Rooting for the good fairy
There they are! Cinema’s and literature’s good fairies (male and female), soaring through the air, equipped with their requisite magic-making wands. (I want one! I want one!) A tiny flick of their wands and human goodness goes wild, right in front of our very eyes!
Excuse me, I think we may need a little reality test, here.
Wholesale wand-spreading of goodness among humans strikes me as a bunch of bologna. (Does bologna even still exist?) Get real. Where does one find a goodness-spreading magic wand, aside from those found in Harry Potter’s Hogwarts or Diagon Alley? (Suggestions?)
Ok, wand-waving, good fairy, we’re going to snack on reality for a few minutes.
While scrolling on a nearby, large, multi-neighborhood listserv, I was caught in the maelstrom of an unfettered digital attack frenzy. Its focus was a friend of mine. Like most of us in today’s digital world, I’ve witnessed these toxic online frenzies, but never one focusing on someone about whom I cared. Digital postings, red in tooth and claw. An angry whirlwind of untested judgments, targeting one person - my friend.
I was sorely inclined to seize the largest (digital) rock I could find, to defend my cave-mate from the ravening (digital) saber tooth tigers. Saber tooth tigers and cave-mates? Wait, wait, where, or when, are we?
Wake up! It isn’t 10 million years ago (I don’t think), with ravenous saber tooth tigers prowling for prey. ‘Tis the 21st century, technologically equipped with saber tooth tiger-like digital barbs, 24/7. Prey, such as you, you, and me. It’s a plague. And, oh gosh, our attack launching pads are just a keyboard away.
I’ve been laboring, doggedly, with my fight-flight triggers for many years. But, oh wow, I continue to work, mightily, at disengaging before a written grenade leaves my typing fingers. (Still that fallible human, as always.)
Here’s the kicker! Prehistoric times had saber tooth tigers. We, in modern times, have social scientists! Those crafty social scientists discovered that small acts of rudeness or kindness surge across communities, impacting both those we know and don’t know. Ripple city. Our keyboard attacks spread just as easily. A domino effect of our, sometimes, vitriolic posts, impacting one person who, behaviorally, passes it on to the next person, ad infinitum. We aren’t turning into keyboard plague carriers, are we? Please say “No!” I don’t want that mantle!
Enough with moralizing about our digital, 24/7, fight-flight dysfunction. Both darkness and light live within me. (You’re not exempt either, you know.) I’m rooting, hardily, for my good fairy’s living presence in our digital world…..