Burr: While
we’re talking, let me offer you some free advice: talk less.
Hamilton: What?
Burr: Smile
more.
Hamilton: Ha.
Burr: Don’t
let them know what you’re against or what you’re for.
Hamilton (2015)1
 |
| The discarded megaphone is, I think, vaguely intended as a metaphor for a reluctance to speak one’s mind. |
I’ll kick off with a heads-up that this post
is going to make mention of a number of issues which are surrounded by very
great and tempestuous controversy. I would like to draw attention to the fact
that I am not actually addressing any of those issues in this post.
Paradoxically enough, although I am advocating for the creation of a culture in
which we all feel able to express freely our opinions on controversial
subjects, I feel my argument will be more effective at displaying how such a
culture would benefit all sides of any given debate if it refrains from
actually taking any sides. The example Facebook statuses I mention have been chosen
because of the particular packaging with which they express certain opinions,
rather than the opinions themselves, which are comparatively common in my
Facebook newsfeed, and so more likely than others to show up clothed in the
aforementioned packaging. Although I do firmly disagree with the implications
of that packaging, I mean no disrespect to the people who posted these
statuses, as I hope the rest of this post will make clear.
Having got that little disclaimer out of
the way, I present for your consideration the following Facebook status, which
made an appearance on my newsfeed on the twenty-first of June this year:
Now compare this image which, when I
encountered it, was captioned thus: Dead serious, don’t care who you are.
And finally, consider the following status
which re-emerged on Facebook after picking up some extra commentary on Tumblr:
What do they all have in common? An
intention to stop associating with people on the grounds of their holding a
particular view. And frankly, unsurprising as it is that people generally
don’t like associating with other people whose views on a given subject they
find utterly abhorrent, such statuses strike me as rather damaging. The
implication is: I don’t want anything to do with people who disagree with me
about this matter. I want to surround myself solely with people who agree with
me, so that, in every interaction, I hear nothing but my own opinions reflected
back at me. I want to have it consistently affirmed that I am right to believe
what I do. I want to be reassured that, because I’m right, I am entirely justified
in ignoring anyone who disagrees with me, since anyone who does is, by default,
wrong.
I’m not saying that’s definitively what’s
going through someone’s head whenever he or she posts a status like the ones I
described, but I do think that these implications lie behind the sentiment. And
on top of that, it’s troublingly possible, in our modern world, to
create that kind of existence for oneself. Thanks to ever-increasing population
density, easy access to fast transport,2 and worldwide instant
communication technology, each of us is offered a much larger pool of humans
from whom we might select our friends than we would have had in previous
centuries. It’s a big enough pool that we can filter it with quite stringent
requirements and still end up with a good number of friends of a quality that
satisfies us. And as for the vast volume of rejected dregs that remain, well,
there’s no need to give them the time of day.3 They are, after all, wrong.
No, beyond that, they’re worse than
wrong. Because I never have to interact or engage with these people if I don’t
want to – and, of course, I don’t want to – I have no inkling of the
reasoning behind their opinions. All I know is the reasoning behind my own
opinions (and those of the people who agree with me), which I of course believe
is well informed, rationally sound, and morally upright (because I’m right). For
someone not to have formed the same opinion as me, therefore, he or she must
surely have followed a reasoning poorly informed, rationally unstable, or
morally dubious. In other words, anyone who disagrees with me is an ignoramus,
an imbecile, or a miscreant.
But of course, all the while, these people
who disagree with me are thinking exactly the same things about me and my
friends. As far as they’re concerned, it’s their reasoning that’s sound,
and mine that’s lacking, because they have chosen their friends as carefully as
I have mine to make sure the rightness of their views is affirmed at every
turn. So which of us is really the ignoramus, the imbecile, or the miscreant?
Or could it be that each of us has followed
a reasoning perfectly plausible within the realms of our own understanding of
the world, but that each of us has an understanding limited, biased, and flawed
in accordance with the limits to which we are confined and the biases to which
we are susceptible because of our flawed human nature? Could it be, in other
words, that it’s entirely possible to follow reasonable thought processes to
reach deviant conclusions?
Now, if that’s the case, surrounding myself
purely with people who agree with me seems like a distinctly bad idea. I think
it likely that, if people agree with me a lot, their limits and biases and
flaws are probably quite similar to mine – but if these are the only people I
really spend time with, I’ll end up with little awareness of these limits and
biases and flaws in myself, only a skewed vision of what’s normal, giving me
all the more reason to spurn people who disagree with me as aberrations. By
refusing to engage with people who I think are wrong, I deprive myself of the
opportunity to recognise my own prejudices, and so to learn, to improve, to get
closer to rightness. Furthermore, I deprive those other people of the same
opportunity. If I really believe I’m right and that holding my viewpoint is
beneficial, it shows something of a lack of concern for other human beings if
I’d rather have nothing to do with them than explain to them why I think the
way I do.
That said, it’s not about self-righteously
attempting to enlighten people of the error of their ways; that kind of
patronising attitude still casts the other party in the
ignoramus/imbecile/miscreant role. Rather, it’s about interacting as equals,
remembering that my opponent is a fellow rational human with as much right to
his or her opinion as I have to mine, however crude or vile or saddening I
might find said opinion.
It’s a difficult thing to do, which is
presumably why we’re so keen to avoid it, and instead to cushion ourselves in
nice, safe affirmation of what we already think. I’m not just talking about
engaging with people who subscribe to a different strand of what is ultimately
a similar philosophy to mine, but with people whose views provoke in me a
primitive desire to punch something very hard – because the fact is, people
genuinely hold those views, people who are as much rational beings as I am. If
I don’t wish to be dismissed and ignored as an ignoramus, imbecile, or
miscreant, then neither should I do the same to others. I need to engage, to
get to know them, to try to understand where they’re coming from. Quite
possibly I may, after all that, still think they’re totally, utterly, appallingly
wrong to hold the opinions they do – and they might still think exactly the
same about me – but neither of us stand much chance of getting closer to real rightness
if we assume we’re already there, and I don’t think profound disagreement on a
particular issue is preclusive of friendship or at least genuine tolerance. Plus,
who knows, I might even come round to agreeing with a view I previously found repugnant,
or manage to persuade the other party to do the same. It’s not as if it’s never
happened before. I’ve personally changed my mind quite significantly about a
number of issues over the past few years.
Though, of course, I have to really summon
my courage to say which ones, because I’m scared of being dismissed and ignored
as an ignoramus, imbecile, or miscreant on account of my deviant conclusions.
Footnotes
1 So Hamilton is coming to the West End in 2017 and I am
properly excited about it: http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/news/latest-news/article/item366775/hamilton-transfers-to-the-west-end-in-2017/.
To tide you over until you can go and see it, or if you’re clueless as to what
it entails and would like a whistle-stop tour, Range A Cappella’s seven-minute
medley is really quite stunning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxCJa6xFLz4.
2 Of which my favourite category is the train. Yes, folks, I am
a little bit of a train nerd – no Sheldon Cooper, but certainly in possession
of a more developed interest in railways than your average person. Because your
average person, at least in my own conversational experience, doesn’t even seem
to know what the Crossrail project is, let alone have any opinions about
it: http://www.crossrail.co.uk/.
3 A phrase whose origins are discussed in playscript form by
BBC Learning English: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/theenglishwespeak/2012/07/120703_tews_78_not_give_someone_time.shtml.
Dear me, I’m really scraping the bottom of the barrel for footnotes this week,
presumably because I’m very deliberately not referring to anything specific at
all within my main argument. I always feel I should give you at least three footnotes
per post, though, or it just looks as if I haven’t tried.
No comments:
Post a Comment