A wolf came upon a lamb who had wondered too far away from the security of the fold. Instead of simply attacking, the wolf resolved to justify to the lamb why it was that it should be eaten. ‘Last year, you grossly insulted me’, said the wolf. ‘Impossible’ cried the lamb, ‘I was only born six months ago.’ Then the wolf said, ‘You feed in my pasture.’ ‘No’, replied the lamb, ‘I have not yet tasted grass.’ The wolf then said, ‘You drink of my well.’ ‘No’, blurted the lamb, ‘I have not yet tasted water for as yet my mother’s milk is both food and drink to me.’ The wolf responded to this final declaration by seizing and eating the lamb, saying, ‘Well I refuse to go hungry simply because you refute my allegations.’

– The Wolf and the Lamb An Aesop’s Fable, via Nicola Rollock

I recently read another online essay by a well meaning white guy who really does his best to [subconsciously] define the status quo. I say “well meaning” because at the root of Sean Blanda’s essay about politics and social media is a message to stop hating on people who may have differing opinions, which is all fine and good. But I call him out and say he wants to “define the status quo” because it’s pretty clear to me that he is less concerned with who’s “right” or “wrong” and more concerned with setting the terms of engagement, which is something whiteness loves to do (I know because I’ve done this). This is evident when he writes:

“We should all enter every issue with the very real possibility that we might be wrong this time…This is not to say the Other Side is “right” but that they likely have real reasons to feel that way. And only after understanding those reasons can a real discussion take place.”

The sub-text of Blanda’s essay seems to suggest that if people were just not assholes to each other, and could cultivate a little more humility, empathy and understanding, things would be peachy. This may or may not be true; I do think that understanding, empathy and humility can go a long way when talking to people who have differing opinions, BUT, Blanda really does gloss over the fact that there ARE indeed bad ideas out there floating around and that it’s completely possible (and even likely) that people can be mean and angry and STILL have something worth listening to (more on this later).

At one point Blanda writes about the internet and social media:

“Online it means we can be blindsided by the opinions of our friends or, more broadly, America. Over time, this morphs into a subconscious belief that we and our friends are the sane ones and that there’s a crazy “Other Side” that must be laughed at — an Other Side that just doesn’t “get it,” and is clearly not as intelligent as “us.” But this holier-than-thou social media behavior is counterproductive, it’s self-aggrandizement at the cost of actual nuanced discourse and if we want to consider online discourse productive, we need to move past this.”

The above paragraph epitomizes about every article I’ve ever read which deals with the evils of the internet, social media, and online discourse. In other words, Blanda isn’t saying anything new here. The reality that the internet can be an “echo chamber” for those who don’t want their opinions to be challenged and who insist on hiding from risky insight is evident. Yes, it is undeniably true, to some degree, that the internet can become a battleground of disembodied voices yelling at and talking past one another. And with no context, and nothing at stake, it can get pretty ugly pretty fast, and so often nothing good comes from it…

That being said I have to confess. I’m a bit weary of hearing folks point out the disparities of technology with no mention of the dignities. I’ve personally been involved in many, many fruitful online conversations which have really helped shape my thinking and changed me for the better. But then I am one of those types of people who tends to try to be thoughtful, who likes to read theology and philosophy and likes write their thoughts down. Accordingly, there are literally thousands upon thousands upon thousands of nuanced, insightful blogs, essays, articles, books, videos, etc., to view on the internet. It seriously baffles my mind to think that the entirety of human knowledge could be at someone’s fingertips but somehow an absurd choice gets made to watch rap battles instead (OK, I’m guilty of this one. But you get my point!). If one insists on isolating them-self in echo chambers, or enjoys being a troll on internet comment threads, or would rather spend their time watching cat videos and getting their news from facebook memes, then I would suggest the problem isn’t necessarily the technology but the person who is failing to engage in the type of serious nuanced study and in-depth conversation that that technology may indeed enable.

Further, “self-aggrandizement at the cost of actual nuanced discourse” is not unique to the internet! The easiest example I can think of right now to point to is political discourse in the U.S., with a specific focus on how current GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump communicates. Surprise! Donald Trump doesn’t make nuanced arguments based on policy, he doesn’t try to persuade or understand the “other side.” No, he makes assertions based on power, which is obviously the sole currency for Trump. For folks like Trump, the “other side” surely is dumb. No question about it.

With this in mind, my question to Sean Blanda, and others like him (who seem to think that all our problems could be solved with a little common courtesy), would be this: what happens if one party (a more powerful, privileged party for instance) isn’t willing to be humble and attempt to understand the other party’s opinions? What happens then? Or, what if one party does what they’re supposed to do and humbly investigates the reasons why someone holds a certain view/opinion/stance and that view/opinion/stance is still deemed as foolish and harmful in the eyes of the one who did the humble investigating? Are we to throw our hands up in stale mate, chalking it up to a mere relativistic difference of opinion, and allow those harmful ideas to go on thriving, potentially causing more harm to others down the line?

I do think Blanda means well, attempting to call us to deeply empathize with each other in his essay. We should be thoughtful and humble and attempt to understand an other’s stance before we criticize it; this does seem like common sense courtesy to me, honestly. And yes, scoring points among those who think like us is a trap that is easy to fall into. Blanda thinks we should all agree that “refusing to truly understand those who disagree with you is intellectual laziness,” and maybe he’s right. But, again, I do have to ask myself this: does my potential failure to “truly understand” someone preclude that person from indictment? I have to say no it doesn’t. For example, I don’t need to fully understand someone’s past, or their carefully nuanced reasons, to fiercely condemn their hate speech. Likewise, as I’ve written before, I think it behooves us to also continually challenge dysfunctional, oppressive ideas and systems that attempt to stifle Divine creative process. Of course it’s not a good thing to be intellectually lazy, and yeah let’s try to avoid this. But it could very well be argued that not being passionate and protesting potentially bad and harmful ideas, letting them perpetuate and cause prolonged despair, is worse yet.

Tags:critical race theoryinternetpoliticsSean Blandasocial media