As a traditionalist, I'm broadly sympathetic to critiques of Modernity.
The internet and social media are now part of modernity. If I could have
the pre-1914 world back, I would, and there was of course no Facebook
or Twitter then. That said, I'm nevertheless skeptical of articles--I
just saw yet another one, ironically via Twitter--that castigate social
media as somehow uniquely destructive of society. The thing is, I
remember late 20th-century society, before iPhones or Facebook,
and I didn't think it was that great. I remember trying to learn royal
genealogy before Google or Wikipedia via out-of-date print encyclopedias
with no way of finding out who had died since they were published, and
conventional media (newspapers, radio, TV) didn't usually report on that
sort of thing because it wasn't what most people were interested in.
And frankly, being as far as I knew the only teenage monarchist in the
world was kind of lonely. I suspect that the sort of Thoughtful American
Commentators who denounce social media's ability to connect like-minded
people with unusual interests are the sort of commentators who would
say that non-conformists like me should get over ourselves and learn to
fit into one of the two camps American politics provides. No.
Another
common criticism is that social media allows people to expose
themselves only to views they already agree with. At least in my case,
that's not true; while I freely admit that anyone who used Facebook to
advocate the abolition of the British or
any other monarchy would not last long on my Friends list, regarding
virtually every other issue my News Feed encompasses a wide range of
views. Sometimes I see enthusiastically pro-Trump and vehemently
anti-Trump posts right next to each other. One of my favourite things on
Facebook is when I look at the list of people who have Liked one of my
royalist posts, reflect on how some of them would disagree sharply on
other issues, and feel affirmed in my conviction that Monarchy can bring
people together as no politician can.
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2 comments:
While I do agree with most of the post. I am curious on how much of a powerful tool the internet can be for Monarchists and the MOnarchy as a whole. I suppose, this negativity is the result of other, more selfish entities that seeks to further destroy any and all concepts of Monarchy and Monarchists as a whole. Interestingly enough, it's even being used to label Monarchists into a political spectrum.
A well-put statement of moderate support for contemporary means of communication
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