Don't go too far down that rabbit hole!
One of the most popular and imaginative stories ever written is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. It tells the tale of a young girl who falls down a rabbit hole into a subterranean fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre. But, is it really just literary nonsense anymore? If you think about it, the story seems to mirror our real world today a bit. Doesn’t it?
It begins with Alice, who, in a bored and drowsy state, sees a clothed white rabbit running past her holding a clock. This catches her attention and she zooms after it, following him into a hole where she finds herself in a hallway full of locked doors of many shapes and sizes. One of them, she sees, leads to a beautiful garden, but she won’t be able to fit through the door without changing herself in some way. There is a vial labeled “DRINK ME” and, later, a piece of cake labeled “EAT ME”. This is the beginning of a journey that will take Alice into a world of nonsense, fantasy, and illogic.
When we look at this story we find some modern parallels. Each day, like Alice, we are often bored and disengaged, in search of entertainment or stimulation of some kind or another that can make our lives meaningful or at least distract us from the feeling that they may not be. We pick up our device of choice and start scrolling until we see that white rabbit. This ‘rabbit’ could appear in the form of a sensational headline or perhaps a hyperbolic statement from a public figure. Or, it could just be a short video about a topic that interests you. Once you take the bait, “CLICK ME”, “CLICK ME”, you are on your way to a place of both transformation and imagination.
Suddenly, you find yourself in the hands of the great algorithm, a program that gets paid not to show you the truth but to keep you clicking, with your attention fixed to the screen. Here we find that fantasy and sensationalized reality sell much better than boring old everyday life. Once you have come this far, which is really not very far at all, you will be continually shown items of interest, each one taking you a little farther, and then a little farther from where you began. The logic my seem distorted or far fetched at first, but let me assure you it will make perfect sense after you take one more step farther. Now, another. Then, another. Do you see it? You’re almost here.
If you simply click on this next article, everything you’ve seen before it will start to make sense and come into focus. Some go so deep into the rabbit hole that they come to believe that the world is ruled by a global elite, motivated by a grotesque marriage of pedophilia and cannibalism as the QAnon’s do. Ah, but don’t be too judgmental, bear in mind that it is YOU who thinks that Donald Trump’s border control policy prescribes keeping kids in cages and giving them only toilet water to drink while deranged doctors perform hysterectomies on their moms in some grand scheme of genocide!
The fact is, we all went down a rabbit hole, and it is highly improbable that we are looking at the same thing anymore. We can’t be. We took such different paths, of which each and every step taken was custom fit to match our own unique preferences and interests. It’s a “choose your own adventure’’ book with infinite possibilities. We have all gone through the looking glass to a place where nothing makes sense and everything is contradictory.
For example, is school choice harmful to public schools or does it help kids in struggling neighborhoods gain access to better education and a way out of poverty? Are mail in ballots perfectly safe or will they be used as the basis to invalidate election results? Is law enforcement broken or is it our culture that needs to change? Donald Trump is both a mean-spirited, orange monster and the most consequential President in decades. Joe Biden is an experienced, moderate and unifying force of the light but also a senile old man who doesn’t remember where he put his slippers let alone the things he plans to do as President.
How can we go back to a simpler time? Is it possible to go back to where we started?!
The good news is that the way back is right in front of us. We just have to do two things. First, we MUST get out of our digital enclaves and start having REAL conversations with one another, not Facebook, not Twitter, not chatrooms or message boards filled with like-minded wing nuts. Second, we have to make sure that when we do decide to log into our devices that we DON’T GO TOO FAR DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE!
When we all decide to come out, I predict that we’ll find that things really aren’t as bad as they seem and that we really aren’t that different after all. But, if you keep going…if you don’t stop going down that rabbit hole, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
