My children no longer answer my long discursive emails. I try posing questions, ask their advice about online etiquette and suggest moral quandaries all to no avail. I think I've lost my audience. Those three sons used to engage me in intellectual and politically stimulating dialogue. They're all in their twenties now, suspicious of my good intentions (she's trying to get us to think like her!) and looking for their own paths. I can't see the markers they're following; I must be blind to this generation's method of deconstructing truth from falsehood, clear paths in the forest from tree-strewn disasters. So I need to let them go.
My good husband listens to my political rantings politely at first and then fixes me with his gimlet gaze; suggesting the exact opposite of whatever I have proposed. "You mean we should never support ANY kind of public health care?" he'll assert, as if engaging in logical argument. I've lived here long enough to recognize the signs of a hopeless discussion. Taking the opposite position from that of your partner in a discussion is the fastest way I know to start an argument. Or to send them out of the room in frustration. It means you haven't been listening; you just want to make the point that you are smarter than your partner and will show them the fallacy of their ways.
I'm hoping to find other conversations. Ones without the ranting that so often passes for conversation online. Without the blinders and assumptions that if you say red, you mean Right, if I say blue, it's code for Liberal. I believe we're mix of many different belief systems and values and mine, anyway, have grown deeper and stronger and more clear as I've aged, but they've also gotten much, much simpler.
Can we talk online without the "Aha, you phail, moron!" language? Are we stuck with a conspiracy on every corner, a vast underground plot that has only to be revealed for truth to conquer our enemy? Since this attempt to uncover truth and thus defeat some undefined evil has done little but cause everyone grief, perhaps we could resurrect the idea of engaging in courteous conversation online. Maybe we could start looking for our commonalities instead of differences, ways to share ideas and beliefs instead of divide ourselves into tribes. The phrase "And the truth shall set you free" referred specifically to spiritual truth, not any worldly or political or personal cause. Gotcha journalism has taken that motto and made a mockery of truth. (Moral relativity and truth; two words that don't play well together.) Can we talk about our lives with civility and kindness? I suppose by posting this I'll find out.
