Seriously, Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Plus, a Way for Us to All Get Along*
The following makes reference to an earlier, similarly titled article that I wrote roughly a year prior. If you have not read that piece, then you are certainly not alone, but it would be swell if you want to check it out. It has neat flowcharts and stuff.
At the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, I held out hope that the unprecedented time of crisis may hold an opportunity to heal our rabid division, that the critical reality might snap us out of our tribal fervor and spur us toward much-needed cooperation.
Well, that was the hope.
Instead, what we saw was months of tensions building through economic turmoil and cabin fever, and then subsequently boiling over, catalyzed by tragedy. We saw riots, bloodshed, a bizarre minor act of secession in Seattle, and generally growing unrest. What seemed like an untenable political situation has somehow become less tenable, and we find ourselves potentially on the brink of Civil War.
Double Bubble Trouble
It seems bad, but is it all as bad as it seems? To that, the answer lies somewhere between maybe and it’s complicated.
The Social Media Age has a way of distorting things. Any topic du jour is treated as a matter of life and death, stirring the tribal fervors whipped up yesterday and the day before. And when everyone shares the microphone, it’s the loudest voices that are ultimately heard, those that command likes and shares with fiery rhetoric. Some are rabble-rousers, excited by their ability to make an impact and elicit a following in this wild new age of discourse. Some are local criers, channeling their passion along to their friends and families. Some, frankly, are unwell, and should really get off social media for their own sake, but turning off is a tall order when the fate of the world is at stake.
These are real people, for the most part, but the presence of these passionate posters may be somewhat exaggerated. They are, after all, not only the loudest, but frequently the most prolific posters on the internet’s political spheres, flooding Twitter, Facebook, and the like with wave after wave of scalding hot takes. Moreover, as blog-style news media, à la Huffpost and Salon, evolve, many will crowdsource out to social media fanatics, if those fanatics weren’t already the ones writing for them. And if it seems like these tribal hardliners seldom question their own, consider — why should they bother? Why would they expend their emotional and physical energy to second-guess the excesses of their own team, of their own compatriots fighting on the virtual fronts?
Likewise, consider our seemingly disappearing political middle. Why would they bother with the social media political hellscape at all? When so many friendships and relationships are crumbling in the face of political disagreement, when fears of losing ones livelihood for expressing the wrong opinion are running high, what rational person would? All this is not to say that those staying out of the common discourse are wholly neutral — they may fall anywhere on the political spectrum — but the enigmatic silent majority they form further clouds the internet’s picture of public opinion.
Unfortunately, the monster that is social media has a way of twisting reality into its image. It is our primary marketplace of public opinion, momentarily inaccurate as it may be, and it serves as both a bellwether for traditional media news and opinions, and an increasingly popular news source in its own right. For both ideas and individuals seeking public prominence, success on new media is paramount.
What follows is an energy game — a test of who or what can best rouse and invigorate the populace, of who can get the loudest voices to echo their calls. Likely the most notable victor of this game is our current president, who seized upon populist rhetoric and the increasing dissonance of the opposing party to fuel an Election Day win few saw coming. The so-called “Squad” of House Progressives followed a similar formula, going loud, brash, and direct en route to upsetting mainstream primary incumbents and claiming the spotlight in the nation’s highest legislative body. The talking points and ideas that have borne fruit in the past half-decade are also indicative of this paradigm, from populist and identitarian worldviews that paint our societies in broad strokes and stark colors, to conspiracy theories built upon profound distrust of elites and institutions.
As incredibly effective as these ideas and individuals are in stoking fires among their faithful, they are perhaps even better at alienating and offending those not so inclined to agree. The deeper our political tribes go into their bubbles, the more alien their thoughts and representatives — again, selected for their power to inflame and evangelize within the tribe — will appear to others. All this amounts to dwindling prospects for productive communication, and an accelerating spiral towards a real-life version of the social media political sphere, a tribal battleground ruled by passion. It is not a good place.
Can We Go On Together with Suspicious Minds?
At the core of our festering strife is a profound societal collapse of trust. There is enormous distrust towards our president (especially from the Left), enormous distrust towards the media (especially from the Right), and generally enormous distrust towards our institutions and each other. This distrust justifies extremes and escalations, and makes any kind of productive discourse, and any kind of effective problem resolution, seemingly impossible.
The impact of this breakdown is well exemplified by current debate, if it can even be called debate, around expanding mail-in voting. The American Right, by and large, is convinced that such a move would inevitably lead to rampant fraud, error, and chaos. The American Left, in turn, seems convinced that mail-in is the way of the future, and that Trump and co. are just trying to hold the people down. Certainly, there is a discussion that should be had, about the potential problems that could arise with such voting reform, about the best ways to combat them, and about what alternatives might look like. And while a few are approaching the topic as the complicated issue it is, the seemingly prevailing sentiments are little more than social media-propelled ships passing in the night.
The sentiments around mail-in voting echo previous discourse around voter registration and fraud. In each case, accusations around abuses of power — that Republicans have and would misappropriate ID requirements to suppress voters, that Democrats have and would enroll those who should not be legally enrolled — were bandied about with fervor and contempt, and received with incredulity and disgust. Where a more civil discourse would acknowledge potentials for abuse and ensure thorough checks upon them, ours devolved into folly, neither side trusting the other to hold any power at all, neither able to see its own potential to fail and mis-wield.
Furthering this distrust is the pervasive notion that one’s opposing tribe is driven by ill intent, that they are hucksters, grifters, and plotters bent on destruction. Sadly, this notion draws closer to reality the more widespread it becomes, our increasingly hostile environment creating a perfect breeding ground for snake oil salesmen, demagogues, and nefarious foreign actors. Chaos is a ladder, after all, and our misgivings about political enemies can become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy if we allow them to enamor us.
At the risk of belaboring the point, things do not look good right now. Our political tribes are locked constantly in heated battle, and they cannot see through the fog just how futile their war is. Every perceived momentary victory — a Trump triumph, a progressive coup, an attempted cultural transformation — serves to inflame the other side, to increase hostility, to invite malice and corruption to a society lost in internal strife. If we do not cure ourselves of this deep division, then the conflict can only end very, very badly.
The Part Where I Propose a Brilliant Solution for Everybody to Get Along
Okay, maybe not. But I can share with you an old joke, so that’s something.
In my younger days, people would ask how it was that I came to be in the political center, when so few around me shared my leanings. And yes, I observed, I came from a family of hawkish, fiscally conservative Soviet immigrants, and grew up in the deepest of deep-blue Massachusetts communities — few moderates around. But in all the I time spent around these camps, hearing them yell on and on how the other was crazy, I came to realize — they were right!
I thought this was quite clever at the time, but the truth is that I saw a lot more to these people than raving partisanship. In those around me on the right, I saw a passion for personal responsibility and a valuing of tradition and all the positive things we can learn from those who came before us. In those around me on the left, I saw a willingness to question conventional knowledge and a passion for working to change things for the better. These are fundamental human perspectives that we need in order to be able to challenge and better each other in a well-functioning society. Their coexistence is a thing worth fighting for.
Our new age of communication is not going anywhere, but that does not mean we need to resign ourselves to endless ideological bubbling and tribal warfare. The appetite for something rational, something sensible, something other than the rhetoric we’ve been fed for the last half-decade, has never been greater, and it is more possible than ever to “activate” those who have remained mostly silent. Slowly, people are beginning to realize the folly of present-day discourse. There is something to work with here.
Still, if we are to strive to bring moderation, open-mindedness, pragmatism, nuance, or any other Awesome Things back into the conversation, we must understand the environment within which the conversation is being held. Any noble message that is to succeed must be one crafted to succeed within the social media-driven landscape — it must be resonant, it must be easily digestible, and it must invite rapid propagation.
And if you’re wondering why my tone has been lighter at some points than it would seem this sort of discussion should carry, well, that’s me attempting to play the game, to put together something entertaining enough for people to seek out and enjoy. Of course, I also did that within a 1,500-word Medium article, at a time when I have no built-up audience, so perhaps my prospects aren’t the best.
But you, Dear Reader, you’re different. You can change this world. You can save us. I believe in you. Godspeed.
*- Success not guaranteed
Cover photo by Nikola Johnny Mirkovic on Unsplash
