Years ago, I was sitting in a theater-style classroom at a sparsely-attended lecture. The kids who'd skipped the class that day were missing a lecture about the importance of going to class. As a guy who regularly showed up, I got to hear this lecture.
This morning, I had an experience that reminded me of that.
And yet--
I set this piece up this way, because it's what I feel. But it's self-serving, and it's not the whole story. I thought hard (not long and hard, just hard) about whether I should say anything online about this.
Even as I'm typing this, I'm considering not posting it. I guess if you're reading this, I decided to take the stupid way out and post it.
There is no possible way to discuss this without looking bad, so I figure the best thing is to be honest and let people make up their own minds. If the facts here are going to make anyone feel they've had enough of me, so be it. Maybe they're right.
As I posted yesterday, my latest brilliant idea was to join a Facebook group that Facebook was nudging me to join. The group name caught my attention, as it suggested that the Left is anti-Semitic. I assumed the group was a right wing group, and this turned out to be wrong.
Moreover, to my surprise, I read many posts and comments that shifted my thinking. I've written about this a tiny bit, and I've had some brief dialogues with Jewish Facebook friends about it, but the gist of what I've written is that I'm frustrated by the difficulty of criticizing Israel without being tarred as anti-Semitic. I'm not going to re-litigate that here (a term I've picked up from various Facebook groups), but I will say that all the Jewish responses I got were smart and gracious, and I appreciated that. I suppose some people may have been angered by what I wrote, but if so, they kept it to themselves. I suspect that didn't happen, because in a numerical, statistical sense, I don't know how many people are really reading what I write. Even now, many people have probably returned to whatever they do when they're not reading me. I'm not going to speculate about what that might be, but no doubt it's quite pressing.
Joining this group, and reading a bunch of posts, got me interested in this Facebook group culture, and I saw it as a sociological phenomenon that isn't quite on the mainstream radar. I started joining all kinds of groups, representing various perspectives. Most had nothing to do with anti-semitism, as that particular area wasn't really my focus. A few were in that vein.
I have some thoughts about these groups, and about "safe spaces" in general, but that's a story for another day. I'd like to address my interaction with a group moderator. (A different group from the one that started the whole thing, by the way. I'm doing my best to not indicate which group it is I'm referring to here.) The mod's post expressing their concern about "bad people" joining the group for bad reasons convinced me that I should inform the group about my intentions. I posted that I was there to observe, and learn, and I was thinking about eventually writing about Facebook groups, based on my observations. I also sent a direct message to the moderator. I told them I'd learned a lot already from what I'd read, and I had no intention of writing anything mean about them, or violating their privacy.
This morning I received a pretty angry message from the moderator. This individual felt that what I was trying to do was offensive, and was an example of the kind of bad behavior that comes from privilege. I did my best to see it from the mod's perspective, and I basically just responded by saying "fair enough."
I then went back to check to make sure I'd been banned. I think the group was under the impression I had been, but evidently the banning didn't take because I could still read all the posts. I was about to click the "leave group" button when I saw that everything I'd said about my intentions and impressions was screenshotted with a headline about "goyish bullshit." I think their take on the affair was that I was engaging in a sick and twisted sociological experiment.
Engaging with them seemed contraindicated, so I just left the group. I then left all the other groups that focused on anti-Semitism. It occurred to me that since they screenshotted my name and talked about me in comments, it was possible that some people that know me (at least from Facebook) might see that and be mad at me over it. That's the main reason I'm posting this. Not because this was "all about me," (it wasn't), or because I object to what was said about me (I can't say it was fun to read what they wrote about me, but I don't object to it).
I continue to believe that what I'm trying to do by observing the behavior of Facebook group members is valuable. I'll have more to say about it later, but as with everything else in America, the very concept of "safe spaces" is hugely polarizing. I'd hoped to gain insight that will ultimately help me to discuss it in a way that doesn't do what articles about the phenomenon typically do, which is to paint a picture of self-indulgent whiners who are demanding an unreasonable degree of special treatment. That's not what the people I inadvertently infuriated are about, at all. I was told, not kindly, that I should talk to my Jewish friends if I want to learn about anti-Semitism. It didn't seem wise for me to explain that learning about anti-Semitism was not my goal, it was just an unexpected bonus. I believed, and continue to believe, that the behavior and thinking of people within
these groups is a vital piece of the puzzle in today's America, and I think it would be beneficial for Americans to hear about it. But the anti-anti-semitism groups will have to be a footnote (if even that) to whatever I say on this topic in the future. I'm sad about this. In the unlikely event anyone from the groups is reading this, let me point out that I had no plans to say anything but positive things about them. That's still the way I feel about it. But I also understand that my comments to them and stated intentions probably sounded like bullshit. Still do, probably.
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