America is Sick, Part II: An Arena for Arguments
(This is a continuation of an essay examining the many ills of American society, as I see them, and hopefully some solutions to them as well).
If you use social media, you may have noticed Facebook and other social media are often filled with arguments. Even before Facebook and Twitter and comments sections on news sites turned the internet into an arena for arguments, the rise of specialized sites allowed fringe beliefs to flourish. People were able to find like-minded racists, chem-trail conspiracy theorists, believers in ceremonial magic, or whatever. Even though finding people with common interests can be good, not all interests are good, and no interests should be allowed to dominate at the exclusion of all others.
This was a step toward division, not unison.
A brief series of attempts to correct the outlandish things that one of my oldest friends said on Facebook only led to arguments, so I stopped attempting to refute people's posts, no matter how lunatic they seemed. Only if something is factually and provably incorrect and directly contributing to the dumbing down of society will I post a link to a fact check site refuting it, and of course, no one ever thanks me for that because we like to "shoot the messenger."
In essence, I decided to no longer argue on Facebook.
As someone whose religious and political views would be well accepted in Scandinavia but not so much in the over-hanging beer belly of the Bible Belt, I tend to post some things my Facebook acquaintances have found objectionable. This has led to some rather debilitating and pointless arguments. This led me to being extremely reluctant to express myself on a format which is supposed to be ideal for expressing yourself.
It seems to me that people will say things on the internet that they would never say in person, probably stemming from when most comments were made anonymously. Civility and basic politeness and decency seem to erode on the internet, and I think that may be carrying over into the rest of society.
Imagine if elementary or high school teachers allowed their students to argue with them. It would be chaos. If we're arguing, we're not learning anything except how to argue better.
So recently, I had an idea. I decided to specifically disallow arguments on some of my posts. We all have full editorial control of our Facebook pages. If we find a response disagreeable to one of our posts, we can remove it.
So, on three of my posts now, I have asked people not to argue, and so far, people have abided by my request and I haven't had to delete one response, for which I am thankful. (In fact, since asking people not to argue on some posts, no one has argued on any posts I've made, but that may just be coincidence.)
One of the posts in which I asked for no arguments was about as inflammatory as I can imagine, and I used it as sort of a social experiment. One of my friends posted a link to an article about a scientific study that found that the more religious people are the more racist they tend to be. In the original post, at least one person argued against the study, accusing it of bias, when clearly the bias rested with the person protesting against the article and not with the objective scientific study.
But more and more I realize that no matter how convincing information is, someone will argue based on their pre-existing beliefs, and when they argue, they set themselves up in an adversarial position to the information and therefore will learn nothing from it.
And there was a lesson to be learned from the study. The study revealed that when a congregation was made of mixed races, members of the congregation tended to be less racist, although mixed race congregations were rare. A wise person might take that information and decide to take steps to end the voluntary segregation of many churches in an attempt to curtail any racist tendencies.
So, I decided to post a link to the study, and again I asked people not to argue. Remarkably, they didn't, and instead, I thought there was a fruitful, civil discussion in which new ideas were offered. I learned more, the others who commented learned more, and hopefully, even those who disagreed and did not post a response processed the information and maybe even they learned something from it.
Since then, I've seen one of my friends post about a possibly controversial subject and he asked people not to argue. The result was a fruitful, civil discussion without arguments, and personally, I shared views I might have kept to myself if he had not asked for civility, which made me feel safe to express my opinion without worry of being attacked and needing to defend myself.
I call on you to do the same. Don't be afraid to post something you know will be inflammatory, but when you do, ask people politely not to argue. You may be surprised at the results, you'll help to reinforce civility, and you may find yourself feeling more freedom to express yourself.
Arguing deepens the divisions in our society, but it is not the sole problem with the internet and social media. The overuse of memes has reduced human thought and political discourse to a war of bumper stickers.
I really wonder how many people today get their political knowledge from these one or two sentence posters people place on Facebook. Even worse, some people probably get their political information from people who get their political information from Facebook memes in a form of watered down ignorance.
I call on all Facebook users to stop posting memes related to the subjects of politics, philosophy or religion. If you want to post a funny cat photo with a caption or a meme making fun of a movie, go right ahead, but memes about serious subjects are making us stupid. Instead, post links to articles or at least videos which give a more nuanced and thorough examination of the subjects you hold dear.
And if you absolutely must post memes, make them yourself! Posting someone else's political meme is just spreading propaganda. Try having an original thought!
Facebook and other social media could be a great tool for sharing ideas and learning, but currently it is largely the opposite, but we can choose to change how we use it.
Unfortunately, much of the damage is already done. We're already at war with ourselves. As this essay continues, I'll examine who profits from the cavernous divisions in our society, and how they use those divisions against us.
If you use social media, you may have noticed Facebook and other social media are often filled with arguments. Even before Facebook and Twitter and comments sections on news sites turned the internet into an arena for arguments, the rise of specialized sites allowed fringe beliefs to flourish. People were able to find like-minded racists, chem-trail conspiracy theorists, believers in ceremonial magic, or whatever. Even though finding people with common interests can be good, not all interests are good, and no interests should be allowed to dominate at the exclusion of all others.
This was a step toward division, not unison.
A brief series of attempts to correct the outlandish things that one of my oldest friends said on Facebook only led to arguments, so I stopped attempting to refute people's posts, no matter how lunatic they seemed. Only if something is factually and provably incorrect and directly contributing to the dumbing down of society will I post a link to a fact check site refuting it, and of course, no one ever thanks me for that because we like to "shoot the messenger."
In essence, I decided to no longer argue on Facebook.
As someone whose religious and political views would be well accepted in Scandinavia but not so much in the over-hanging beer belly of the Bible Belt, I tend to post some things my Facebook acquaintances have found objectionable. This has led to some rather debilitating and pointless arguments. This led me to being extremely reluctant to express myself on a format which is supposed to be ideal for expressing yourself.
It seems to me that people will say things on the internet that they would never say in person, probably stemming from when most comments were made anonymously. Civility and basic politeness and decency seem to erode on the internet, and I think that may be carrying over into the rest of society.
Imagine if elementary or high school teachers allowed their students to argue with them. It would be chaos. If we're arguing, we're not learning anything except how to argue better.
So recently, I had an idea. I decided to specifically disallow arguments on some of my posts. We all have full editorial control of our Facebook pages. If we find a response disagreeable to one of our posts, we can remove it.
So, on three of my posts now, I have asked people not to argue, and so far, people have abided by my request and I haven't had to delete one response, for which I am thankful. (In fact, since asking people not to argue on some posts, no one has argued on any posts I've made, but that may just be coincidence.)
One of the posts in which I asked for no arguments was about as inflammatory as I can imagine, and I used it as sort of a social experiment. One of my friends posted a link to an article about a scientific study that found that the more religious people are the more racist they tend to be. In the original post, at least one person argued against the study, accusing it of bias, when clearly the bias rested with the person protesting against the article and not with the objective scientific study.
But more and more I realize that no matter how convincing information is, someone will argue based on their pre-existing beliefs, and when they argue, they set themselves up in an adversarial position to the information and therefore will learn nothing from it.
And there was a lesson to be learned from the study. The study revealed that when a congregation was made of mixed races, members of the congregation tended to be less racist, although mixed race congregations were rare. A wise person might take that information and decide to take steps to end the voluntary segregation of many churches in an attempt to curtail any racist tendencies.
So, I decided to post a link to the study, and again I asked people not to argue. Remarkably, they didn't, and instead, I thought there was a fruitful, civil discussion in which new ideas were offered. I learned more, the others who commented learned more, and hopefully, even those who disagreed and did not post a response processed the information and maybe even they learned something from it.
Since then, I've seen one of my friends post about a possibly controversial subject and he asked people not to argue. The result was a fruitful, civil discussion without arguments, and personally, I shared views I might have kept to myself if he had not asked for civility, which made me feel safe to express my opinion without worry of being attacked and needing to defend myself.
I call on you to do the same. Don't be afraid to post something you know will be inflammatory, but when you do, ask people politely not to argue. You may be surprised at the results, you'll help to reinforce civility, and you may find yourself feeling more freedom to express yourself.
Arguing deepens the divisions in our society, but it is not the sole problem with the internet and social media. The overuse of memes has reduced human thought and political discourse to a war of bumper stickers.
I really wonder how many people today get their political knowledge from these one or two sentence posters people place on Facebook. Even worse, some people probably get their political information from people who get their political information from Facebook memes in a form of watered down ignorance.
I call on all Facebook users to stop posting memes related to the subjects of politics, philosophy or religion. If you want to post a funny cat photo with a caption or a meme making fun of a movie, go right ahead, but memes about serious subjects are making us stupid. Instead, post links to articles or at least videos which give a more nuanced and thorough examination of the subjects you hold dear.
And if you absolutely must post memes, make them yourself! Posting someone else's political meme is just spreading propaganda. Try having an original thought!
Facebook and other social media could be a great tool for sharing ideas and learning, but currently it is largely the opposite, but we can choose to change how we use it.
Unfortunately, much of the damage is already done. We're already at war with ourselves. As this essay continues, I'll examine who profits from the cavernous divisions in our society, and how they use those divisions against us.
