I don't follow auto racing, but I love this video. It's a metaphor for the amazing things that people can do when they work together, as a team. In this particular case, they can change four tires in 2 1/2 seconds.
According to this article by Hyrum Lewis ("Our Big Fight Over Nothing: The Political Spectrum Does Not Exist"), the political "spectrum" is primarily tribal. Lewis states that many of the respective policy positions in the platforms of each of the two main political parties are not glued together by overarching consistently applied principles. These conclusions of Lewis run counter to the writings of George Lakoff, who (in his book, Moral Politics) argues that Republican positions derive from the metaphor of a "stern father," whereas the Democrat positions derive from the metaphor of the "nurturant parent." To the extent that Lewis is correct and that Lakoff has overstated his case, this is an inconvenient fact for those of us who claim that our political stances are completely principled, not adopted as the result of social pressure. Here are a few excerpts from Lewis' article:
In the essentialist theory, ideologies are unchanging, transcendent principles, while parties are evolving social organizations that can be “captured” by the ideologies. In the social theory, by contrast, ideologies don’t capture parties; parties capture ideologies—that is, they redefine them. Once again, research supports the latter: what is considered “right-wing” or “left-wing” is simply whatever the Republican and Democratic Parties happen to stand for at a given moment. Left-right ideologies are tools of self-delusion—they let us indulge the fantasy that our partisanship is principled rather than tribal, i.e., that there is some noble ideal connecting all the distinct and unrelated issues that our party happens to support. But essentialist predictions do not hold up to reality. . .An alternative to this essentialist theory is the “social theory” of ideology, which says that distinct political positions correlate because they are bound by a unifying tribe. If the right-wing team is currently in favor of tax cuts and opposed to abortion, then those who identify with that team will adopt those positions as a matter of social conformity, not because both are expressions of some underlying principle.
... Public opinion polls further reinforce the point, showing that left-right ideologues often switch their beliefs to conform to the tribe. In the past decade alone we’ve seen self-described conservatives go from being anti-Russia to more pro-Russia, strongly pro-trade to strongly anti-trade, believing that personal character matters a great deal in politicians to believing that it matters hardly at all, staunchly interventionist in foreign policy to staunchly isolationist. Where is the “essence” behind all of this variation? It doesn’t exist. The views associated with left and right are constantly shifting for social reasons that have nothing to do with essential principles.
I enjoy spending time with many of the people on Facebook. I’ve also had to endure more than a few rude exchanges with other Facebook users. On several occasions over the past two years, I’ve reached out to a FB user from my city who seemed rude. I sent a private FB message and I wrote something like this: “Hey, I’d bet that we have a lot in common. Would you be interested in having a face to face conversation, perhaps over coffee?” Several people accepted my invitations and every one of these conversations was cordial and productive. Several of these relationships are ongoing. We don’t agree on everything, but these in-person conversations are well worth it. I get the gift of learning how to see the world through the eyes of another person and that’s always a good thing. Also, we inevitably find out that we have many things in common, just as Donald Brown established in his classic 1991 work: “Human Universals.”
Over the past couple of years, it seems that FB has become an even more contentious place. It is increasingly expected that people will preach at each without a willingness to be changed by new information. When I offer information or ask a question on FB, I often receive huffy pushbacks, accusations, ridicule and name-calling instead of open-minded fact-finding and a willingness to start the conversation by finding each other where we are. The bad behavior we see is clearly not how adults should be interacting, but I don’t place all of the blame on the FB users. The format of social media dehumanizes us to each other, making it easy to lash out at mere words on a page, distracting us from the reality that real human beings seeking connections are writing those words. This is more than a frustration. This non-stop boorish behavior is convincing us that it is impossible to have conversations with those who see the world differently than we see it.
With this in mind, I’d like to offer FB this free idea: Face2Facebook. Here’s how it would work. If you believe that someone is being rude to you on FB, click the Face2Facebook button and it will bring up a scheduling app for both you and “the rude person.” The app asks both of you to designate various times when you would be available to have a ten-minute video conversation through FB. When that date and time arrives, the app will encourage you to start by getting to know each other as people by discussing a bit about each other’s family, community and interests. Only then should you ask each other about the topic that gave rise to the contentiousness. If you are both brave, you’ll listen to each other with open minds, putting each other’s best foot forward. A timer will ding after ten minutes, at which point you can (but need not) say farewell to each other. The best outcome is that each of you will be reminded that you were communicating with another human being. You will be reminded that there was a person behind those words. Perhaps the app will ask you to rate each other on whether you were good listeners. After you complete the ten-minute video conversation, Face2Facebook will publish a public acknowledgement that the two of you reached out to each other and had a conversation.
Not that every conversation will be easy or fun, but isn’t this worth a try? Maybe that conversation will change how you think about a topic. Then again, that video might only reveal that that “53-year old engineer” was a 14-year old boy whose highest aspiration is piss others off. If the other person refuses to talk to you on a video, perhaps this could be indicated on their profile so that the FB community would see statistics regarding who requests conversations and who cowardly refuses to meet on Face-to-Facebook.
This is only a rough draft idea, not a polished app. I don’t know if this is really workable. I do hope that FB might consider something like this because we desperately need something to get us out of our social media downward spiral.
I'm receiving ever-more angry barking and name-calling instead of explanations from those advocating political positions across the entire spectrum. Also,it seems that we should give the phrase "I don't know" a formal official burial this year. The phrase has disappeared from social media, along with its siblings, humility and self-critical thought.
This post was inspired by this Tweet by Geoffrey Miller:
Here’s how I would explain the violent George Floyd protests to a Martian anthropologist.
The U.S. Constitution gives a theoretical “right” to free speech but not a real-life ability to speak powerfully or widely. Whereas money and power give rich people many ways to blast out their messages, ordinary Americans wanting to get out their messages often get eaten in the public square by street vultures. Consider these two examples.
When Donald Trump wants to make an announcement, he commands dozens of types of federal military and police organizations. This allows Trump to calmly walk up to a podium or stroll down the street in order to tell Americans what a smart man he is, or how religious or healthy or whatever. While he stands up there flatulating these lies, no one interrupts Trump because he controls a massively expensive and well-armed system of law enforcement officers and they extend their perimeter so widely that unfriendly others can’t get close. If any protestors try to get close enough to interrupt Trump’s bombastic bullshit, Trump’s police officers and soldiers throw their asses into jail.
Compare this to the George Floyd protests, where many thousands of ordinary Americans took to the streets, but they were then on their own. Ordinary Americans don’t control law enforcement. They cannot control their perimeters in order to safely deliver their message without interruption. As we’ve seen over and over, as soon as the heartfelt protestors get started delivering their messages in the public square, the area becomes an undefended magnet for uninvited masses of miscreants: anarchists, vandals, arsonists, inciters of violence and many others who clearly don’t give a shit about George Floyd. Virtually every time ordinary people gather together by the hundreds or thousands, their message gets corrupted because ordinary Americans do not have the money or power to hire hundreds of law enforcement officers to control their perimeter. Their message gets diluted by broken glass, thrown bricks and burning businesses, as well as horrible injuries, shattered dreams and gruesome deaths. Following this widespread mayhem, the heartfelt protestors get blamed for something they never planned or intended. The many people who simply wanted to bring attention to George’s Floyd’s murder are accused of intentionally destroying America’s central cities. The photos appearing in the mass media are Exhibits A-Z.
That’s how it almost always ends for those without great amounts of money and power. That is how it is in this Land where everyone only has the right to pointlessly yell out their grievances in their own living room or from their front porch. This is the Land where people of modest means can no longer assemble in peace to deliver stinging rebukes to corrupt politicians because they do not have the money or power to control and deliver a message in the public square, no matter how important that message is.