The Itchy Finger

On the pleasures of not pressing "Send"

I stopped myself just in time.

There he was. In the safe space of my Facebook feed no less, poking out from among the posts I am interested in and the posts the algo thinks I am interested in. The faintly porcine features of the Prime Minister. And some text. Everything was getting better, apparently. Brighter days were ahead. Because of his government. Because of him.

Yeah, right.

This was the sort of thing up with which I could not put, as a rather greater holder of his office once wrote. I would give him such a biffing, chase him away with his tail between his legs. All it would take was one carefully honed zinger, one short, pithy form of words which would shake him to his core. Probably, in fact, lead him to resign and slink off into well-deserved ignominy.

Any second now, I knew, the right sentence would come to mind, fingers would touch keyboard, send would be pressed and the satisfaction would come. I had shown him what’s what. I had sent proud Keir homeward to think again.

But I didn’t.

Not because the barb didn’t come, but because I stopped looking for it.

For I realised that whatever devastating blow I landed, the Prime Minister would never feel it. Whatever cutting quip I came up with, he would never see it. Perhaps some rando might come across it in a few days and give me a like, but that was as far as it would go. Nothing would change.

Well, something would change; I would feel better. My brain would give itself a quick hit of dopamine which it loves every bit as much as a lab rat loves sugar.

But I wouldn’t feel better for long.

Humans have wanted to talk to their leaders, set them straight, almost since we invented leaders. The Roman Emperor Hadrian, it is said, was once approached by an old woman seeking help with some problem. “I don’t have time for this”, he told her, rushing on. “Well, stop being Emperor, then” she replied. Duly chastened, he turned back and dealt with her issue. Foreign visitors to Stuart London were shocked by the king’s availability, taking daily carriage rides on public streets. Shocked too by the things his citizens shouted at him.

But in those cases, the speaker could be sure the spoken to would hear them.

No longer. Now users of Facebook, X, Instagram or whatever other platform on which leaders maintain a presence are just howling into the wind. Their target isn’t paying any attention, their social media team probably aren’t either. To them it is just another broadcast channel, no different to George V using the wireless.

There is, therefore, something faintly comical about this type of social media behaviour, like a customer ranting down the phone to a call centre worker who has put the receiver in the bin and wandered off to get a coffee. Or an old man shouting at a cloud.

Something faintly pathetic too about shouting, “Read a book!” at someone who won’t even read your tweet or, if they do, has absolutely no reason to follow the prescriptions of a complete unknown. If all the world’s a stage, social media makes us actors unaware that we are our only audience.

It would, I therefore decided, be hypocritical of me to give the Prime Minister the benefit of my wisdom. I could hardly look askance at the world’s keyboard warriors if I became one myself.

Wisdom, I think, comes in strange places. One of its less obvious hiding places is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, specifically the scene where Kazim, leader of the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, asks the hero why he seeks the cup of Christ – “Is it for His glory? Or for yours?”

Few social media interactions cross this bar. It is an arena for display - ideally to others, failing that to ourselves. It is where we show off our goodness, wisdom and wit. Even if we’re the only person watching.

That is not who I want to be. (It may unfortunately be who I am). So, I moved my finger away from the keyboard and carried on scrolling. Towards more congenial terrain.

But in doing so, I realised, I wasn’t all that different to those who had waded in and given the Prime Minister a piece of their mind. They were posting to feel good about themselves, I was not posting to feel good about myself. They were showing they were not like him. I was showing I was not like them. But in doing so, of course, I was.

Post or don’t post? All much the same thing, really.