Charity

What if, when a person you are reading or listening to states a conviction or comes to a conclusion with which you disagree, your first thought were not that such a person must, by necessary consequence, be wicked, stupid, cruel, incurious, unserious, or otherwise worthy of public censure and ridicule?

What if, when disagreement obtains between persons or groups, we understood that disagreement to be neither absolute nor permanent nor exclusive of friendship, neighborliness, mutual respect, and generosity?

What would happen if we all acted on what we already know to be true, namely, that social media—Twitter above all—is inhospitable to reasoned discourse and charitable interpretation? that it is not a sounding board for honest reflection but a storehouse of mental waste, emotional disquiet, and psychic poison? that irony and mockery are not bugs accidental to the system, but features endemic to it? that every second spent on it is invariably a malformation of one’s mind, heart, soul, and habits of attention? that the only worthwhile thing to do with Twitter et al is not “be a better user” but blast it into the sun?