I Most Certainly Believe What I Write

There’s no greater satisfaction as a writer than putting your finger on some aspect of the zeitgeist. You sense a mood that’s just below the surface in society, you do your best to express it, and if you do a good job, the truth of it is reflected in people’s comments.

In my article, The Cult Of Worse-onality, I wrote about the damage social media is doing to our discourse (and our minds). I argued that it’s become a breeding ground for cynical, narcissistic grifters who will say anything, however dishonest, to keep our eyeballs focused on them. And I pointed out that we can make better use of this incredible tool if we each take responsibility for our worst instincts.

Tessa reflected all of that back to me. Just not in the way I’d expected. She begins with a quote from the article.

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Tessa:

They all make their money by saying things they don’t believe because their audience wants to believe them.

Holy shit, if you believe that, you are in a very sad place. I most certainly believe what I write. I was writing it long before people paid any attention to it. I was writing against apartheid when my life was in danger for doing so. My late father was writing against Nazis in Germany and his life was definitely in danger for doing so. They actually came for him in 1936. Fortunately, he escaped.

If you think that climate change is some made up story to earn people some money, you need to go to college to do a geology or environmental degree. I have been studying this since 1970.

[Tessa included an Amazon link to her book here. I don’t feel especially inclinded to promote her further.]

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“I most certainly believe what I write. I was writing it long before people paid any attention to it. I was writing against apartheid when my life was in danger for doing so. My…”

Two things to note here. First, from the number of “I”s and “my”s in this reply, you could be forgiven for assuming that I mention Tessa somewhere in the article. I do not. 

Second, given the way she talks about it, you might presume that I must have mentioned climate change, at least tangentially, somewhere in the article. Again, I did not. 

The first instinct social media encourages is narcissism. It gives us access to a potential audience of millions. It rewards us for sensationalism and snarkiness. And it tempts us to treat every conversation as a battle against the forces of evil.

When I first started writing, I was shocked by how angry some of the comments I received were. It took me a while to realise that some people really do see themselves as the centre of every issue. Every article, every opinion, every social problem, is somehow about them.

And so, any criticism of these problems might as well be a personal attack.

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Steve QJ:

Holy shit, if you believe that, you are in a very sad place. I most certainly believe what I write.

Hi Tessa, it might shock you to learn that I don't have any idea who you are, and therefore wasn't specifically referring to you when I wrote that sentence. 😅

But yeah, if you tell your readers that there are simple answers to complex questions, that's a pretty strong sign that you don't understand an issue.

Also, at no point did I mention climate change, which I think is an enormous problem. Maybe a little less projection in future? Or were you just looking to plug your book?

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Tessa:

Um. No. If you make general statements saying that people write doomsday scenarios to make money, that includes climate change.

People like me, Umair Haque, Jessica Wildfire, see the future very clearly.

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“People like me, Umair Haque, Jessica Wildfire, see the future very clearly.”

The second instinct social media encourages is hubris. This is one that I’m constantly trying (and occasionally failing) to keep in check. 

Once enough people are listening to what you have to say, it’s tempting to believe that you have all the answers. That you have some special insight that others don’t. That anybody who disagrees with you must be evil or stupid or both. See Jordan Peterson’s recent decline for evidence of how spectacularly badly this can go.

One of the reasons I spend so much time engaging with people in my comments is to remind myself that smart, reasonable people can and do disagree with me. To keep asking myself if I'm missing something. This is an essential but difficult habit to maintain. 

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Steve QJ:

People like me, Umair Haque, Jesdica Wildfire, see the future very clearly.

Yep, there are definitely no examples of Umair Haque's or Jessica Wildfire's daily doomsaying turning out to be completely wrong. All they see clearly is a way to turn cynicism into profit. Pointing to bad news after the fact and saying "I told you so" isn't insightful.

But that's not to say that nothing they say is ever true. Again, I didn't mention climate change or anybody who writes/talks about climate change at any point in the article. Precisely because I think it's a very serious problem.

In fact, most of the people I do mention in the article are, amongst other things, climate change deniers. And are smart enough and well informed enough to know better. This is one of the many examples of them saying things they don't believe that I was referring to.

Again, you're very clearly projecting here. I don't know you. I didn't refer to you. I've never read anything you've written. So if you feel targeted by an article that calls people out for using their platforms irresponsibly, I think you should ask yourself why that is.

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True to the social media theme of my article, Tessa blocked me after this reply. She then courageously hid my replies to her initial comment because, let’s face it, she was pretty clearly wrong. And here, we have the final, most pernicious instinct social media enables; dishonesty.

There’s the dishonesty of the grifters who twist narratives with “alternative facts”. The dishonesty of performing oppression for victimhood points. Or, perhaps most damaging of all, the simple dishonesty of refusing to admit when we’re wrong.

So much of the nastiness we see onlne is the result of one of these instincts getting out of control. The instinct to centre ourselves, the instinct to protect our ego, the instinct to win. Whatever that means to us in that moment.

But what if we win by understanding each other better? What if telling the truth is healthier for our egos than lying? What if our lives are bettter if we consider everybody’s needs and not just our own?

Sadly, these ideas aren’t dominating the zeitgeist just yet. But even for people like Tessa, I think they’re just below the surface.