Finally we have arrived at part 4, the last in this series. Go here if you want to read part 1, part 2, and part 3.
I have a sort of mantra that I invoke frequently to focus and orient myself as I go through my day:
Is this helping? (or, will this help?)
It comes in handy in family life for example, where it stops me from participating as either a witness or judge in litigation between my kids around who started what when, or arguing with my wife over whose version of something that happened fifteen minutes ago is more accurate. The mantra is useful in all kinds of situations. It keeps me from opening my mouth when I don’t need to. It stops me from wasting energy on stupid stuff in general. It never fails to help me when I remember to invoke it, and I highly recommend it.
I’ve figured out that this mantra does two very important things:
It makes me identify a goal or desired outcome
When I ask myself, is this helping, I have to complete the question: helping with what? Answering this requires that I have an end goal, a desired outcome, in mind. Not just an outcome, but an outcome with stakes that matter to me.
It makes me step back and observe myself
The question, is this helping, is also a mindfulness prompt. It makes me pay attention to what I’m saying or doing, how I’m saying or doing it, and the effects of what I’m saying or doing. It makes me assess whether I’m moving the situation towards a desired outcome.
As an example, it was through these two lenses – a focus on outcomes and the related introspection – that I became aware of the gratification that I personally get from activities like doomscrolling, shitposting, and generally basking in righteous outrage. When I started asking myself what (goal or outcome) these activities of mine were possibly helping with, I went through a catalog of possibilities: Was I actually learning anything important? Enlightening myself? Was I persuading anyone or changing anybody’s mind? Was I making bad people look at themselves in the mirror or sleep worse at night? Many times I’ve had to face the fact that the answer was no, across the board. So then what was left? I assumed there had to be some reason I spent time on this stuff, something I was helping. I really didn’t want it to be for nothing. So I started to observe my own feelings in the moment. What I saw in myself – the shallow gratification I sometimes felt – is what I wrote about in part 1 of this series.
I’m 54 years old, and it might be a function of my age that I really don’t want to waste my time and energy on things that don’t matter, things that aren’t helping me or my community or the world in some identifiable way. I don’t want to feel fear or anger for no reason, and I definitely don’t want to feel those things just to drive clicks for someone else’s Internet business. I don’t want to be part of the problem or somehow make things worse. I do, however, want to learn things and enlighten myself. I do want to persuade people about things that are really important to me. I do want to help rally good people and make bad people reexamine their lives.
Let’s go back to the story I told in part 2 about hanging poolside in Maui with the (probably) MAGA dude, or just the general question of hanging with people we disagree with. Some people, mostly on the right these days, will lament that we shouldn’t let politics divide us. “It’s just politics,” they’ll say, or “how can you judge people over politics?” This is nuts though. The differences are a big deal. The stakes are high – life or death for some people. Life or death for all of us in the case of climate change, or risk of bloody premature death for any of us in the case of gun violence. It’s not just politics. Many of our disagreements are about basic morality and core values.
On the other hand, people on the left often advocate for some form of shunning or shaming. I can hear them asking how I could possibly joke cordially with a MAGA dude, a person who probably rationalizes locking kids in cages, who supports a guy that tried to overturn an election. I get it, and I’ve advocated for shunning and shaming too. Sometimes it works in the sense that it results in real world consequences, fuck-around-and-find-out style. There are hugely popular social media figures on the left who have made it their mission to identify bigots and report bigoted actions to people’s bosses and professional networks, to get them fired and ruin reputations. In other cases, a prominent person will be deplatformed in some way – removed from Twitter, say, or from a lineup of speakers at an event. But most of the time the shunning or shaming is just an individual act of blocking someone’s profile or reporting a Tweet, or just rebuking them in a reply. It’s unsatisfying, because they’re still out there being cruel, causing harm.
So what are the satisfying options when it comes to people who disagree with us about consequential things? What outcomes do we like to envision?
We sometimes imagine converting these people to our side. Or we imagine defeating them soundly, annihilating their harmful and cruel ideas entirely or at least keeping them far away from power. I suppose another outcome we might envision, a somewhat less satisfying one, is segregation, where we are shielded from any harm they might inflict. Safe spaces.
With these desired outcomes in mind, it’s crystal clear that what we won’t make any progress by trying to score points online, or by blocking and reporting folks. And we definitely won’t make progress by performing in a bubble of people who already agree with us, racking up likes. It’s not even clear that following the news is a good use of time.
I doubt there have been very many ideological conversions that took place mostly online, and I bet the few that did were sparked by experiences and relationships in the real world. Every conversion story I can think of began with someone being made to see their perceived enemy as a human being. Most often it was the “enemy” who forced the issue through a surprising act of love or generosity.
That’s how I think about it when I sit poolside and chat with a Trump supporter. It’s not an endorsement or even an acceptance of his views. It’s just recognizing that the best way to convert him to my side (I’ll admit that’s what I really want) or at least move him a few inches to the left, is to make him see me as a human being. And in order to do that, I need to see him as a human being as well.
That is the recipe
I think the solution is incredibly simple, for this and so many other things: Do what actually works. I use my little mantra to help me, but that’s just a tool I’ve landed on. The recipe boils down to knowing what you’re aiming for, and being intentional with your words and actions.
Like most simple things, it’s easier said than done.