What are we doing?

[michelle_kitten]

I think i stand out among most people in the Western World in that i do not believe politicians are responsible for the current state of affairs.  I believe the average citizen is responsible for the way things are.  Bear with me, this one might be lengthy.  Keep in mind that i am not singling out one party or another, one side or another, one ideology or another.  This is not a partisan rant.  I am also guilty of everything i say below, or have been.  I am also speaking in generalizations, not about individuals.

 

I believe the problem lies in intellectual irresponsibility and outright laziness in many cases.  We lead busy lives.  We stress out at work and the last thing we want when we come home is to have to keep tabs on our politicians.  We don't want to have to educate ourselves.  We want our free time to be free.  We want to socialize and enjoy the life we've struggled and worked hard to make.  I totally get it.  So, it is convenient and all to easy to allow others to educate us, and fall into patterns of confirmation bias and worse.

 

Confirmation bias is when a person sets themselves in their beliefs and accepts anything that seems to reinforce their beliefs, while rejecting any evidence that opposes their beliefs.  This is largely  what we as Western societies do.  We choose our side, and then we go to our preferred media source for affirmation.  We listen to loads of anecdotal evidence which seems to confirm our beliefs and reject out of hand what "the other side" says.

 

The news media is all too willing to cater to what we want.  The news is serving up our preferred narrative that makes them money, keeps them in business, and actually gives them power.  The politicians build their platforms and campaign based primarily on what the news media is covering, and therefore on the same confirmation bias.  The politicians are fine with that, because it gets them elected.  Too many of us are all too willing to ingest what we are being served.

 

Further, we like outrage.  We do.  Outrage is an intense emotion with a heavy dose of feeling morally superior.  When we are outraged, we don't hurt.  We aren't lonely,   We don't feel awkward, unlovable, undesirable, and maybe even less dysphoric for a time.  The news media serves us up excuses to be outraged.  "The other side did this or that."  "The other side's media said this or that."  Both sides are busy pointing fingers from a position of bias confirmation saying "See!  See!  That proves how awful those people are!"  It becomes like a drug.  We need our fix.  (once again not singling people out or suggesting any of you fall into this category.)  I have adopted the term Outrage Porn to point at this sick addiction we have to the need for this carefully delivered dose of moral superiority we feel when we watch the extreme ills of the other side.  Even more, the worse the outrage, the more we like it.  As a result the media and politicians have been all too happy to deliver more extreme points of view, paint the other side's wrongs as increasingly egregious, and feed us more of exactly what we want.  We have become like alcoholics and the media and the politicians have become our enablers, as we have become increasingly divided among ourselves.

 

Just like addicts we keep doing the same things over and over.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  We have been bickering for decades and becoming increasingly divided, and things have only gotten worse.  We wait for a break through for our side that never really comes, because it will never come.  Certainly, the media is not going to help us actually break through, nor are the politicians.  The political class and the media would have to figure out whole new ways of securing their jobs.  What we are doing right now is driving us further and further apart until we are so frustrated normally non-violent people are considering abandoning compassion and starting a war for superiority.  Such a war would not end well for our country, causing deep wounds which will take decades if not a century or more to heal, or worse.

 

The solution is to quit being afraid to have our position questioned, and be open to genuine concerns of the side we consider the opposition.  Regarding trans gender issues, i listen to both sides and here is what i hear.  The left is concerned that the right doesn't want anyone to be transgender.  The right is concerned trans gender will be used as a cover for sexual predation.  The right says we need to stop this trend or we will have dirty old men masquerading as women to get thrills in girls bathrooms.  The left says, that's not a legit concern and the fact people are suffering requires that we allow transgender folks.  We dismiss the other sides's concerns out of hand.  Both sides are suspicious of the other side's intentions, and because there is so much of a gulf between them they cannot even begin to understand the thinking of the other side.  No one stops to ask, "Is the other side's concern legitimate?"  Whether the intent is malicious or not on the other side we should ask whether or not the argument has merit.  We have to realize that not every concern or objection is an attack on us, but an opportunity to make things a little better, even when the concern is completely hypothetical.  Even hypothetical concerns can have merit, because if someone can imagine it, someone can probably make it happen.

 

The second part of the solution is to realize that people exist on a spectrum.  Not all of one group or another is 100% aligned with what appears to be their overall position.  The extremes are more often than not a tiny minority, with people who have various degrees of more moderate attitudes on various issues mixed with more hardened beliefs on others.  We can't simply define people as Republican, Democrat, Labor, Conservative or whatever.  We have to meet them where they are and go from there, because chances are they disagree with things their side is doing, but identify more with one label than another.  We have to realize that they are just afraid of us as we are of them, due to the outrage porn the news media has been feeding us.  It isn't that one side is evil and the other is not.  There are very good people on both sides, and very evil people as well, with most people falling somewhere between them.  By building bridges and addressing people's concerns, we will make those evil few the impotent minority

 

Finally, we have to quit rewarding our enablers for supplying our outrage porn.  We have to dig for ourselves and get more of the picture.  We have to know our history and all the sides of what is going on.  It is inconvenient, and it is time consuming, and it is going to cut into our recreation time, and it is a burden.  I don't think we have the luxury anymore of being intellectually complacent.  We have to get clean from outrage porn and get clear heads so we can proceed.  We need to get the whole story, because neither the politicians on either side, nor the media are giving us all the facts.  They are all conveniently omitting things which would be valuable to know.  Once we get clean, the media and the politicians will have to find new ways to make their livings.  We have to listen to the other side to see what they are saying, because we won't agree with a lot of it, but we will find valid points within their positions.  We have to quit justifying the errors of our own side.  We have to redifine what it means to win to include a unity between ourselves and the other side.  These are points where we can create bridges, which will bring us together and put in place the structures we need to be the best people we can be.  This takes courage.  It will be painful.  We've gotten so far in, it will hurt to get back out.  We will go through periods of self doubt and moments of confusion.  We will get tired.  This isn't going to be fun.  The alternative is to keep going the direction we are going.

 

The first step in overcoming an addiction is to admit you have one.  The second step is being willing to change.  I don't really know where any of you are intellectually, though i have some suspicions.  I don't really care what side you're on.  What i am saying is to ask yourselves, "Am i an outrage porn addict?"  "Have i been chasing my own confirmation biases because that feels safer or is more convenient than actually digging for the truth?"  "Am i really happy with the stalemate we as a people have come to in our world?"  "How do i see the course of current events ending if they continue?"  "Is the end i feel is coming something i really want?"  "Is what i've been doing been actually helpful to my own health and for others, or am i just growing increasingly frustrated and stressed about the current state of affairs to the detriment of my own health and without contributing anything which has helped move our world back together?"  "Am I willing to fix the problems and stop trying to fix the blame?"  "Am I brave enough to learn the whole picture, and do what is necessary to stop participating in the madness." "Am I willing to quit worrying so much about the other side and focus on what i am doing?"

 

I have been in the past quite partisan.  God forgive me.  As i have begun to grow and found the courage to stop feeding my outrage porn addiction, i have become less and less partisan.  I am thinking for myself, and what i see terrifies me, because i can't see how things will end well as they are going.  I can see hope, however.  There are plenty of intelligent people.  I believe firmly we can stop the current cycle of aimless bickering and division and come together as a people.  The future may never be perfect, but it can be a lot better than it is now and a lot better than it has ever been in the past.  I also have a lot of faith in the trans community, because we are over comers.  We have had to be smarter, stronger, and better than cis gender people to get past our struggles.

[Erikka]

Michelle_kitten,

Very thoughtful. I am guilty of over reacting on some issues and giving a pass to others. I have no patience for arguments that are obviously not researched or just regurgitated from another unresearched source. I think if we all took a moment to offer a thoughtfulness of opinion rather than outrage, maybe progress can be made. Thanks for the insight.

Velsignelser

Erikka

[tracy_j]

A very interesting set of observations. In many ways I agree with them. It is far too easy to be carried away with the flow of things which, as a society, we create for ourselves. The interacting of the system parts creates the whole.

 

As I said in a recent post, I don't get into politics much. One of the main reasons is that, probably as being a bit of a rebel, I can sometimes be pretty radical in  my views. I feel they can influence things in a very negative way.

 

Over the current crisis I have, to a very large extent, stopped watching any news and made strong attempts, not alway successful though as in this one,  to avoid comments to it. I am amazed at how much less stressed I feel and better to cope with things. I won't re-iterate things as I think Michelle has covered it.

 

Tracy

[SaraAW]

Totally agree @michelle_kitten. Critical thinking and awareness of confirmation bias are probably the 2 most important skills that we fail to teach our children, behind it being okay to be themselves. Part of my role @ work is intelligence gathering and analysis. Even as aware as I am of confirmation bias, it is so subtle and wily, you let your guard down for a second and it finds a way to creep in. Maintaining a healthy dose of skepticism is so important. It is also important to note that skepticism is different than cynicism, as Michelle pointed out, it is important that you allow yourself to review new information from all sides and weigh it critically, while actively being aware and avoiding confirmation bias.

 

In Canada, we have more political parties than the USA, giving us a little more choice in whose politics we will decide to govern us, yet there are still many folks here that bleed their parties colours. I don't this differs much regardless of which democratic country you live in. I hope more people will make their voting decisions on rational and intelligent dissection of the issues and those proposing solutions to those issues, than voting for a person or party because that is what they have always done.

[Sally Stone]

Michelle, I couldn't agree more.  We vote for a president and expect that one individual to fix everything.  We all forget that effective government requires all three branches working in concert.  We vote for senators and congresspeople and then just wipe our saying our job is done.  Then, our politicians take advantage of our apathy and our gullibility to do the things that benefit them, not us.

 

We need to be much better informed and seek out the truth, then we need to make our voices heard, in an intelligent and effective way, not just shouting from the "bandwagon."   I fear our laziness and our apathy could be our undoing if we don't change in the ways you indicate.  Thanks for posting such a thoughtful essay.