Saturday, September 3, 2011

The Internet: A Wild, Uncontrolled Place?

There is so much garbage on the internet!

Everywhere there is manipulation and degradation. Everywhere there are opportunities to indulge all manner of shameful behavior. It is a great, worldwide platform for gossip and slander and the propagation of rumors and lies. Would it not simplify life just to turn the whole thing off?

Perhaps, for some.

If it leads one down wrong paths, then one should turn it off. Better to enter into life
without a media device....

But we must not be driven away simply by a sense of disgust. I think our best hope is to build something true and good in whatever space we are given. Otherwise there will be nothing but evil. We must live in the world, and that means, for us (according to our time, talents, circumstances, and inclination), that we must live on the internet, on social media, on blogs, even when we find ourselves alongside some strange company.

We must not become discouraged over the fact that the internet is a wild, uncontrolled place. After all, the whole world is like that. But something new has happened in the world. That newness wants to manifest itself everywhere. If we are different from the rest of the world, it is only because something new has happened in our lives.  A light shines in the darkness.

Put the light on the lamp stand.

"What will change the world? A piece of the world that has already been changed"
(Luigi Giussani).