• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe

‘Moby-Dick’ and the online search for identity

August 24, 2020
By Brett Robinson
Catholic News Service
Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Commentary, Uncategorized

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Back in June 2013 an intrepid social media user set up a Twitter account to post lines from Herman Melville’s novel, “Moby-Dick.” Individual lines, one at a time, for seven years now. The lines are posted in no particular order and they are sometimes accompanied by an illustration or a photograph.

How many followers do you suppose the Moby-Dick Twitter account would attract? 1,000? 10,000? The answer is nearly 70,000 as of this writing.

This says something about our relationship to literature in the digital age, and our relationship to stories in general. The fear for years now has been that the internet is suffocating our ability to read books, especially long ones like “Moby-Dick.” Who has the attention span to read a 500-page novel?

The sound bite style of posting little bits of prose from such a gorgeous novel surely diminishes the story’s impact on the reader. And yet the hunger for great stories remains. What has changed is how we tell the story and how we see ourselves in it.

The same can be said of Scripture in the digital age. Social media are full of partial psalms and snippets of the Gospel. Is that a bad thing? Hasn’t the church always been able to adapt to the new medium of the age to share the Gospel in new ways? Of course it has.

But as St. John Paul II said in “Redemptoris Missio,” it is not the content of a culture that defines its newness, it is the “new techniques” and “new psychology” that arise as a result of new technologies. In other words, the content of the Gospel is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, but the culture in which it gets expressed is always changing.

St. Paul VI said the tragedy of our time is the “split between the Gospel and culture.”

Healing the split between the Gospel and culture today starts with understanding man’s desire to spend so much time sailing (or surfing) the seemingly infinite abyss of the internet.

Like Ishmael, the famous protagonist in Melville’s novel, the digital sea seems to provide an escape from the “damp, drizzly November in (the) soul.” We seek information and relationships for hours a day and never seem to find exactly what we are looking for. Despite its apparent bottomlessness, at the end of the day, the internet makes us feel as though we’ve come up short.

A million comments and tweets appear every second seeking attention, a kindred spirit, a witness. Each communique from the keyboard of users worldwide is one more shout into the abyss waiting for an echo of acknowledgment. Psychologically speaking, the internet has become more than a tool for gathering information and connecting to other people; it has become an arena for working out one’s identity. One comment, one tweet, one photograph, one line at a time.

“Call me Ishmael,” the immortal first line of Melville’s novel tells you all you need to know. The explorer, like the sailor on the high seas of digital culture, needs to be known. To the extent that the need to be known is not being satisfied at home, at school or in the parish, the propensity to dive ever deeper into digital culture’s seductive depths is heightened.

Answering the existential question “who am I?” by merely associating with like-minded people online is too insular. We have to look outward, nay upward, for the one who answers our call, who knows our story, line by line, from beginning to end.

Copyright © 2020 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Brett Robinson

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

Our faith is not afraid of questions

Artificial Intelligence, wholeism and prayer

Question Corner: Does reception of the Eucharist replace confession?

A butterfly lands on a flowering bush with purple blossoms

A Miracle for a Baby in Rhode Island (and for all of us)

Kids need lots of people who love them

| Recent Local News |

Archdiocese of Baltimore offers resources for parishes to assist migrants

Third annual gun buyback scheduled for Aug. 9

Driver arrested after crashing into entrance of Esperanza Center

Construction underway on new north addition to St. Joseph’s Nursing Home 

Prince of Peace merges with St. Francis de Sales in Harford County

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Warsaw archbishop ‘devastated, crushed’ by priest’s arrest in brutal murder of homeless man
  • Jubilee of Youth chance to celebrate hope, fraternity in world at war, panel says
  • New York archdiocese sees hundreds of responses to ‘Called By Name’ program
  • Can’t afford a Catholic college? Think again. Many offer full tuition options
  • Detroit archbishop fires theologians Ralph Martin, Eduardo Echeverría from seminary
  • LA archbishop, joined by business leaders, starts fund to help families affected by ICE raids
  • FBI surveilled SSPX priest amid probe of suspected neo-Nazi’s plans for violence
  • Poland’s ‘living memorial’ to St. John Paul II marks 25 years of transforming lives
  • Our faith is not afraid of questions

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en