Dear Editor, I just wanted to say a big thank you to Jennifer
Langdon for her
”
Breaking Up with Facebook
”
column, which I think personified what many people are thinking
about Facebook but don’t know quite how to say it.
Another former user breaks the Facebook habit
Dear Editor,
I just wanted to say a big thank you to Jennifer Langdon for her “Breaking Up with Facebook” column, which I think personified what many people are thinking about Facebook but don’t know quite how to say it.
I found her column to be great comic relief and as well glaringly honest in regards to some of the side effects Facebook can cause. I know many people love Facebook and cheers to them, but I too found it can sure end up being a source of strange anxiety and a great challenge to the notion of what “friend” means. I never thought I would be the type of person to have online social relationships, but all of the sudden, there I was stuck in the sticky web which is Facebook, and it was not pretty! I recently closed – well, as much as you can with Facebook – my account and admit to feeling withdrawals and a slight twinge of guilt breaking up with all my “friends,” but as the days go on I feel better. Reading Jennifer Langdon’s letter today was a breath of fresh air; a much needed confirmation that it’s OK to be Facebook free … and that life exists beyond whether or not someone “likes” my post about what I made for dinner or my random edgy quote.
Thank you again, Jennifer Langdon!
Marie Lyon, Morgan Hill
>In dismissing society’s role we miss an opportunity to grow
Dear Editor,
The tragic shooting in Tucson, Ariz. has surfaced a common point of contention between liberals and conservatives: the way we conceive of “responsibility.” The conservative point of view was keenly articulated by Sarah Palin in her video response to accusations that she, through her rhetoric, bears some responsibility in the shootings. In her response she said “Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own, they begin and end with the criminals that commit them.” The placement of responsibility fully on the individual is a result of that troublesome either-or, black-and-white mindset. As Palin says “President Reagan said “we must reject the idea that every time a law is broken, society is guilty rather than the law breaker.” Isn’t it easier to acknowledge the role that society plays when we break loose of the rigid constraint of the either-or mindset and question the extent that the individual and society may be culpable?
Palin’s position on the question leaves no room for the role of environment/society in making individuals, and to a large extent, does so outside the purview of our awareness and control. To deny the role that society plays in who we are comes most easily to those that simply are unconscious of how they themselves have developed as human beings. Such individuals must be a most unreflective sort of citizen. Granted, individual responsibility is a critical component, but to completely exclude society is to deny all of what we lay claim to know through our social sciences and psychology. Anyone who subscribes to the belief in 100 percent individual responsibility must be asked to make an account of this body of knowledge, or to stand corrected, or to simply be ignored.
If we casually dismiss all of what we know about the role society plays in the formation of individuals in that society, we miss critical opportunities to grow as a community and as a nation. Let’s not miss this opportunity to grow.
Stephen Daly, Morgan Hill
Arizona gunman’s attack had nothing to do with rhetoric
Dear Editor,
In response to the letter sent by Swanee Edwards concerning the tragic events that took place in Tucson, Ariz. that took the lives of six and severely injured Rep. Gabby Giffords, I feel it had nothing to do with the rhetoric from the left or right. It was all about drugs and alcohol.
This was a lone gunman who was reported to be a registered independent who didn’t listen to talk radio or TV news stations but had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse. In certain individuals, this use can lead to paranoid schizophrenia and increase the risk of violence. In the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 15, a great article by Seena Fazel, a clinical senior lecturer in forensic psychiatry at the University of Oxford in England, stated that schizophrenia may simply be a marker for other factors that increase the risk of violence – like alcohol and drug abuse.
By the way, I was offended by the term that Swanee Edwards used to describe the Tea Party individuals. The term “tea baggers” is a sexually derogatory term. Most people are unaware of this and I hope they will stop using this inflammatory phrase.
Jean Ryan, Morgan Hill
