I Think We're In Trouble If We're Comparing Human Beings To Roaches
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve been spending a little more time on Twitter lately. And, to be honest, it hasn’t been a picnic.
If you wanted to build an environment that is perfectly optimised to strip people of their humanity, I’m not sure you could do much better. The anonymity, the character restrictions that limit clarity and nuance, the algorithm that rewards vitriol and shoehorns you into echo chambers.
Whether it’s politics or race or trans inclusion or religion, it’s incredible how quickly the tiniest differences can snowball into bitter conflicts.
In my article, Calling A Ceasefire In The Culture Wars, I asked whether we could do better. Whether we could resist the temptation to dehumanise each other. Whether we could find a way to carve out some humanity in the midst of the culture wars.
Elaine wasn’t sure that was the way to go.
Elaine:
So many very excellent thoughts in this piece. That said - while I am not a fan of incivility or extremism, sometimes you stomp on roaches not because you're focused on killing that particular roach, but because you don't want the roaches to proliferate.
And, while you are correct that "nobody is going to become a better human being" necessarily because they were called out, cancelled or blocked - sometimes the point of an outcry isn't to change that individual's mind, but to influence the audience that is watching.
Steve QJ:
“sometimes you stomp on roaches not because you're focused on killing that particular roach, but because you don't want the roaches to proliferate.”
😅 I think we're in trouble if we're comparing human beings to roaches. Dehumanising people is so easy that it's often largely unconscious.
And yes, while yelling at people and attacking them certainly will influence the audience (assuming there is one, I don't think most flame wars on Twitter or in Medium comments have much of an audience), it's worth asking whether you're influencing them towards or way from your point of view.
I see a lot of online activists just making people on their side seem violent and unreasonable.
I don’t think Elaine literally sees people she disagrees with as cockroaches. But I do think her comments point to something important.
Amidst all the talk of echo chambers and flame wars and algorithms, we overlook how easy it is to be radicalised by the rhetoric and cherry-picking we see online.
Disagreements become “hate.” Imperfectly phrased sentences are “violence.” Anything short of absolute and immediate validation is “fascism.” And the only possible outcome is that we grow further and further apart.
My little experiment on Twitter has convinced me that it’s not enough to stay informed or listen to various sources or “touch grass” from time to time.
Staying sane online means actively (forcefully!) reminding yourself that the fringes are not the majority. It means speaking to faceless strangers with the same civility we'd offer in person. It means refusing to perform outrage or moral indignation for an imagined audience.
We don't have to be friends, we don't have to agree, we don't even have to like each other. But maybe we can fix the culture war with some culture diplomacy.
1st, Steve, Chris, it was refreshing to read your well-spoken exchange this morning. It made me wonder if even though you superficially belong to tribes where many are at war with each other you agree on the idea that those wars are poison for the brain and that there is no rise to hostility in the subject of your differences of opinion.
"𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸"
There lays the problem. The vast majority of what we see is not an effort at positively influencing the thoughts of the opposition, but rather to collect praise from the likeminded. People who with no apparent sense of irony display what they claim to oppose in their own behavior.
They are dangerous. I often express my thoughts on the demonization/dehumanization process used to condition otherwise peaceful to go to war and kill. One of my positive traits, if I do say so myself, is to try to understand why people hold the views that they hold. I might not convince me to change my view, but it does make me less likely to dehumanize them. That's important, at least in my thinking.
I've mentioned my MAGA buddy in the past. He dismisses everything he disagrees with as coming from Soros funded communists (Democrats/liberals) and RINOs. I don't actually have much hope in being able to convince him that Trump is a RINO who has created a cult around himself distributing toxic cool-aid for the mind. How do I express that thought to him without it being perceived as insult? Most non-MAGAs purposefully insult and demonize him. They harden his views without hope of changing them.
I don't mention him to demonize him. We have a near 30-year friendship founded in things other than politics. He is an intelligent man with double master's degrees caught up in a cult. I do understand where some of his views come from and actually don't disagree with him on all of them. I see those traits in people with opposing views. It is all too easy to switch our thoughts from ideas to people because it is so easy to demonize and dehumanize people. To see their membership in a group as the uniform of an enemy in a war.
A worthwhile quote for a pop-up on our computers when we go to social media; "𝓐𝓵𝓵 𝓱𝓸𝓹𝓮 𝓪𝓫𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓸𝓷 𝔂𝓮 𝔀𝓱𝓸 𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮."
[edit] I intended to mention that the pop-up would be to inspire us to seek to behave in ways to bring hope.
“maybe we can fix the culture war with some culture diplomacy.”
And maybe the horse will learn to sing.
You have a good heart Steve but this sow’s ear will make no silk purse. You do yourself harm on twitter.
No I am not calling people cockroaches. A lot of people on Twitter are truly sick. Engaging is futile. Remember that Daryl Davis worked in person, not on Twitter.