Father Knows Facebook Best

Somewhere along the line we lost our authority figures.

Teenage rebellion, the impulse that spawned the cri de coeur “You’re not the boss of me!” has lost its sell-by date. Now we carry that defiance into adulthood.

This goes beyond the parental-equivalent authority. Granted, nowadays, Grandma and Gramps – or even Mom and Dad -- are just as likely to be bungee jumping or hitting Match.com as you are, maybe even more so. But let’s face it, you weren’t going to ask their advice anyhow. Because they just wouldn’t get it. Things are different now. Ancestors are not an authority.

We’ve replaced the wise authority figure with a consensus. Think about it, if you’re ambivalent about something, you’re more likely to poll your friends on Facebook (and me mine on Twitter) than to seek out someone who might actually know the answer.

This cuts the other way too. How many times has someone asked you something which you know from experience or training, and then watched them ask four other people the same question? It especially rankles when the other four people were chosen for their looks or something other than that they might have as good an answer as you did. It’s even worse when it’s a stranger. That bartender is only guessing what’s wrong with your relationship. You don’t want to get your medical diagnosis from him, either.

The irony and coincidence (it’s both, Ted, so back off) is that I’m posting this on the day of the Wikipedia blackout, when we’ve also lost our substitute authority figure. We may not take relationship advice from Wikipedia, but a lot of people do go there for medical diagnoses.

It’s enough to make me call my mother just to ask her advice about something. Maybe she can think of the name of the father from “Leave it to Beaver”. I was going to put it in the title, but with Wiki down, I can’t.