Click with compassion
The internet is an economy between good and evil, and every click we make on it shifts the balance, but which way?
I don’t know what thoughts come into your mind when you hear the name Monica Lewinsky, but in the space of the 20 minutes it took for her to deliver her TED talk (The price of shame – there is a link to the video at the end of this piece) she changed mine completely.
She has experience of a level of pain and humiliation that (hopefully) few of us will ever know, and she has fought through to, in her own words, ‘take back her narrative’ and exemplify someone who can turn bad to good.
Her message is a simple one, to take responsibility for compassion, but her example of the consequences of not doing so and how we reward those who would hurt and humiliate to profit from the very real cost to their victims is very powerful.
What is perhaps far more powerful, for me at least, as someone who knew nothing of her since the infamous events of two decades previously, is the extent to which I had unconsciously allowed a lack of compassion to colour my thinking, and potentially deprive me of valuable insights and an (admittedly virtual and one-sided) relationship with another human being.
Coincidentally, I watched the last episode of Years & Years on iPlayer last night, and the powerful scene around the dining table where Gran (played beautifully by Anne Reid) challenges her family to accept that their choices have contributed to the current state of the World (https://youtu.be/jaIQj76l_00?t=106).
Monica Lewinsky’s costly appearance on TED helped me to see that every time each of us (I) opt to see, or dwell on something that shames others we (I) make the World just a little bit worse – not metaphorically but tangibly and practically.
I hope and pray that, from here on in, I can follow her advice: Click with compassion!
Each time we click on a link or read a story that shares someone’s embarrassment, we feed advertising revenue to those who would exploit (and sometimes even cause) that embarrassment.
Each time we click a salacious headline, our curiosity risks us becoming fences in what is essentially a robbery, where the last vestiges of reputation, honour and self-respect are stolen and sold on for money and power.
And the cumulative effect of that makes it much more likely that the abusers (for that is what they are – even if some might see themselves as journalists) will choose to humiliate, sensationalise, and even misrepresent and lie about others.
For their victims, the cumulative effect can be just too much for them to bear.
The internet is an economy between good and evil. Will it ultimately become one or the other? Will its potential as a source of insight and relationship outweigh its potential as a source of exploitation and hurt? Which side will win?
In this question I am reminded about the following Native American parable with which you are probably already familiar:
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.
One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
For the sake of that good wolf … both the one in the internet, and the one inside ourselves … I hope and pray that the next time I am faced with the choice, I remember this story and ‘Click with compassion’!