Digital Martyr
This is uncharted territory. For the first time in human history we are able to watch the terror unfold globally. We can see the wreckage in real time. We can live stream the wars.
We’ve decided that our morality is directly dependent on how much we can hold, how often we repost the pain, how loudly we yell “freedom!” Don’t dare to look away, consume, consume, consume. We fill our days with nightmares, so our conscience can be clear, so we can temporarily rid ourselves of our privilege guilt.
What does it amount to? Neighborhoods full of strangers. Martyr wives with enough money to take the risk of joining whatever cause is trending because their husbands spend their days gentrifying. Rich kids playing savior. The double standards placed on the back burners. The delusion and denial of a life full of blessings and privilege. The fetishizing of being someone who “cares.”
The middle class born and raised to scroll news reels, reposting and virtually preaching about what the disenfranchised need. Make the signs, point the fingers, march the streets. They tell everyone there is work to be done, a revolution to be organized. Do they know their neighbors names? Do they volunteer a fraction of their time spent scrolling through doom to actual community aid efforts? Do they make eye contact with the people on the streets?
The digitally cultivated “goodness” adds fiercely to the separation. Your Facebook post will not help feed the child going hungry on the corner of your own street. Your Instagram story of the latest bombing will not help shelter the homeless in your own city. Your social media martyrdom will not save your soul.
The information is necessary, and we can’t look away completely, but to steep ourselves in daily horror can very well paralyze us. The key is conscious consumption, having strong enough boundaries to not let today’s war footage ruin time spent at the table with the people we love, because change cannot be enacted by anyone who is frozen in fear.
If your needs have been met, if you have a cushion of security, you are needed on the front lines. Most of us cannot afford to take time away from the day-to-day. Most of us are far too busy working just to survive. If you have a daily life of luxury, in comparison to most, your abundance of time and resources are needed. Not online, but face-to-face in your own cities, towns and schools.
We have been tricked into believing that these billionaire benefiting social platforms are where change will take place. No matter what side you subscribe to, no matter what propaganda you buy, no matter where you claim your heart to be, their objective is always money. The more horrified disgusted, angry, and separated we are the easier it is to sell us things we don’t need. The emptier our cups, the more desperate we are to fill them. Shopping sprees, cheap hits of dopamine, scrolling and longing and numbing every day. There is real work to be done and we have been distracted and into thinking we are igniting change with our two thumbs and a screen.
We have been fooled. We have been cornered. We have been lied to. While the monsters in suits play their war games we should be laying the foundations for rebuilding after these twisted systems inevitably collapse.
Admit your guilt, get off your phone, know your neighbors. We’ve had the power all along, but we have submitted our ourselves to amnesia because it is easier to let the algorithms judge our moral standing than it is to look ourselves in the mirror honestly and do something.