Memes

Memes are a pet peeve of mine--especially anti-religious memes. You know, those pompous little collections of clichés and platitudes masquerading as truth and wisdom? These are generally intolerant, bitter-seeming declarations which demonstrate most pointedly not the writer's intent, ironically enough, but a woeful absence of intellect and analytical acumen, a laughable ineptitude. Generally, the meme writer (and, by extension, his little army of re-posters on Facebook, Instagram et al) sets his own trap and then eagerly jumps in. 

Why do they post in the first place? I don't know. They seem angry, inclined to act out by belittling and insulting others, although what ends up appearing small and pitiful is the meme writer himself, for he so very clearly knows so very little about the subject he is addressing. 

Here is the particular meme I saw yesterday: 

What struck me instantly about this anti-religious meme is that it echoes, though the author will not have realized this, given his apparent lack of familiarity with scripture, the words of Jesus himself. This same judgment and rejection of the 'religious' powers of his time is seeded throughout the gospels. One need only read Matthew 25. Over and over, Jesus castigates the hypocritical actions and behavior of the ruling religious order, their self-styled representation of a God whom in fact they do not even know. Hate disguised as love? Yes indeed, for it was they, after all, who crucified love. And "fiction parading as fact"? Really? Isn't the meme writer's ignorance really what is on parade here--of the methods and structure of ancient literature, of parable, of numinous mythology, of ages of philosophical tradition? 

Most discussions of God and religion, as contemporary philosopher and theologian David Bennington Hart points out, have not even begun to touch on God and religion. They are superfluous noise, arguing one misapprehension against another while failing to touch meaningfully on the matter at hand.

The unfortunate thing about simple-minded memes is that they cater to lazy, simple-minded readers. In the political realm, we saw this very clearly during the recent American election--and we see now that the Russians understood and used the power of these memes to great effect. Critical thinking and intellectual discipline are being eroded by the ease of the blurb, the disguise of typeface and color and mere presence on the page, as easily consumed as marshmallows. But, of course, if one stuffs enough marshmallows in his mouth at the same time, he will surely choke to death.