Social Media and a World of Uncle Andrews

We live in a world of Uncle Andrews, and social media exacerbates the problem.

By Uncle Andrew, I am referring to the character from The Magician’s Nephew by CS Lewis. If you are not familiar with the book, he is a sort of mad sorcerer. He believes himself to be wise, but the only serious power he truly possesses is in the form of the rings he was supposed to destroy for his godmother, Mrs. Lefay. He had promised her on his deathbed that he would destroy them, but he decided to keep them for himself. When he was criticized for breaking his word, his response illustrates why I claim that we live in a world of Uncle Andrews.

“Oh, I see. You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true: most right and proper, I’m sure, and I’m very glad you have been taught to do it. But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys—and servants—and women—and even people in general, can’t possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.”

Rules are good for thee, but not for me.

However, it is important to realize that he is not simply rebelling against rules. The rules do not apply to him because he is special. As a result, he finds himself with a bad philosophy inflated by a terribly large ego.

We see this in our contemporary dialogue, especially online.

These are the people who call for civility, except when they deem a problem really bad. Then they have every right to be uncivil.

Some people call for honesty, except when a lie would benefit them. Then they don’t have a problem bending the truth to suit their purposes.

Some people call for restraint, except for when they get really mad. Then they are a righteous warrior fighting the good fight.

Civility, honesty, and restraint are virtues. It is good to call for these things. It is hypocritical to selectively call for them only when it doesn’t benefit you. As a Christian, I understand that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Therefore, I am not surprised by hypocrisy in others and in myself, and I hope we are moving towards sanctification and acting less hypocritically as we go.

The sinfulness is disappointing, but what is doubly disappointing is a radical, self-righteous embrace of that sinfulness. If one sin is not bad enough, we compound it. That is how we are like Uncle Andrew. It is bad enough to break your word, but it is even worse when you believe that somehow you are special and freed from objective moral rules.

It is that arrogance that is exacerbated by social media. Social media is a theater. It is a performative exercise in which we can show our “friends” how much we care about something. However, there is a lot of noise inherent in social media by design. Therefore, we have to speak loudly if we want to be heard. We have to be more extreme if we want to get a following.

We might have to embrace a little incivility to make our points stand out.

We may have to exaggerate the truth a little to stand out from the hundreds of others who have had similar thoughts.

We might have to speak especially sharply to someone who dares to disagree with us because we can’t let anyone see that there might be another side to an argument.

And, of course, we do all of this with the mandatory prelude, “I want to hear from both sides.”

Because, of course, we are performative, special people who have no problem bending the rules for the applause of the followers you are trying to gain by the home run you are about to hit against the strawman of someone’s argument.

If you look at my social media history, you will see times when I have not done well in these areas. It is funny that I remember them, but I actually do. However, I am quite convinced that no one else actually does, and that is the other side of the Uncle Andrew comparison. Very few of us have actual, meaningful influence on the scale that we believe that we do. We believe the world is listening when, even disregarding the algorithm's impact and how it filters content, very few people actually are.

Beyond that, the people who actually remember are the ones who know you anyway and are the ones who would have listened to you anyway, even if you avoided the pitfalls described above. Consequently, you find yourself in a situation where all you have done is spoken to the same people you could have talked to normally in a way that has now turned them off because you have abandoned virtue. And it only happened because we thought the rules didn’t apply to us.