The Last Word
Human Respect
“Last week,” quoth I to Joseph, “my wife and I told our 13-year-old daughter she could join Facebook. Within a few hours she had accumulated 171 friends, and I felt a little as if I had passed my child a pipe of crystal meth. So says Bill Keller in The New York Times.”
“I’m sorry,” said Joseph looking up from his smartphone, “what did you say?”
“Oh, nothing,” I replied. Joseph returned to his smartphone.
“Did you know,” I tried again, “that most young people don’t use email.” No response.
“I suppose it’s because they prefer writing letters.” No response.
“Would you like a million dollars?”
“What?” he laughed, “no, they’ve got Facebook. They don’t need email.”
“Hmmm,” I said, “I thought that Facebook was public. How can you communicate privately with a friend when everybody else is listening in?”
“Everybody’s your friend!” replied Joseph. “Look, the average Facebook person has 229 friends. The whole buzz of the thing is that nothing is private. When you tell your friend something, everybody can see it, you show everybody your photographs. If they like them, if they like you, then they ‘like’ you and you feel good.”
“What happens if they don’t like you?”
“Well, you feel bad, I suppose.”
“I might be wrong,” I said, “no, I’m not wrong. That leads down a straight path to human respect and pride. First of all, you can’t possibly have 229 real friends. If you’re going to say everything in front of so many people, you have to be a crowd pleaser and only then can you brag: ‘I’ve got more friends than you have. My friends like me.’ Who cares if people like you as long as you’re doing what’s right? You need to do what is right because it’s right, not because people like it or dislike it—that’s human respect.”
“But, maybe,” said Joe, “all my friends are good people.”
“Are they?” I said, “they never post any dodgy stuff?”
“Well, not that often. . .”
“And you never change your communication based on the fact that 229 people are watching you”
“Well. . .”
“Can you get the Imitation of Christ, Book I, Chapter 8 on that thing?”
Fr. David Sherry
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