I am reasonably confident that anyone who would be reading my words right now is pretty upset about last night’s election result. I am confident about this because you are all in my personal little social media sphere, which means we generally have a lot of similar opinions about things. If you hold views with a fatal deal-breaker clause, I kick you out of my sphere. I think a lot of us operate this way. You could interpret this two ways-
1) I am sticking my fingers in my ears and singing LA-LA-LA to block out anything I perceive as unpleasant, and if I base my impression of the world on what I read on social media, this gives me an unrealistic impression of the world.
2) I am not obligated whatsoever to listen to someone with hateful bullshit ideas, particularly those that are racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or picking on disabled people. (There’s a popular notion out there that says that we should all be able to put our differences of opinion aside and have a civilized adult debate, but personally I think that’s a bit of a crock when side A’s position advocates continuing to persecute the shit out of side B, and side B’s position is simply to be allowed to exist. Debates don’t typically start with one side already having won. Side A is in it for the sake of argument, side B is trying to avoid being insulted, or assaulted, or deported, or robbed, or killed. That’s not a debate at all, that’s people with power and advantages using a convenient analogy about debates to discredit those who would challenge them.)
These two interpretations are not irreconcilable. In fact, they are INSEPARABLE. I take this as a fact of social media.
(And don’t get me wrong, I fully support blocking bigoted windbags, fuck that noise. But I have to keep in mind, even if I eliminate hate speech from my facebook feed, it lives on elsewhere. Just because I can’t see it anymore doesn’t mean its gone, and isn’t still directly affecting people other than myself.)
So yes, we’re shocked because we’re surprised, but we’re also blindsided because this was impossible according to our social media spheres and online content feedbags, curated both personally and algorithmically, for better AND for worse. If you’re so inclined, you can ponder the possible effect of a false sense of security on the inhabitants of the liberal/democratic-type fishbowl, but it might make you feel not-so-good. (I bet Nate Silver feels like shiiiiiiiiit right now.)
But as gross as the idea may be when I roll it around in my head, Trump won because more people picked him (barring massive fraud, but that’s another story) We can ask ourselves, “WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR THIS OBVIOUS ASSHOLE?” because we don’t have very much data on them besides memes and jokes, we don’t know who they are, what they believe, or crucially in this case, how many of them there are. They are outside of our spheres, and we can’t wrap our heads around them, (nor can they understand us) but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Social media functions very well as a set of people you care about. Social media functions very poorly as a replacement for a thing that used to exist called ‘the news.’ (it was great, there were fact checkers, and journalistic standards, and editorials went on a special page that said ‘editorials’ right at the top in big letters.)
So I guess the moral of this story is that the political shitshow which is unfolding before us is not the only thing we have to worry about. We still have to worry about THINKING CRITICALLY about EVERYTHING, ALL THE TIME, and MORE THAN EVER. We have to actively engage with what we’re taking in, in order to prevent our social media habit, and the echo chamber of information therein which affirms everything we already feel and believe, from eventually eroding our basic Theory of Mind. We have every right to reject what we find unacceptable inside our own spheres, but must remind ourselves that that rejection does not hold outside. So, cool, no biggie, right? Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others. yadda yadda Kodos, etc etc.
So, go have a glass of water or something, maybe go outside for a bit if you can. That won’t fix everything, in fact it won’t fix anything, but the shit will still be hitting the fan later when you come back. It has been, and will be, for decades.
