We live in interesting times, where our social existence is largely defined by our social media timelines, where our thoughts are appraised by the number of "likes" we garner. It is an age that has lifted the limitations of time and space on our opinions – once keyed in on social media, the opinion can reach the farthest corner and outlive the mortality of the pensmith – and yet it has imposed the burden of expectations. We are, as a result, our publishers and also our censor boards.
Nobody today wants the trouble of airing an opinion that will be irrelevant tomorrow. Each thought has to stand the test of the internet’s archival guarantee, the assurance that it could be plucked out in the future and bandied about. Each opinion, each forward potentially carries the burden of our digital performance, measurable against the past. If you have a thought today, why didn’t you have it earlier? If you have spoken up about the present, where were you in the past?
It is the intimidating chorus of whataboutery that never ceases. It only gets louder.
Grief expanded
Friday the 13th was no different. Nearly everyone who posted concern, grief, rant or outrage at the horrors of the Paris attacks was countered with "what-about-Beirut" and "what-about-Baghdad". It didn’t matter that the person might have missed both Beirut and Baghdad. The challenges invariably arrived with the implied accusation of you being selective, biased and even conveniently blind, before following the predictable path of the West versus the Rest.
Faced with the barrage of indignation, revisions were posted and the collective grief airbrushed and expanded. "Baghdad-Beirut-Paris: Our grief is the same for all," was the consensus opinion.
It is easy to see the premise of the whataboutery accusers: our opinion must not be selective but rather should be sensitive to the larger collective. It doesn’t matter that there have been several bombings in Beirut in the last few decades, and that Baghdad is a 21st century warzone. All of which is an acceptable argument. But it doesn’t make an individual post on Paris necessarily selective either. Just because I did not react to Baghdad and Beirut doesn’t make me incompetent or irrelevant to respond to Paris. Nor does it make me opportunistic.
Admittedly, I am new to this world of whataboutery. I am learning that our reactions on our timelines must be thoroughly clinical. I am learning to be all-encompassing. I too want to be "liked".
Nobody today wants the trouble of airing an opinion that will be irrelevant tomorrow. Each thought has to stand the test of the internet’s archival guarantee, the assurance that it could be plucked out in the future and bandied about. Each opinion, each forward potentially carries the burden of our digital performance, measurable against the past. If you have a thought today, why didn’t you have it earlier? If you have spoken up about the present, where were you in the past?
It is the intimidating chorus of whataboutery that never ceases. It only gets louder.
Grief expanded
Friday the 13th was no different. Nearly everyone who posted concern, grief, rant or outrage at the horrors of the Paris attacks was countered with "what-about-Beirut" and "what-about-Baghdad". It didn’t matter that the person might have missed both Beirut and Baghdad. The challenges invariably arrived with the implied accusation of you being selective, biased and even conveniently blind, before following the predictable path of the West versus the Rest.
Faced with the barrage of indignation, revisions were posted and the collective grief airbrushed and expanded. "Baghdad-Beirut-Paris: Our grief is the same for all," was the consensus opinion.
It is easy to see the premise of the whataboutery accusers: our opinion must not be selective but rather should be sensitive to the larger collective. It doesn’t matter that there have been several bombings in Beirut in the last few decades, and that Baghdad is a 21st century warzone. All of which is an acceptable argument. But it doesn’t make an individual post on Paris necessarily selective either. Just because I did not react to Baghdad and Beirut doesn’t make me incompetent or irrelevant to respond to Paris. Nor does it make me opportunistic.
Admittedly, I am new to this world of whataboutery. I am learning that our reactions on our timelines must be thoroughly clinical. I am learning to be all-encompassing. I too want to be "liked".
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