The Grandchildren of Narcissus and the Second Lebanese Civil War

My people love to look at themselves in the mirror, they love to be photographed in flattering poses, they also love the sound of their own voice uttering their own opinions. They simply adore the echo chamber of social media, whether its other people confirming their attractive physical attributes or people agreeing with their opinions. The response is usually effusive and voluminous appreciation and an exchange of flattery. Most Lebanese are members in a mutual flattery society of close friends and relatives. Their world is small, their image of themselves and their cherished opinions unwaveringly positive and any disagreement will not be tolerated! 

The Lebanese are in love with themselves. There is little that is new in that. We are after all the great, great, great, great grandchildren of Mythical Narcissus, who’s example is cited as a cautionary tale, be too self-focused and you tend to miss out on all other things of beauty and grace around you. A constant unwavering engagement with a single image or a single narrative tends to become monotonous and boring not to mention repetitive. But, that is what the news media narrative in Lebanon generally tends to be. Each news organization such as they are and funded by specific political interests as each are, tend to provide the perfect flattering mirror to the narcissus in each of us depending on our political preferences.

 

We are currently in the midst of a second Lebanese civil war believe it or not. It’s not a shooting war in the classic sense, we do not shoot lead bullets at one another, rather we shoot wicked, acerbic, offensive words at one another. Such mudslinging is not limited to politicians and their brigades of media drones and cronies, far from it. The mudslinging and the visceral hatred it engenders is universal and has become an ugly popular pass time. It’s not like the impoverished citizen practitioner of insults and mudslinging has the power or the influence to change anything, his hobby is just an expression of utter loathing for any compatriot who does not share his/her points of view and political opinions.

 

Friendships have been destroyed, families divided and law suits filed in the pursuance of this so-called “freedom of speech”, a kind of speech that speaks volumes about the one uttering it more than the receiver! It takes a certain kind of level of rudeness and lack of regard for the humanity of the other person to engage in this kind of verbal assault, forcing your opinions on others, but the Lebanese do it so effortlessly and so loudly that one would think the whole country has gone insane. Well, there is nothing new in that, we are as a country suffering multiple psychological conditions and the vast majority of adults are taking some kind of psychoactive drug or another for anxiety or depression or some kind of neurosis.

 

The information civil war as I like to call it, has divided Lebanon into two distinct camps, the middle ground of rationality and reason has all but disappeared. While some would like to fool themselves into thinking that they are in a just fight against corruption or the political class, the further you engage such people in a dialogue designed to draw out their true political preferences the more you realize that they are in fact defending or exonerating one group of politicians while attacking another group. Any attempt at debate or at pointing out the inconsistencies of their argument and the volume of their voice will rise as their facial expression betrays their emergent feelings of loathing directed at you. You are thus instantly labelled adversary!

 

In their eyes you see the shock and horror as you try to point out the errors in their argument. At that point all civility is thrown out the window and the smarter of the two makes a hasty exit before the argument takes a more serious turn. But when you argue with someone you considered a dear friend via social media, via WhatsApp or Facebook or Twitter, how do you end it, you can’t exactly walk out. You end it obviously by removing that person from your social media inner circle, indignant at how rudely he dared to disagree with you, what kind of friend does that! Social media has turned us all into unforgiving, impatient, petulant children who throw a tantrum whenever someone fails to recognize the rightness of their argument.

 

I have been both a victim and an instigator of such unhealthy unsocial exchanges and quite childishly have blocked or removed many friends from my social media circle, which was small enough to begin with. I am not immune from the disease that infects the Lebanese soul today, I too can go too far in defense of an argument or in arguing with someone else who clearly holds his own views as sacred and inviolable, I have goaded and been goaded, so I know the ugliness of it all too well. 

 

But apart from the virtual world, the damage that this information civil war is causing has its very real repercussions in the real world, how many marriages have ended, how many families have been divided, friendships soured by our silliness and our inviolable and sacred opinions and our stubborn refusal to just let it go. The effects of these very real divisions will linger for longer than the arguments that created them. News media organizations and the social media echo chamber will make certain of that as manipulated and exaggerated news narratives continue to circulate in our national psyche like a lethal poison slowly killing our national cohesion and our basic humanity.