My break from LJ has been very healthy for me. I was reminded of something that I had forgotten: virtual text-based interaction is but a shallow, incomplete, and often inaccurate reflection of actual in-person contact. It doesn't even come close. Humans are manufactured to develop social bonds...it is well known that isolation leads to various psychological problems (which is not to say that a well-timed and fully prepared-for spiritual retreat cannot be very beneficial). I do like LJ for keeping in touch with absent friends and also for sharing ideas and news. I think LJ can be quite good for these things. What it isn't good for: solving complex problems, replacing human contact, and developing fraternity (it can augment fraternity when already present, but LJ is terrible for building it from scratch).

For the last week I've been reading LJ without participating. In that time, I've come to observe several patterns that fall into two general categories: mutuality-seeking and difference-making. The former is typified by posts that carry an attitude of "we're all in this together, even when we disagree". Such posts involve sharing personal or community news, seeking support or advice, and offering ideas or knowledge intended to assist, inform, amuse, inspire, or serve some larger aim. The latter category is typified by the attitude of "I care about what is good and bad, and based on my opinion, will divide people, ideas, objects, and actions into their appropriate box." These posts tend to be critiques of other people and/or their actions, usually drawing (or implying) sharp distinctions between the poster and the postee.

What I am referring to is not about content as much as context. So, for example, a post's topic could be about how the OTO has not yet started an athletics program. The underlying opinion can be that this is a serious problem. A post that has a mutuality-seeking frame might lay out the argument for why OTO should have an athletics program along with all the potential benefits, perhaps with a proposal for how to bring it about. A difference-making frame, on the other hand, will largely do the same, except it will tend to define camps: the pro-athletics and the anti-athletics. Moreover, the post might explain all the possible problems with the anti-athletics, usually having something to do with deficient wisdom, competence, and/or character.

At this point, the issue is no longer just about the athletics program, but about the various groups of people involved, and all the assumed differences between them. Labels get used as shorthand, and result in wide generalizations, so that one isolated trait comes to represent the totality of that person or group. Since the underlying structure of the frame depends on maintaining strong differences, little or no acknowledgement will be made regarding common ground or factual data that might contradict definitions that provide non-mutual distinctions. It becomes a trap that relies on maintaining and perhaps strengthening differences, and almost always results in go-nowhere arguments, mischaracterizations, and disharmony.

Keep in mind I'm talking about individual posts, not LJers. While I try to be mutuality-seeking, I admit to difference-making from time to time in my posts. Now that I've observed this pattern, I will try harder to keep away from difference-making, since I believe it is ultimately a waste of pixels.

Now I'm going to go hang out with my wife and some friends. :)