The Danger of Forgetting Context and History: The Polarizing Affect of Tweets and Memes

Memes and tweets are some of the worst when it comes to disregarding context and history. Without context and history there is no meaning and significance; even facts have no meaning without context and history. The more complex a problem, the more the context and the history need to be examined to find not only a solution but the meaning and significance of the problem itself.

But we address important issues in tweets and memes (and even sarcastic remarks made by comedians, which are often considered wisdom these days).

Memes and tweets by their nature avoid context and history. (Or they imply one that is unconsciously assumed by some but is not necessarily shared by others. The difference in they way that these different people understand the meme or tweet is never really examined seriously, and the difference goes unexplained aside from accusations of irrationality or lies which just deepen divisions amd differences.) Persuasion or debate by Tweet and Meme is by and large appealing to emotion and superficiality. They make us slaves to our emotions and knee-jerk reactions. As long as we try to carry out discussions in this environment, nothing will get done except maybe the further polarization of society.

Love Is the Origin of Hate, Not Hate

The idea that 'hate breeds hate' is a superficial meaningless slogan that covers up much more than it expresses. Hate comes not from hate but from love. We love something and want to be with it or near it, and we hate what keeps us from it. We love something, and we want others to love it as well; we hate when they deny it. We love something and fear for its safety, and we hate what threatens it.

An emotion as strong as hate, in my opinion, could only come from a stronger emotion: love. This may only make sense to me because I refuse to believe that we are so perverse that we hate with more intensity than we can love, or that we hate in order to love. But who dares to say that we can hate more than we love and that we hate for the sake of hate or that we hate in order to love? I guess those that see humanity as a vile at its core and a despicable thing, or those that choose to see only the negative in those that hate, would disagree. 

And if they hate people or hate people that hate, what do I propose that they love? What love is the origin of that hate? They love the abstract ideal of what people are supposed to be and not what they actually are. They love an abstract ideal that can never be realized, and they hate what falls short of their ideal or shows that it is unrealistic.

From Blaming to Conspiracies

Blaming usually doesn't fix anything, well aside from making those laying blame feel better.

This is especially the case when the original problem is the result of an incongruence between ideas and things. In other words, when it is the result of the map not lining up well with the terrain when the map is mistaken for the terrain. Here blame uses individuals as a scapegoats while protecting a system of thought and ideals that needs to be revised.

When the need for the revision of a system is continuously ignored, the blind spots that come with the system get larger. Larger blind spots that go unexamined lead to the need for more unfounded blame to be assigned, more scapegoating.

At a certain point, conspiracy theories become very attractive and useful. They create a whole system of power and collusion that try to blame, explain and scapegoat. All of this just to avoid an honest evaluation and revision of a certain system of thought and ideals.

The Last Ditch Positivity of Willing Nothingness

"man would much rather will nothingness than not will..."

Nietzsche from The Genealogy of Morals

When we feel we don't have the power to will anything positive; when we have no values or criteria with which to choose what to will; when we are overwhelmed by the weight of history; when we are over-burdened by flippant criticism; when our ideals and goals are empty and contextless abstractions (which threaten to empty each of us and strip each of us of our context, and thus of our own identity and meaning); when we see ourselves as mere cogs in a machine that in the end will just crush us one way or another, sooner or later; when we have nothing to will and no motivation will to it; when we have nothing to aspire to... we will nothingness.

But this is not done out of despair; it is done to escape despair. We will the mindless, superficial and easy because despite having no motivation to will and no reason to will and nothing to will for, we need to will to be. (I think therefore I am? No, I will, therefore I am.)

Much of what is seen as worthwhile is so big it is beyond our ability as individuals to will it in any meaningful way; it will be with or without us. Willing against it is futile; our will, will never win.

The way out is to find something positive to will, but everything is so divided and negative or ethereal... no worse yet: insubstantial. The positive is empty and impersonal; it is abstract and detached. It is out of context while we are still shaped by context. Ideals that are so vacuous, hollow, mist-ified (but not at all mystical), so detached from our everyday life and remote from our lived and felt tradition that thought we may find them attractive, we do not find them grounding or sustainable. We may like them, but we don’t feel secure living by them let alone suffering for them.

But we need to will… So, we will addiction; we will distraction; we will ourselves on to a treadmill and pretend we are moving; we will conflict without ends or a goal; we will self-defeat: we will nothingness. But most importantly, we will. And so we stay; we remain; we tarry on; we linger....

It is like the Nine Inch Nails song says, "I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel." If all else fails, through pain we might know we can still feel.

We will nothingness to keep from passively passing into nothingness. (What? ‘Do not go gently’?) Even if what we will is negative and destructive, at least we are willing. And when we will, we are, and we are struggling to remain at least a bit longer. And the struggle is worth the possibility of bringing on the inevitable end sooner. Why? Because it is better to will a struggle and hasten then end than to remain only passively and end anyway. It is better to will nothingness than to not will at all.