I know, I know. I get it. But I also believe that you gotta relate to people via the stuff they care about. You have to get people to care using the language/metaphors they already understand.
This is why scientists and science communicators are coached to use ânaturalâ numbers - you donât say somethingâs 200 meters long; you say itâs the length of 2 football fields. You say that something is as small as the period at the end of this sentence and that if you put all of the thing from end to end, it would stretch to the moon and back. People donât think in microns and lightyears; they just donât. You have to give them stuff that means something.
You donât say that someone has a 20% chance of dying from the disease; you say that four out of five people survive it. You use the things people understand, even if the words sound painfully silly and you are dying of embarrassment just using them, because it just works better. The people can understand it, itâs meaningful to them, theyâll remember it, they will use it in their lives now.
It would be nice if everyone cared about research and data - if everyone was informed and engaged, and came out of the womb with a good grasp of the scientific method and a working knowledge of the civic institutions of their country. But they donât and theyâre not, so what are you going to do about it? Hopefully, youâll give them the knowledge you have in a way that makes it easy to receive.
So when I ran off the rails in a tumblr post, getting overexcited about the impact of a restructured Supreme Court on the welfare of the USA in the next 50 years, I used Harry Potter metaphors. I cringed a little, because I feel like the SCOTUS is so interesting and important that we shouldnât have to relate to it through the lens of decade-old YA literature, but I did it.
I said we âhavenât destroyed Scaliaâs horcruxesâ (Meaning: we canât undo the legacy of a Justice even after their death, because the things they create to survive them are functionally immortal - except in very specific situations where people work together to deliberately destroy them in a special way.)
and âwhy are you focusing on your Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher when the Wizengamot is corruptedâ (Meaning: the temporary influence of a relatively powerless private individual is not as important as the stability of the functionally immortal, unchanging, supreme decision-making body that dictates the very fabric of society.)
In both cases, the metaphor is actually shorter than the meaning, and more people will get the impact - and even an interestingly nuanced context to remember it in. I know, it sounds so immature. I know, it shouldnât take a spoonful of sugar. But if you believe the important thing is the message⌠then youâll spoon out the sugar, act it out with sock puppets, take the kids on a field trip on a magic fucking school bus to make that message accessible.
And you know that I hate pop culture. But Iâll use it. Iâll use anything - sports references, Harry Potter, memes, ALL CAPS DISCOURSE, Miss Fucking Frizzle - even if itâs irritating to lots of people, if it means it makes a difficult thing accessible to people who otherwise canât get it.Â
So I guess what Iâm saying is that itâs worth it, if the message is.
But I totally get it if you roll your eyes.
@bemusedlybespectacled since you keep posting things with this
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