More Important Things

We LIKE going down this road. Don't mess it up for us, OK?

        Though I probably should, I can't resist a good argument.

Or discussion. Or exchange of ideas. Whatever. Here's an example of what I mean: 

I'm scrolling through Facebook. I "Like" a beautiful picture of Mount Rainier casting a shadow across the orange-gold clouds of a sunset (or maybe it's a sunrise). I save a picture of a really cute kitten standing on its hind legs to show my cuteness-loving daughter later. I wish some people a happy birthday. I read some awesome science facts. I save a few recipes. I reshare this amazing mashup of "Peanuts" comics and lyrics from songs by The Smiths.

And then I run across something a little more weighty. Recently it was a discussion about the casual use of profanity in written communication such as, say, Facebook page names; and an Upworthy post showing teenage boys and girls reacting to the "clean" (quotation marks used with full sarcasm) version of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" video. And a person commenting "Jesus would have denied benefits" on a post, headed "WWJD?", of a news story about a church asking an elderly couple to leave their congregation because they sat by their gay daughter as she appealed to her government employer for same-sex couple benefits.
So, clearly, people are going to have various opinions on these issues. And as a religious and political pretty-much-conservative, I'm clearly going to have opinions that differ widely from those at other points in the Spectrum of Ethical, Moral and Political Thought. I don't expect anything different when I wade into the comment pool on these types of issues, something I do regularly. I recognize others' points of view and I hope that, as I engage civilly and respectfully with people, they will give me the same civility and respect. Mostly they do.
The thing that's becoming more and more frustrating to me is what seems to be the current argument-ender: "There are more important things than that to worry about." It's been applied in discussions I've read just in the last week to a) using the F word casually; b) female nudity in a publicly viewable video on YouTube; and c) whether it was a good or horrifyingly terrible idea to cast Ben Affleck as the next Batman. People are going along, expressing their opinions and bringing up arguments and counter-arguments regarding something that matters to them in a perfectly civil and interesting and sometimes even humorous way, and then somebody drops the I-bomb.
It bothers me for so many reasons. First, it's sanctimonious. What you're really saying when you pull that one out is something along the lines of:
* I am far, far deeper than you, you shallow twit.
* I don't see my logical and moral and ethical arguments convincing you, so I'm going to fall back on this because, what can you say? There ARE more important things than whether Robin Thicke is a satirist, a vulgarian, a sexist or just a grubby opportunist trying after years of hanging on by his only moderately talented fingernails to gain a more solid hold on fame.
* Good Lord, your priorities are out of whack. What are you doing devoting so much time to this (never mind that here I am, commenting on it, too; that's just to bring you to your senses about your problem)?
Is that really the message you want to be communicating to people? If it is, YOU'RE the twit. If it's not, stop.
Second, it's not remotely germane to the discussion at hand. Whereas everyone else is fencing, with an ethical thrust here and a thoughtful parry there, all playing the same game, you're wading in with a big club, swinging around indiscriminately and stopping everything dead. Get it through your heads, please: people LIKE to trade differing points of view, or they wouldn't be spending time on this type of forum, you know, trading points of view. All you're doing is revealing that you no longer have anything substantive to contribute. The correct response at that point is to quietly stop contributing, not to try and make everyone else stop, as well. Don't be Wreck-it Ralph.
Third, it's not remotely germane to ANYTHING. It's blindingly obvious to everyone but you, apparently, that almost everything is more important than whatever we're talking about right now. So obvious, in fact, that it's irrelevant. Are crosswalks more important than the possibility of terrorists getting ahold of nuclear weapons? Of course not. But they're still important to anyone who wants to cross the street safely. They're still worthy of talking about, and investing public money in, and having. They're, you know, important ENOUGH. To go back to a previous example, whether people use the F word in the title of a Facebook page isn't as important as many hundreds, if not thousands, of other things. But it IS something I worry about when I see it, because one of my kids is currently on Facebook and another is about to "age in" and can't wait to get her own account. Living a life as profanity-free as possible matters to me for a variety of reasons that others may not share, but that are IMPORTANT TO ME. Are you saying that your values are more weighty, more legitimate, more IMPORTANT, than mine? I doubt you want to say that, do you? I worry about what you might term "the little things" because worrying about the little things is the fertilizer of personal ethics. It's what helps a person grow a moral life. Unless there is no root to your mind at all, you must know this on some level. So why are you playing the "there are more important things" card?
Perhaps at its root, using this argument is the equivalent of saying, "I don't like it that you disagree with me but I don't feel like taking the time and expending the mental energy to actually discuss it." If that's the case, even thinking of using "there are more important things" should be like a warning bell: these waters are not for you. Don't jump in and ruin it for everyone else. We sincerely and civilly thank you for sitting this one out until you think of something more fun to say.