2018
One of the few things most Americans can agree on in the Trump era is that we are a mess. So, like a lot of people, I got into venting on social media. I have a bunch of conservative friends who post provocative stuff about the errors in climate science, the failure of anyone to hold Hillary accountable for some email thing, the injustice of a minimum wage increase, and so on. And, for a while, I was posting my rebuttals, and my opposing headlines, and my well-reasoned arguments about how totally blind they were. And they’d rebut me back. And around we went, minds unchanged.
Actually, my mind did change. I got angrier, and sadder. I had an addiction to the political arguments I was engaged in on Facebook. Zuckerberg’s algorithms knew it, and got me dialed in and riled up. I stopped thinking of my conservative friends as friends. I started replying to them with real outrage. I started posting long screeds with links to studies and all manner of documentation proving that the GOP is the problem, libertarian economics is a rationale for the rich getting richer, and on and on.
And it dawned on me one day that I was feeling horrible. Hopeless. Disgusted with these former friends of mine, and every Trump voting American. Angry at the hard left for their righteous woke nonsense, the hard right for forcing this pathological bullshitter of a president on us, and angry at the whole damn world for... everything. I became a cranky asshole. But the fog began to lift the day I had a powerful and deep revelation:
No one cares what I think.
It hit me that no one cares what I have to say about this stuff. And I realized another truth: they damn well shouldn’t.
My opinions on climate change come from reading an article here and there, and half watching a documentary or two. My feelings on American foreign policy have mostly been formed on the toilet. My thoughts on campaign finance laws came from a conversation with some bald guy drinking scotch on a long plane ride a decade ago. The sum total of my factual knowledge about police brutality, or immigration, or the racial disparity of public education outcomes can be summed up in one word: none.
I am an expert on a very, very narrow range of subjects. I’m a well-read dilettante on a couple of others, and beyond that, I got no fucking idea what I’m talking about. I’m just parroting something I read somewhere, because it suits the narrative I prefer.
So… I shut up.
And it felt GREAT.
It doesn’t take much self reflection to realize that when you’re ranting on Facebook or Twitter or wherever, you are not just wasting your time. You are becoming a product. You’re a bitchy little piece of content on a massive platform you don’t own or control. You are being measured, tested, tracked, profiled, packaged and resold. The system is optimized for manipulation, and you’re one of its trained little pets. Your political erogenous zones are being identified and tickled by Zuckerberg et. al’s army of human and robotic seducers. And as you get excited and shoot your mouth off, you ignore the fact that you’re - for the most part - totally dependent on others for your opinions. You’re bringing nothing to the party but your desire to be heard, your own emotional imbalances, and your willingness to do whatever it takes to get a reaction. You’re encouraged to be an extremist, because that’s how you get noticed.
So I left all the political arguing to others. And it felt like taking off a weight belt. Reducing my FB time by 90%, and my political argument time to 0, changed my whole perspective. I began to see my addiction in lots of people. I wasn’t investigating difficult subjects and reaching for deeper knowledge. I wasn’t trying to understand the pains of others who believe the opposite of what I believe. I was banging on in arguments with idiots just like me on the other side of the ideological divide. And when I stopped arguing, I had time to think. And read. And reflect rather than react.
So why react at all?
We are all built to confirm our prejudices. It feels good. Investigating them, challenging them, overturning them… that doesn’t feel good. Basing your conclusions on a wide range of credible facts is a pain in the ass. Who has the time? Besides, seeking to understand doesn’t get your blood up the way a good ‘us vs them’ battle does. We don’t want to do the work to get the info. And even if we did, social media is the worst place to go with it because your ‘good’ facts look the same as ‘bad’ facts. No one can tell the difference. The system is optimized for dumbassery and distraction. Especially the latter. How often to you go to YouTube to look for something specific, and then head down a click hole for an hour. ‘Trump gets DESTROYED by 9th grader?’ That sounds fun! Holy shit who’s that in the swimsuit…?
Having fiery opinions we are willing to defend like the Alamo, based on evidence we picked up on some partisan blog while standing on line at a bank… is no way to carry on a civic dialog on important topics. But social media encourages exactly this kind of behavior. All the current dialog does is increase the fury with which people attach themselves to an ideology. And ideology is a trap.
Ideology means things that feel true are true enough for you. Ideology means your first reaction is the one you defend, no matter what comes out later. And something always comes out later. The new longer video shows that the Native American stepped into the face of the grinning MAGA kid, not the other way around. The cops find out the hate crime was a staged fraud. The Cabinet official you were defending resigns in shame when a new revelation hits CNN. Mueller finds out Trump wasn’t an asset, just an ass. And everyone who jumped on the bandwagon is walking it back, or tap dancing around, or changing the subject, or burying their ‘correction’ on an inside link in small type. Or in Trump’s case, doubling down because admitting anything is for pussies.
I have been all over this country. Driven across it, hitchhiked across it, taken a Greyhound bus across it, freight hopped across it. I’ve met oil workers, hunters, “Free Cuba” activists, miners, pilots, military guys, bikers, migrant farmers, Dallas lawyers, and about a thousand pharmaceutical salesmen (don’t ask). I stayed on a hog farm, went to the “Jesse James Stampede” in rural South Dakota, broke down in a shanty town where everyone cooked outside. I’ve met people of all colors, classes, and dispositions. Except for a few predators and a couple of true nuts along the way, just about all of them were decent folk. I’m white, and my experience would have been different if I wasn’t. And yes, some were ignorant, or believed some crazy nonsense about aliens, or Jesus, or both. But for the most part they were generous people of goodwill who were just trying to get along and do right by their loved ones.
We are all spinning on this fragile little globe, somehow alive and aware. Take a look at the stars some night, if you can see them, and recognize the universe out there for what it is. HUGE. And as far as we know about life, we are it. Let that sink in a sec. Now ask yourself, how much of your precious time should you use shouting at some ape who’s terrified you want to take his guns. Don’t you have something bigger to contribute than blaming, complaining, accusing, and calling people names? Especially people you don’t know? Why not just do the truly liberating thing. Just shut your mouth. It might cheer you up.