I’ve repeatedly seen that many people lack the courage to publicly say what they believe. They either stay silent on critically important issues or they pretend to align themselves with a prominent tribe in public discourse. Those who who speak their minds even occasionally pay the price in the West, where cancel culture has been honed to a high art form. This immense problem has been described and diagnosed by The Canceling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott.
I am horrified by these statistics because of the deep and somewhat subconscious interplay that exists between our public side and our private thoughts. When we get into the habit of publicly pretending we are someone else, we corrupt our capacity to learn and grow organically and authentically. We become our public silence and lies.
Hannah Arendt was concerned about the long term effect of a dishonest society:
The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.
What is the solution? Speaking up even though you know that you’ll be snarled at. Most of us will live to see another day. Most of us won’t lose our jobs or lives, even though we will lose some of the people we considered our friends. We will gain new, more honest and forthright, friends. And you are probably not alone with regard to your position on most issues. Consider these additional statistics:
People privately agree on most issues.
For two-thirds of the sensitive issues studied (43 of 64), ranging from abortion rights and school choice to legal immigration and voter ID requirements, 90% of demographic groups are privately on the same side of the issues.
Men and women have similar views.
A majority of men and women are on the same side of 57 of the 64 sensitive issues in this study.
