What do Paradise Lost, Henry David Thoreau, and St. Anthony of Egypt have to do with Twitter? Glad you asked. Oh, you didn’t? Well . . . I’m going to tell you anyway. In RealClearReligion, I have written a piece about how modern technology provides new temptations to sin. Envy, lust, sloth, and other vices can be exacerbated by social media, for example. And on Twitter, wrath is king:
If there is one sin most endemic to Twitter, it is wrath — wrath produced in ourselves by learning of things that anger yet don’t really affect us; wrath spewed forth from ourselves toward some chosen foe; wrath at our own wrath. In this, it is deeply unhealthy, and un-Christian. Yet there are some voices, even Catholic ones, who profit from the wrath economy. These jackals have discovered that the platform rewards their anger, that pettiness there beats piety, and that exhibitionism on it beats out restraint. They have earned great followings. Worse yet, many Catholics, especially similarly overly online younger ones, have come to admire and even to imitate such voices, seeing in their performative outrage evidence that they are responsive to the supposed demands of this moment. But so many of our era’s maladies arise from precisely this kind of behavior. Thus, good Catholics are led away not only from the civic virtues that our republic requires, but also from what Catholicism itself teaches.
As a Catholic, I have written this from a Catholic perspective. But I think that we all could benefit from some of the advice I offer (myself very much included):
So what can Catholics do in the face of such challenges? Going off the grid, like a Desert Father, is impractical. But cutting ourselves off from or completely yielding to technological temptations aren’t our only options. Create rules for yourself to establish boundaries about when to use and not to use certain apps. Work with friends or family to limit time spent online. Take an honest look at certain habits and ask yourself if they are helping you toward God or just getting in the way. Reject malicious online voices.
And remember that the world these apps create is not real.
As for Paradise Lost, Henry David Thoreau, and St. Anthony of Egypt . . . you’ll have to read the whole thing to see what they have to do with any of this. I promise it’s something!
(I am aware that Paradise Lost is not an entirely orthodox work; I went into more detail about that here.)