A Look into the Toxic: Thirteen Ways Political and Social Debate is Done Wrong (Part Three)

A Look into the Toxic: Thirteen Ways Political and Social Debate is Done Wrong (Part Three)

Whereas Parts One and Two of this short series of blog posts covered those tactics and strategies, that though toxic, are usually done with good intentions, this final post will cover those which are not. I wouldn’t go as far to condemn anyone who commits one or multiple of these, but will say that they are worse for doing it.

As before, I’ll try to summarize, explain the temptation to using them, reaffirm why it’s not worth it, and offer some potential solutions. Afterwards, I’ll conclude this with the question of whether or not it’s worth it to reach across the table, to build bridges or not.

Gaslighting

Summary

Gaslighting is manipulating someone into questioning their sanity. It is more often associated with relationship than it is with politics. A romantic partner caught red-handed cheating, and then claiming it wasn’t him and her is probably the classic example. “Don’t trust what you saw or heard, trust what I’m telling you now.” “Don’t trust what you know to be true, just listen to me.” It is not a complicated tactic, it is merely questioning what someone knows to be True (not to be mistaken by what they believe in strongly as a value or opinion), but if successful can leave a person unsure of what they know and don’t, to not trust themselves.

The Temptation

Gaslighting can be an effective way of getting a one-up on someone not only in the short term, but the long term as well. It can effectively make them trust us more than they trust themselves. It is also one of the few ways to deal with being cornered. If we’re caught in a lie, in an act we weren’t supposed to do, if there is no logic or reasoning to justify our position, one option is to lie. We can claim we didn’t say something, act incredulous, be offended at being called out for something that’s clearly correct. We can try to make it about something unrelated, can change the rules of debate with no rhyme or reason other than to distract and manipulate.

It can throw someone we disagree with off of their footing.

The Problem

Making someone question their own sanity is really, really messed up.

It is also cowardice.

If we are cornered, gaslighting is indeed one way to deal with it. Accepting responsibility, admitting our faults, and trying to make amends is another way of handling it. We all make mistakes. Specifically when dealing with political and social matters we all at one point or another will believe in something proven false, will generalize a situation that requires nuance, will let our frustration get the better of us and say something we didn’t mean. Gaslighting is a means to avoid any responsibility for our actions, to adamantly refuse to learn and grow at the expense of others’ well-being.

It breaks down trust not only among people, but within as well.

Solutions

In Part Two I spoke of the problem with using friends and family to try leverage power over someone else, to use numbers against them. Here is where friends and family can help. Having loved ones reaffirm that no, you’re not crazy, can go a long way to push back against gaslighting. Even the most confident people need reassurance, and having people we can trust to support us can give us resolve against gaslighting.

When dealing with it directly, it’s important to not rule out lying or manipulation as a potential explanation. We all have different values, different perspectives, but this does not mean that every viewpoint shared holds truth or merit. Take time to consider any arguments or opinions that don’t seem to make sense. They might truly not make sense even after a more critical look at them. We can work to distinguish which are due to simply being different people, and which don’t add up regardless of our differences.

Attacking

Summary

For the sake of this post, attacking refers to INTENT. It can take many different forms from trolling, to personal insults, to even physical violence. It can be minor, just someone frustrated letting off a little steam in an unproductive and unhealthy way. It can be serious, even criminal if it gets to the point of stalking or worse.

Attacking is not mutually exclusive of other toxic ways we deal with politics, but the other ones (including the other four listed here in Part Three) can be more selfish or apathetic in nature as well. It’s for this reason, attacking takes its own separate listing. In this we are not interested in necessarily helping our own cause, in trying to progress our own views, our concern is to inflict some level of discomfort, annoyance, or harm against another.

The Temptation

Politics, society, and culture deal with very serious, very personal issues that grind against our values and even our well-being. Even topics that may not have a huge impact on our daily lives may still be something we hold sacred on a philosophical level.

And there are people out there who disagree with us, who if they have their way our lives or beliefs will be compromised in some way whether big or small. There are people out there who will on top of this be ugly about it from cursing, to threatening, to mocking, who will paint each of us regardless of our background or political outlook as un-American (or un-whatever your nationality may be), will define us as evil.

It’s enough to make most of us have the temptation to lash back, to feel that some people should be attacked either reactively or proactively.

The Problem

If our goal is to bridge gaps, to build an understanding, attacking is the opposite. It burns bridges instead of builds them, it severs ties as opposed to reinforcing them or creating new ones. Attacking is giving up on the chance to build any sort of consent or consensus moving forward.

And an eye for eye makes the world blind. Even if someone acts in a way that might warrant backlash, that backlash whether it is done out of a sense of justice or revenge will not make someone see things our way. It will be to punish them, not to try to solve any great issues or problems a hand.

Solutions

Don’t try to hurt people. 

And don’t accept being attacked.

We are in control of our own intentions, we have a choice whether we want to help our loved ones or attack our political rivals first and foremost. In most cases, if someone is insulting us, being demeaning, we don’t have to accept it. We can offer them a choice, to either calm down/have some respect/think about what they’re doing, or we can walk away. Not engaging in someone who is trying to harm us and will not stop is not a sign of weakness, it’s simply not wasting our time.

In regards to the more serious and dangerous methods of attacking, this is when the law needs to come in. Whether we have to appeal to law enforcement to uphold the law, or lawmakers to establish new legislation to better protect us, democracies are upheld by the general populace’s ability to express their political opinion peacefully and with goodwill. I understand that most if not all societies fail in this regard to at least some degree, but it is up to each generation to fight to better improve our laws and their enforcement to protect us inch by inch, mile by mile.

Patronizing and Trivializing

Summary

In this post, I am distinguishing “patronizing” as being primarily directed at a person, while “trivializing” as being more directed at a cause or concept. These are imperfect definitions, but ones I will use for the sake of lacking better terms.

Patronizing removes a person’s credibility. Someone is treated as too young, too ignorant, of belonging to a demographic group that is perceived as inferior, or even as unequal for an individual’s own personality quirks. Whether through the choice of words, the tone of voice, even mannerisms, it is a tactic that tries to establish a pecking order where another person is noticeably lower.

Trivializing removes the importance of an issue as not being worth the effort or time to discuss it. There are more important matters of aspects of a much larger conversation to discuss, or the topic at hand is less important than discussing nothing at all.

The Temptation

Should a scientist or an expert be on equal footing as a layman as an authority? Are all issues truly equal? Likely no in both cases. It makes it very easy to dismiss or disregard certain subjects and individuals as not being worth the time.

And time is limited.

We have the choose who we get information from, and what topics to spend our time considering and debating. No one has enough time to cover it all, even a head of state must decide which issues to tackle personally and which to delegate to others.

It is only one step further then to jump to the conclusion that if we personally do not have the time to cover all topics, to listen to all viewpoints, then those other topics and viewpoints aren’t worthy of attention, aren’t important in general. It’s easier to not accept that there are valid and important insights and discussions we’re not involved in, and assume we know everything we should.

The Problem

Patronizing and trivializing are cheap ways to avoid a meaningful dialogue, to dismiss another’s credibility before they have a chance to begin. Like “Shutting Down” in Part Two, it is the absence of discussing and understanding. What makes these tactics even worse is that they either tell someone they don’t matter, or what they care about doesn’t matter. It is this that makes them malicious, that takes away a person’s worth.

If we are trying to discuss what we feel is important and necessary, we are obliged to in return hear what other people find important and necessary. It is hypocrisy to dismiss another person’s passion and solely focus on our own. Speaking down to others robs a discussion of its merits. If who we’re speaking with is truly beneath us, then the discussion itself holds little meaning.

It’s one thing to give more credit to someone who’s an expert, who has done the time and research. It’s another to disregard someone else completely.

Solutions

People matter. Ideas matter. Keep these two ideas in mind when discussing political and social issues.

If someone patronizes us, engage with them as an equal, and hold firm on it. Our own words, tone, and body language can be used to assert ourselves. Confidence, respect, listening, we can set a better example. If someone trivializes an issue we care about, we can ask them what they care about, and ask them to empathize and consider how they’d feel if someone dismissed what they hold important.

“Yes, topic A is important or person X has good points, but so too is topic B and person Y.” Affirm what others value first, then assert our own beliefs. 

Dehumanizing/De-personifying

Summary

As I defined here: http://sonderandskepticism.blogspot.com/2017/09/why-philosophy-is-crucial-to-society.html, for this blog a human is defined as a biological species, a person is defined as someone worthy of merit. Whereas all of us are equally human, not all of us are equally people. My normal example is that we tend to see military veterans as having more personhood, worth giving extra benefits to for their sacrifice and service, and on the flip side we see convicted criminals as having less personhood, who must pay a fine or even go to prison for their crimes, giving up freedoms they once had.

Dehumanizing then is trying to suggest that certain human beings are in fact not truly or fully of the same species. De-personifying is not suggesting someone isn’t human, but is still less worthy of moral consideration. War propaganda is full of examples of these two methods. The enemy is not just people or government with irreconcilable differences, they are not people – or even human – at all. It is also the underlying belief behind racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry, that some demographic groups are inherently superior, despite all evidence to the contrary.

The Temptation

War is a painful, terrible thing when we comprehend the loss of life. It is easier, and likely more effective, to dehumanize the enemy rather than offer a nuanced, empathetic, and sober approach. It is far easier to be in opposition to monsters than it is other people. To a lesser extent, the same thing can be said of inequality and a lack of equity. It is more comforting to think that those with more rights and privileges have earned them, and those that do not have them are at fault for some reason or another.

It is also tempting to have a scapegoat. It is also tempting to establish ourselves as better than at least someone, at least one group. It is tempting to paint the opposition as less informed, as less moral, as less trustworthy in some way, shape, or form to then make our own selves, our own causes the righteous one. If someone is indeed less informed, less moral, less trustworthy, it’s one tiny step further to see them as less of a person.

The Problem

Democracies thrive off of recognizing the personhood, the humanity in all its citizens. No one, no matter who they may be, is afforded certain rights. When we start to qualify people as better or worse, as good or evil, as worthy or not, the potential implications are terrifying. If someone is not a person, or even a human, we excuse injustice that is committed upon them, we allow for things like bigotry, reducing social and economic mobility, and even genocide.

We also ignore the reality of who we are as a species.

We as humans are capable of miracles and tragedies, of kindness and cruelty. We are just as prone to repeat the history of our greatest heroes as well as our despised villains. If we dehumanize and de-personify our opposition, whoever that opposition may be, we run the risk of failing morally ourselves, of becoming the next movement or generation that is looked poorly upon by future generations.

Solutions

Accept that all of us are human. Accept that we are all people. Be very critical of who we offer up as exemplary people such as veterans, and who we look down upon as lesser people such as criminals. Be very critical how much we separate the exemplary and the lesser.

And push others to do the same. Call it out when a whole grouping of people whether by race, gender, political affiliation, nationality, or something else are generalized as either above or below. We are allowed to establish rules whether spoken or implied when discussing politics. Recognizing one another’s humanity can (and in my opinion should) be such a rule. When that rule is broken, whether someone targets us or someone else as less than a human or a person, it is time to stop. Give them the choice to either try again or step away as they cannot hope to both bridge gaps and push an agenda of dehumanizing and pe-personifying at the same time.

If bigotry is the issue itself we are debating, it is still important to hold a level of moral integrity, however big or small we feel confident we can work with.

Pride in Ignorance

Summary

We live in a complicated, nuanced world. Things are interconnected and the solution to one issue may in turn cause problems in other areas. There are people who spend entire careers trying to grasp at a better understanding of our cultures, our societies, our pasts, presents, and futures. Most of us do not.

And that is normal.

What I’m dubbing as “pride in ignorance” is putting our lack of knowledge as somehow worthy of respect, of recognition, of righteousness or purity. “I may not know much about X or Y, but I don’t have to because I’m right.” It is flipping things on their head where the more thought, effort, passion that we give to an issue makes us less qualified while the more we just go by without questioning or evaluating ourselves and our world the wiser we are.

The Temptation

Experts get things wrong.

All the time.

Scholars bicker back and forth in scholarly articles. Ideas that are good in theory fail when applied to real conditions. There are many kinds of intelligences and an outsider with a better academic background will lack certain wisdom and knowledge that locals have. Long-term experience can erode as times change and old methods no longer apply. New ideas will inevitably have to be tested out and will have to be tweaked with each failure.

It’s easy to see the supposedly smart people flail and stumble and question their ability, while on the flip side seeing people succeed despite being “ignorant”. It’s difficult to put our faith in those who spend more time and effort on issues, especially if we disagree with their conclusions. It’s a small step to then dismiss all their hard work altogether.

The Problem

All of us fail. All of us succeed. Neither are excuses to prevent us from striving to be more, to learn more, to experience more, to improve, enhance, and grow. What makes us stand out as a species is collective learning, that we can tap into the knowledge of past generations with relative ease, and then from that starting point continue to revise and add onto that knowledge. We owe many things to the hard work and accomplishments of the past, to those who pushed the boundaries and did not simply accept things, to be happy with their ignorance.

When we praise our own ignorance, we strip away the hard work of others. When we take away the value of education, science, philosophy, experience, and more we in turn de-value those in our world who are striving to make things better for us and future generations. It is for this reason I put this method of dealing with politics and society into the more malicious section.

Solutions

True learning is not an action, but a lifestyle, a mental state. If we are ignorant, that is okay, but we can then learn.  

When faced with not just ignorance, but the adoration of it, we can offer a helping hand. We can teach, we can show, we can point out the experiences that each of us have and how we are better for it. Why then should we stop? We all came into this world as infants unaware of most things. Why should we stop learning once we hit a certain age or other benchmark in our lives. If someone does not respect our conclusions or that of someone else, then push for respect of our or other people’s efforts. “That’s fine that you disagree with the scholar on this article, but take into account the effort they put into this.” “That is fine to think they’re wrong, but they’ve offered this set of evidence. Consider what evidence in return you can offer as a rebuttal.”

If we hold all of us to a higher standard, our discussions and debates in politics and society will in turn have more potential.

Is it Worth it?

Where do we draw the line between acceptance and justice? Is it truly worth it to reach across the table in the face of what we see as evil? Should those who wrong us or others be reasoned with?

I don’t know. I really don’t, and it’s a question I continue to ask myself. I may hold no love for the KKK, but here is a black man who befriended KKK members to bring about change: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes. I may hold contempt for online trolls and haters who only add fuel to the flames, but here’s one celebrity who reached out and helped someone who was ugly to her: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2018/01/08/a-man-trolled-sarah-silverman-on-twitter-she-ended-up-helping-him-with-his-medical-problems/?utm_term=.2525314fbf48.

But in turn I could pull up articles of hate crimes, of violence, of suffering most of us cannot fully comprehend. I can find individuals who no amount of compassion or understanding can change. I can find wrongs that no amount of reflection and facilitation can fully heal.

These three blog posts, along with my earlier entry of ten effective ways to deal with politics are not meant to convince us that we must use the good strategies (and avoid the bad) in every single case. That is up for us to decide. Instead, these are meant to offer helpful advice should we choose to bridge gaps, should we decide to take the challenge of being ethical in our debates.

I think it’s worth a shot.

***

ACTION!

In Part One I asked to reflect on which of these toxic methods we ourselves commit. In Part Two I asked to evaluate others whether those we know, or those we get information from such as the Press or politicians. For Part Three I ask you to really consider the question of who you are willing to bridge gaps with, who you want to. I encourage you to challenge yourself, to try to include those you may not be comfortable trying to reach a better understanding with, but also be fair to yourself and do what you can.

***

What’s Next?

I’ll have to think on this one. I’ll likely be doing a reflection on my job search, taking a look at my privilege even as I went through a stressful time in order to better illustrate the distinction between privilege and struggle, between privilege and happiness. I’ll likely also get around to sharing some of the knowledge I picked up from my Masters in Public Administration and some of the ways the public sector can and should succeed.