely this one will change the world.
“But I am doing something,” says the anxious parent, tweeting about how their elementary-aged children have more ideas for staying safe in case of school shooters than most congress members. They are all good ideas, practical for the environment, and put some control in the hands of small children who could be easily shot at like fish in a barrel. We leave it to our children to figure these things out, and so they do. But will any of their good ideas be implemented?
Nah. The people with that power are too busy tweeting about how hard they are working to reform school safety, and how their political opponents clearly want our young people to die. Just another day in the life.
We’ve been given this fantastic way to educate each other on the issues that matter to us, the stories we should really be talking about, and to bounce solutions of one another. Its almost like the news, and perhaps even better. If you want to know what’s really going on in our country and what the people think, just scroll through Twitter. They’ll tell you, point blank, no fluff, no jargon. But the news is only that: the news. At the end of the day, it’s just stories.
The problem is this: we have a platform to speak our minds like never before, but we have no platform on which to act. We scream, shout, let it all out, and mistake that for having put forth real effort. We’ve been tricked into thinking that because we pour the troubles of our hearts into the ether, we’ve single-handedly solved all our country’s problems, because someone else with real power will see, hear, and act on it for us.
But we are supposed to be the ones with real power. We are supposed to be ones seeing and hearing each others problems, and we are the ones who should be working to solve them. Instead, we’ve been fooled into looking away, mistaking noise for busyness, and our true authority has been slowly stripped away while we weren’t paying attention.
I want to act physically, I really do; but when I looked up and observed my surroundings, I realized that I have no idea how to do that. I can write letters to my representatives in congress, and I can patiently wait to choose them in the next election cycle. I can organize protests and marches, carry signs and yell my tweets out loud, in person. All of that is good an well, but how much agency as a citizen does that come to, at the end of the day?
Let me tell you about how the mitochondria is the powerhouse of a cell. Let me tell you about the Pythagorean theorem. Let me tell you about how Columbus sailed the ocean, blue, in 1492. But if you asked me how to take my own adult life into my own hands, I’d just stare at you like a cow stares into the lights of an oncoming train — a lone warrior, tamed and subdued, sadly accepting that its doom for the sake of progress was always inevitable.
Wow, that turned into an ocean: deep, dark, and strangely inviting, indeed.
We have confused the pen and the sword for far too long. And now, when we need the actual sword most, we’ve misplaced it. In fact, its been taken from us while we weren’t looking. We’ve nothing left but the pen to fight with, and stabbing at someone with it can only take one so far in a metaphorical fight. We have to get that sword back, if we want any prayer of accomplishing the things we complain about online.
“But I am doing something,” say the pro-lifer and pro-choice-er at the exact same time, both posting brief but beautifully worded appeals for how human life matters. If one took them both together, one might conclude that all life matters, and that both are right, and that this means the answer can’t be so black and white. But no one will do that. They will like, re-tweet, and trash talk the one they disagree with.
And they will insist that they, too, did something productive about something.
