Liking Is for Cowards. Go For What Hurts.

Article Title: “Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts”

Author: Jonathan Franzen

Published in The New York Times, May 28^th, 2011

Summary: The author of “Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts”, starts out his article by being overly obsessive about his BlackBerry Bold cell phone. I would say that he was being sarcastic. Franzen talks about how humans use technology to replace the “bad things” in life with technology. So many people do use technology as a replacement and they just don’t realize it until it’s all they have left to hold on to. Technology has evolved so much! Our devices will do what we want when we want them to. They never will talk back or say mean things to you. Franzen implies that liking something on Facebook is so much easier to do than to truly “like” something. He talks about how people like a lot of things and take away the meaning or purpose of loving something.  Franzen also states that when people try to be so likable they show the lack of love they have for themselves. People make a virtual image of themselves on social networking sites and it’s always the “better image” of them. “We like the mirror and the mirror likes us.” I believe this quote is the key point in the article because everyone wants to be liked by all but then they realize the reality of the situation; it’s just not possible. The world of liking is a lie. Which leads to the ending; Franzen talks about how it’s very impossible to like every person you ever encounter. There is such a thing as loving a person, and loving everything about them. This then defines how love exposes the lie. The biggest problem people have is rejection. Franzen encourages people to stop being two faced, the “likable person” and the “whole person”.

Response: I loved this article, and I was pleased to teach it to the class. I have a Facebook and an iPhone, it is easy to show the likable side of myself through technology, but I try to be as real as I can. I agree there are several people who replace all the emptiness and rejection in their life with technology. Once they put in the replacement, everything is “all better”. People who go overboard through technology to the point where they cannot back themselves up in person, is when this all becomes a problem. Fake, and two faced people, are the easiest to define. Technology and Facebook have made it easier for more people to become two faced. Yes, technology sure is a lot “cooler” and more evolved than back in the day, but it also has put society on a downward slope. More people can pretend to be someone they are not. More people can talk more trash about each other, rather than being faced to face; which is a lot harder to handle. People may not like rejection but it’s the reality of life, take it or leave it. Every person will NOT like you, so step back and let people discover your good qualities on their own, and they will respect you more.