I still find it difficult to believe that for two months now I have been answering questions about the existence of the same e-mail [1], despite my own lack of interest in making a bigger deal of it [2].  Apparently without effort and without intention some things just get blown up really big.  What makes an e-mail famous?  What is it that inspires something to go viral in the minds of people.

I imagine in some cases correspondence becomes famous because it crosses important lines.  Regardless of the feelings of the participants, if a particular correspondence moves beyond the usual civilities or even testiness and crosses into the territory of the shocking or unheard of, then something can get spread far and far beyond what it was meant by anyone alone the line, simply because the message is so unbelievable that one has to see it, over and over again, in order to believe it, even where it is the truth.

I had laughed at this sort of thing, thinking it mildly amusing if faintly ridiculous, when I saw the movie Election, a black comedy about a high school election with big consequences.  But I’m not sure I’m laughing about it anymore, seeing as it has happened to me.  Regardless of what lessons can be drawn from this sort of incident, and there are plenty of lessons, I find it very uncomfortable to have my name out there in such a fashion (and I’m sure everyone else feels the same way I do).  It’s a fun and games when one goes viral for something that is funny or cute, but when one goes viral because one is the recipient of hate mail, that is a much less pleasant thing to deal with over and over and over again.

I am reading a book about William Tecumseh Sherman (review forthcoming), that much maligned Union general of the American Civil War, and some lessons from his life are useful.  He is a man who hated the press with a vindictive passion.  He was also a man of a very careless mind and tongue, which he himself admitted, saying one time in a moment of somber reflection, “I write hastily, as hastily as I think and speak, and I know full well that I often write and speak things that should have remained unsaid [3].”  Unfortunately, you cannot unsay and unwrite what you say and write.  Nor can you unsay or unwrite what you receive.  For either you will have to answer over and over and over again.

Some people have to deal with the same issues over and over again because they refuse to learn from them, or they learn the wrong lessons from them.  People get the attention of the press because they make good copy.  People who say outrageous things will draw reporters as a car accident will draw lawyers.  Part of the outrageousness is in seeing something as unbelievable but in print.  Sadly, too often what is unbelievable is in fact true, and not libel.  We all say things that are ill-advised, but when that folly goes beyond the normal level, it leaves our communications to go viral, even against our will and inclination.  That’s a thought that ought to be sobering to us all.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/be-careful-what-you-wish-for/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/burying-the-hatchet/

[3] Lee Kennett, Sherman:  A Soldier’s Life (New York:  NY, HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), 101.