Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
This past Christmas holiday I listened to the audio versions of George Orwell’s 1984 and then Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World back to back. The contrast is best described in a comic by Stuart McMillen, based on Neil Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’, shared below.
But before reading the comic take a look at this video interview of Aldous Huxley in 1962, Love Your Servitude:
Both Orwell’s and Huxley’s dystopian worlds are scary, but Huxley’s is a little more chilling in how it connects to the world we live in today.
It is wishful thinking to hope that people will not be fooled again by QAnon. This is a sad but true statement. The reality is that people are natural puzzle solvers who seek to make connections. We want to make sense of the world, and this leaves some people vulnerable to suggestions that there are connections that are not really there.
Our brains extrapolate, they naturally extend ideas. This has made us incredibly inventive and creative people. This has not helped us distinguish fact from fiction. This is where extrapolation goes very wrong. I think the problem is that while our brains are seeking to extrapolate and extend ideas, they are stimulated towards possible connections and simultaneously let down our bullshit detectors. Our brains really struggle to seek new connections while at the same time make good judgements about those connections we are seeking.
Have you ever played 2 Truths and a Lie?
Try to pick out my lie:
1. I’ve illegally bungee jumped off of a local bridge.
2. I cheated on, and successfully passed, the LSAT.
3. I stole a neighbour’s car when I was 17, dented the fender, and put it back without him knowing I took it.
Which one did you pick?
I know this doesn’t paint a very nice picture of me. I wanted you to see my dark side. Now before you even pick the lie, you are probably extrapolating things about me and the kind of person I really am. You also probably extrapolated that statement #3 was a truth because it is more believable and more detailed than the other two.
However, here is a strategy I used: I told 3 lies. In one easy step, I could’ve convinced you that 2 lies are true. It’s that easy to convince someone of a lie… or in this case 2 lies.
I’ve never bungee jumped, never wrote the LSAT, and never stolen a car. But had I not told you that, had I picked one as the lie, you probably would have believed the other two. What’s scary is, the more you know me, and the more credibility I have, the easier it is for me to fool you.
Here is an example in the media: This is how people like Tucker Carlson can dupe viewers over and over again. In this article, Fox News lawyers argued in court that Carlson is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’
They argued this in a libel lawsuit where Carlson was being sued and, “The Court concludes that the statements are rhetorical hyperbole and opinion commentary intended to frame a political debate.” Fox News told the court that this is what Tucker Carlson does, he doesn’t report news… and the judge agreed and they won the case. Think about this! Fox News said Tucker Carlson’s show is not news, but just exaggerated opinion.
However, he is broadcasted on a ‘News’ show, that gives him credibility. To a fan of his: He is in ‘your’ living room with you 5 nights a week. And he feeds you tiny little, often convincing lies… or should I say ‘exaggerated opinions’. Next you go to even less reliable websites and you hear the Tucker Carlson lies being repeated. Other lies are added to the things you know are true because you heard it on Fox ‘News’ from your buddy Tucker Carlson, and you extrapolate that these must be true too.
That’s right Dave is a car thief, oh and he cheated on the LSAT’s, and I seem to recall that he illegally jumped off a bridge too… The other interesting thing about our memory is that we don’t often remember what the lie was and we can easily put the lie in with the other ‘truths’.
Some people eventually catch on.
Many others will get fooled again. It’s sad but true.
An adult does not know when more information and knowledge has ceased to provide more wisdom.
When blind privilege provides an advantage it does not know that this advantage has been bestowed.
When ignorance is spoken it does not know that it is spoken while lacking relevant information.
Anger does not know how it clouds rational thought.
Hate does not know how to foster love or forgiveness.
A biased person does know their subjectivity lacks objectivity.
An irrational person does not know that their judgments are clouded.
The delusional does not know their view of the world is altered.
The hypocrite does not know their words do not meet their own standards or revered beliefs.
The fool does not know when they are being fooled.
To tell a child that they they are too young to understand; To tell an adult they are not wise enough to understand; To tell the blindly privileged that they are privileged; To tell the angry or hateful not to be angry or hateful; To tell the biased, irrational, or delusional of their faulty perspectives; to call a hypocrite a hypocrite, or a fool a fool… These are vain and futile attempts to share what you know with someone that does not know.
To be noble in principle, thoughtfully persuasive, and influential in a way that can be heard is no easy task. Knowing when you can be convincing and when efforts are futile is not always clear. To believe that you can change a fixed mind is a fool’s errand, but to give up on a fixed mindset that can be changed is a lost opportunity to have meaningful influence.
The new year does not bring any tangible changes as a result of our planet crossing an arbitrary point in our rotation around the sun.
The new year brings hope, for a heard immunity against Covid-19, thanks to a number of different vaccines.
The new year does not bring any immediate relief from the spread of Covid-19, with a greater threat of spread due to a more contagious new variant coming out of the UK.
The new year brings resolutions and promises of self-improvement and ambitious goals.
The new year does not bring any promise of fulfilling these new goals without a dedicated effort to change habits and behaviours.
The new year brings a political and ideological shift in power in the United States.
The new year does not bring a promise of less divisiveness in the American people who seem too ideologically divided.
The new year brings inconsistent approaches to dealing with the virus, from being scarily too open to being confusingly too locked down.
The new year does not bring any promise of clarity about how best to deal with the virus while we wait for widespread vaccine distribution.
The new year brings continued paranoia and conspiracy filled misinformation, shared virally on social media.
The new year does not bring any way to meaningfully combat the spread of bad ideas.
The new year brings anticipation for a better year than 2020.
The new year brings promise of post pandemic world.
The new year brings opportunity for positive change.
The new year brings us more of the same, unless we choose to think, say, and act differently.
Let’s be different, better, more loving, kind, and caring… to ourselves, our community, and our environment. We do not get to choose the world we live in, but we do get to choose our impact on it and those in our community we share it with.
“The worst form of injustice is pretended justice.” ~Plato
The world I see today has many people using the word justice… but in defence of unjust ideas.
This is the crazy world we live in.
People talk about defending their freedoms by doing things that undermine the communities they live in… the very communities that offer those freedoms!
No, enforcing a mask policy isn’t an infringement of your rights, it’s preventing a lockdown that will reduce your freedoms while we take care of our community.
No, stricter gun laws in the US are not infringing on your constitutional amendment rights, but they will reduce easy, dangerous, and deadly weapons access to unfit people that are likely to harm your community.
No, your flat earth or QAnon conspiracies based on pseudoscience and fake facts are not counter-arguments to actual science, and don’t get equal footing in an argument.
No, right wingers are wrong to think left wing ideals are a path to a socialist controlling government that will strip away your rights. And no, left wingers, being violent against opposing views, because you disagree with them, isn’t a left wing ideal: It’s fascist and authoritarian to block free speech.
No, media outlets you should not be sensationalizing the news by polarizing ideas. You are not reporting news when you do this, you are selling out. You are sacrificing factual reporting for the price of views and clicks. You are not reporting, you are entertaining, angering, and dividing people with bias on the verge of being called propaganda.
Justice, rights, freedoms, and truth are no longer things that have the meaning they intended. They are empty words filled with polarized and rationalized meanings shared by less convincing and less reliable sources. Each ‘side’ believes these words belong to them. But words only have meaning when their definitions are shared.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the whole world is watching as a few states count their final votes in the US Presidential Election.
Here are some creative people poking fun at Nevada taking so long…
Warning: This last one is rude, but it cracked me up and it’s where I got the title for this post.
And here’s a news flash, it looks like both Pensilvania and Nevada have finally counted enough votes and the election is now decided… Back to the serious politics we go!
((Source: The Guardian at 9:25am PST, Nov. 7, 2020))
Lies are soft and squishy. They can be whatever shape you want. They are convenient. [They fit into any world view.] The Truth is hard and spiky. Hard to embrace. Worth embracing.
I’m absolutely amazed at how many (smart, educated) people are sucked into conspiracy theories and exaggerated (and clearly misrepresented) statistics that fit their world view… even when the theories are debunked.
Example : A US educator that I know shared this October 25, 2019 Joe Biden Tweet, which was a response to another tweet from a Washington Post article on pandemic preparedness:
We are not prepared for a pandemic. Trump has rolled back progress President Obama and I made to strengthen global health security. We need leadership that builds public trust, focuses on real threats, and mobilizes the world to stop outbreaks before they reach our shores. https://t.co/1qqpgayUEX
This is the top reply which has been retweeted 71 times and liked 359 times at the time of me sharing this:
It’s absolutely ridiculous that someone with such influence can spread a conspiracy theory that the pandemic was planned. But it’s convenient. It fits her world view.
The problem is that is so much easier to cherry pick lies and convenient half-truths than it is to actually embrace and meaningfully interpret facts that don’t match biased opinions.
Sometimes lies are easy and the truth is hard… it’s spiky… But we want to live in a society where the hard truth is embraced, even if it isn’t something we want to hear.
The TermsRed PillandBlue Pillrefer to a choice between revealing an unpleasant truth, represented by the red pill, or to remain in blissful ignorance, represented by the blue pill. These terms are in reference to the 1999 filmThe Matrix. ~ Wikipedia
We are living in a red pill/blue pill moment, except people are colour blind and everyone thinks they are taking the red pill.
Right now it seemslike I chose the right #OneWord for 2020: Resilience. But as you read my last post of 2019, written before we learned about the impending pandemic, remember something… We are social beings and we are not incredibly resilient on our own. We need a community, we need friendship and love, we need each other.
Relationships, be they with family, friends, co-workers, student/teacher, and even pets, build our resilience, and our ability to not just cope, but to thrive.
Let’s support one another and show our resilience together!
If I were to pick 2 words for 2020, I might pick “Growth Mindset”, but if I’m only choosing a single word, it would be:
Resilience
The world needs this word right now. Here are some specific places I see a need to pay attention to this #OneWord in 2020.
In Schools:
Student anxiety seems to be on the rise, and anxiety lowers resilience and the willingness to try new things. Words seem to ‘injure’ students in ways that victimize them rather than make them stronger. This is not to say that students should tolerate bullying or inappropriate language or slander, rather they should speak up, defend themselves, and report poor behaviour. Instead it seems that they feel wounded and do not act. This is a sensitive topic, but one where I’ve seen a greater awareness of adults who want to support students and at the same time I see students allowing words to hurt them deeply, giving too much power to the transgressor.
In Politics:
I said this inIdeas on a Spectrum,“In a civil society, dialogue is the one problem-solving strategy that should be sacred. To do this, free speech is essential. But right now there is a culture of ‘attack the opposition’ that is very scary.“– We need to be resilient when hearing opposing views, and understand that, “…we must be tolerant and accepting ofopposingviews, unaccepting ofhateful and hurtfulacts, and smart enough to understand the difference.”When wecan’thaveconversations with people that have different political views, wedon’tgrow as acultureor as asociety.
In Online Spaces:
People will make mistakes online.They will say things that areunintentionallyhurtful, or blindly offensive.This isdifferentthansomeonebeingintentionallybiased and rude.If the slander isintentional, it should bereported.If it isunintentional, even to the point ofignorance, we need to be moreresilientabout what ourresponses are. When every transgression is treated with an attack, the most severe/bigoted/rude/biased transgressions are not given the heightened alarm that they deserve. With lesser errors and mistakes, we need to let people have a venue to recognize their errors and invite conversation rather than damnation.
Growing up, I heard the playground retort to taunts, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never harm me.” We are past the era of letting nasty people say whatever nasty things they want, and just turning the other cheek to pretend we are not hurt. This is a good thing. We want to live in a world where that behaviour is not acceptable. But it does not serve us well to treat the attacker like they can not repent or be sorry. It does not serve us to let the words said hurt us too deeply. By being resilient we can speak up, clarify our perspective, and engage in conversations that help us feel empowered rather than victimized.
Resilience allows us to be strong, flexible, and engaged in a society that is the kind of society we want to live and thrive in.
Growing up, I heard the playground retort to taunts, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never harm me.” We are past the era of letting nasty people say whatever nasty things they want, and just turning the other cheek to pretend we are not hurt. This is a good thing. We want to live in a world where that behaviour is not acceptable. But it does not serve us well to treat the attacker like they can not repent or be sorry. It does not serve us to let the words said hurt us too deeply. By being resilient we can speak up, clarify our perspective, and engage in conversations that help us feel empowered rather than victimized.
