http://goo.gl/6o5zXV  link to original image

Recently, someone got very angry at me because I posted a comment consisting entirely of a snopes.com link. Whether you want to argue about whether snopes is always legitimate or not, the larger issue is one of denial of any opposing or contradictory information. That’s a real problem in society and much of the reason why we have difficulty interacting.

(But, let’s be honest, isn’t it a fabulous feeling when someone posts something inflammatory and crazy on social media and you find the snopes article from 3 years ago, debunking it entirely?)

One of my goals as a person and as a liberal is to remember to be willing to change my opinion with new information. I need to strive to keep an open mind – but not all ideas and ideology are predicated on the precept of learning and adaption to information and circumstances. All too often people have a “one-answer-fits-all” solution – and it is invariably wrong. As I look back on my life, I know that I’ve been spectacularly wrong about some things. This means that I’m probably wrong about some things today and I’ll be wrong tomorrow.

I don’t always need to be right.

We are all in some ways children of a lesser god, even if it doesn’t seem obvious to others.

But first and foremost, we have to open to learning instead of using our ideology to beat the same old drum.

Let’s play a new song.

(“Children of a lesser god” refers to the original idea implied by Tennyson, rather than a religious concept per se. I only mention this to avoid some people from reading some bizarre connotations into it.)

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=9652&picture=crying&large=1  Link to original picture by Peter Griffin

Glossophilia Link to “Mourning Sickness” and “Grief Porn”

Gawker Article About Grief Porn

I’ve had a working draft about “grief porn” sitting in my queue to finish for about a year. No matter how I approached it, I couldn’t finish it. Anything I said came off as unintentionally harsh or dismissive. It’s not a trend that I fully understand. It certainly affects me. Some of the content is very well done and is virtually impossible to avoid getting a visceral reaction to it.

I deleted it and instead decided to go with a couple of links about the idea. I like the term “mourning sickness” better, as the cliché of adding the suffix ‘porn’ to everything has accelerated a bit too much in the last couple of years.

Following social media, you can see that the mourning sickness trend is much more prevalent than it used to be. Technology has made it much more difficult to create and distribute, in real-time. People have become more accustomed to it and this has loosened people’s tolerance of it. Much of the coverage about it seems to focus on the minority of those who thrive on consuming it.

It’s difficult to know how to process much of it, as I don’t have a personal connection to much of it. Some critics say that it’s a way to socially demonstrate that we are compassionate and identify with human emotion. Others say that it’s a variation on “elation porn,” the drive toward saturating everything with “feel good” stories and content. (Surprising someone with a new house, a returning soldier appears by magic at a sporting event…) The ice bucket challenge earlier this year was an example of the overall tendency, although it doesn’t fit neatly into any of the categories.