Kierkegaard and Facebook: A Rant

by Amber Monroe

It is Christian heroism—a rarity, to be sure—to venture wholly to become oneself, an individual human being, this specific individual human being, alone before God, alone in this prodigious strenuousness and this prodigious responsibility…. 

[O]nly that person’s life was wasted who went on living so deceived by life’s joys or its sorrows that he never became decisively and eternally conscious as spirit, as self, or, what amounts to the same thing, never became aware and in the deepest sense never gained the impression that there is a God and that “he,” he himself, his self, exists before this God–an infinite benefaction that is never gained except through despair. What wretchedness that so many go on living this way, cheated of this most blessed of thoughts! What wretchedness that we are engrossed in or encourage the human throng to be engrossed in everything else…What wretchedness that they are lumped together and deceived instead of being split apart so that each individual may gain the highest, the only thing worth living for and enough to live in for an eternity. [S. Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death]

Someday maybe I’ll write about how I think things like Facebook and Twitter are subversive to the gaining and maintaining of this sort of “consciousness,” even for the believer. It seems we are offered every alternative to this awareness so long as we have a pulse in a culture of text, tweet, and blurb. Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not anti- anything here. I certainly understand that simply cutting something external out of one’s life never necessarily changed one’s heart. I know that. But I do think about how easy it is to live in reference to countless others rather than sustaining consciousness of one’s life before God. And this is, in part, made possible through the advance of communication technology, which, as a gross generality, opens the door to a sort of pseudo-connectedness through the illusion of relationship. Living out one’s life (so to speak) in front of hundreds of people—yet no one in particular—has become the norm. It’s a cheap way to make oneself known. It seems the value of intimacy has plummeted. 

Someday maybe I’ll write about how I think this mindset affects the local church. The sole alternative to Facebook is not social isolation; at least it shouldn’t be. In a sense, we do need to live our lives before others, but there’s a right way to do this (I think) and maybe there’s a better way to relate to one another than through tweets and status updates (forgive the lack of explanation, or even thoroughness of thought here…This is a rant, after all).

Again, not anti-technology. Maybe a little anti-modern-communication-technology, at least until I can better articulate my own thoughts. I’d just like to learn to love the people that have truly been brought along my path, who are legitimately a part of my life, and not be bombarded with 200 status updates about how great your spouse is or what song you’re listening to or what you ate for dinner or how you really feel about Monday morning. I’m sure I’m guilty of every single one of these status-offenses (well, all except the first).

Mostly (humanly speaking), I’d really like intimacy to retain its rightful dignity, its proper selectiveness, and not be handed to any old person who might happen to glance at your latest tweet. And (a step above humanly speaking) I’d like to step outside my desires to please others and see them for the mist that they truly are in the presence of the God before whom I stand, and live, alone; to know what it is to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling. Some days I feel like this perception of reality is a near impossibility.  

I already feel as if this post (and the Kierkegaard excerpt, no less) requires a great deal of clarification; but for those who will actually read it, I trust you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt until my thoughts can be tempered by a more even and balanced perspective. These thoughts have already been on the “back burner” for quite some time, and back to that burner they go. I just needed to stir them a bit.

 And, yes…I do realize that the activity of this post goes against much of what has just been said.

 But you’ll forgive me, won’t you?