“Close to midday, I got up from the sofa.
Jeff blinked at me. Where are you going?
I’m gonna get some air. Maybe head down to the river. I need a break.
This is history, he said.
I can’t watch any more right now. It’s making me feel bad in the heart.
He said nothing, but returned his attention to the screen. Later I understood this as a peculiarly American need for witnessing: something I still can’t define or explain neatly, but it’s tied up, somehow, with the sense of patriotic duty deeply entrenched in most people I’ve met here, no matter how liberal. I saw it again years later, after Trump’s election, when Democrat friends forced themselves to sit through his inauguration as though it were an inescapable obligation.”
– Jennifer Down, Bodies of Light, Text Publishing (2021)
I’m not sure if this is an American need that has become more universal as a result of social media, or if this is a need born from the 24 hour news cycle and exacerbated by the internet, because it’s something I’ve noticed too: a need not only to witness history, but to record our responses and ensure others see them.
I genuinely believe humans were not meant to be bombarded with tragic news stories every minute of every day. Historically, you were largely only aware of the goings on in your own town, maybe the surrounding county; occasionally, for large events, the wider region or country you inhabited. Not to say that this was necessarily a good thing, since it certainly bred much ignorance and parochialism, but for most of our time on earth, we have been exposed to far less information than we are right now.
Now we’re able to access a constant stream of news whenever we want, on any topic, from anywhere in the world. While this can be useful in terms of creating an informed populace, I’m not sure it’s done that — despite this supposed need to witness, Americans are still notorious for knowing little about events that take place beyond their border, and often even within it. Australians are only marginally better (if at all) because of the sheer amount of foreign media we consume, and even then, much of it is distorted based on the type of media we consume – there are multiple generations of people who learned things from The Simpsons that they just took at face value, myself included. As far as I know, Aurora Borealis does take place in suburban kitchens.
Instead, what constantly forcing ourselves to not look away, to bear witness to history, does is chip away at our mental health, at any lingering sense of hope we may have that things will improve. It’s so easy, especially during a pandemic, to give in to fear and hopelessness after being presented with so many tragic news stories in a row. But is it helpful? Does giving in to hopelessness leave us with the energy and drive to change things for the better?
For me, the answer is a resounding no. I need to feel hopeful in order to feel any desire to create, or contribute to, positive change. I need to not completely deplete my emotional reserves in order to have any passion and energy left to advocate for tangible improvements in the lives of those in my community.
It doesn’t make you an uncaring person to avoid engaging with every depressing news story that makes its way onto your feed. It doesn’t make you ignorant to focus on events closer to home, events that you could potentially and realistically have an impact on; it makes you practical. Choosing our battles is important.
Devoting all of your energy to bearing witness to history doesn’t leave you with enough energy leftover to actually participate in that history as it unfolds around you.
While every society needs its witnesses, our tweets are most likely not going to be relied upon the same way we rely on Pliny the Younger’s eyewitness account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius over Pompeii in 79 A.D. Ideally, the only tweets from now that will enter the historical record and studied in classrooms in two thousand years’ time are Dril’s.
Related link: Dril is the best chronicler of the internet’s last decade
Header image credit: Mike Hill