The Christmas We Get
12/13 '16
Lots of hubbub about Russia "hacking" or "rigging" our elections lately.
But those words aren't quite accurate, are they. Even if the allegations are correct, the Russians didn't alter the results, or install malware on our machines. (If they did, the only sane thing to do is a do-over, a heavily audited one on paper ballots.) It's more accurate to say the Russians "influenced" our voters, by publishing hacked DNC emails and creating false narratives about one of the contenders, among other tactics.
And while it's no trick to temporarily stir up infochaos, it really shouldn't stick. Not against an informed populace, anyway. Fortunately for Russia, they didn't choose an informed populace. They chose us.
If one thing has become clear to me, it's that Americans - on all sides - don't want information. Information is hard. It has no feelings. It holds our hearts up the the mirror and forces us to look, to reassess how we feel. We don't like that.
We want ammunition. We don't care if news is "fake" if it supports our narrative. We don't learn facts to challenge our bias and increase our knowledge base - we learn "factoids" we can trot out to make ourselves appear, and feel, "right." Even when we're wrong.
And we certainly don't mind being shown hard evidence that we were duped. If cognative dissonance doesn't kick in, allowing us to deny the reality we see before us, we'll simply blame our gullibility on the victim, claiming we were only duped because the person being smeared is so bad that the false bit could have been true. Rational people, of course, would wonder what other false narratives have skewed their perceptions. That ain't us - we give ourselves a hug and - to work a terribly overworked word even harder - double-down.
That's the American way. Whether or not it's a by-product of the Age of Internet is beside the point; it's our way of life now. And it has consequences.
Look, it makes sense for people to be angry when a guy cons them. But when they willingly hand him their wallets - and another $20 on top of that - you have to conclude that they want to be conned. They enjoy it.
And it isn't going to stop.
A wise man once said "be it heaven or hell, the Christmas we get we deserve." Trust this guy - he was so wise he chose to die before his time rather than live one more second in this brave new world. (What a lucky man he was.)
I don't think Americans are averse to information. I think it would be more accurate to say that we're overwhelmed with it. Saturated so thoroughly that manipulation becomes a much easier game. Not only that, but the science of pyschometrics—at one time more of an Asimov's-Foundation-Series sci-fi notion but now a very real science, one augmented by powerful modern data computing systems—ensures that vast swaths of people exposed to propaganda will respond as desired. Which is a breathy way of saying, be careful not to blame the victim too much here.
While social structures and technology have gone through vast upheaval and change in the cosmological blink of an eye, humans have not had a similar rapid evolution. We're wired pretty much the same way we were 1,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago. HARD-wired anyway. And there's another problem--that current SOFT-wiring. Our grandparents cognitive exposure and our own and our children's exposure to technology has had profound effects, layered on top of a hardware system never designed or evolved to cope with such things.
It hardly surprises me that some of us monkeys have figured out ways to use the current set-up to their exclusive advantage. Nor is it surprising that such ancient instincts overlaid on modern times has/is/will cause no end of suffering and confusion.
But the technology (soft and hard) that is causing this mess is also the very same stuff that can rapidly advance solutions. While some of the monkeys are selfish, some act out ancient altruistic patterns, and all of this happens at a faster and faster rate.
Which is another breathy way of saying, "Don't give up on us quite yet." And maybe even, "Pay attention, and lend a hand when and how you can."
You make an excellent point that media evolution has outpaced human evolution by a crazy-ass factor. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's undeniably true. It's also pretty damned impressive, if I can pat the collective we on the back for a moment. But thank you so much for bringing all that up - you've given me a different perspective on the issue.
I mean, it was a cranky post. And I use "us" as a way of including myself in this mess. But you're right - I am indulging in some victim-blaming here. I know that's pretty obnoxious, but I decided several months ago (before the unfortunate phrase "fake news" became a thing) that the collective "we" are going to have to be the ones who take responsibility for our own info-filter. We can't count on our media sources, especially social media. Our worldview used to be shaped by our values + facts - but we now live in a world where we can find "facts" that support our worldview. We don't have to tolerate challenges. The internet should be a source of truth, but I think we are culpable for letting it be a source of comfort instead. I've been shouted down (to put it kindly) for putting actual data where it was clearly unwelcome. Just today, in fact, I let a conservative friend of mine (an 80-year-old gent, I love the lug) know that, in fact, Obama did not open the floodgates for, sigh, "illegals" to enter - that he's responsible for deporting more illegal immigrants than any president to date - so many that immigrant advocates call him "Deporter-in-Chief." I provided data - I even gave 'em a DT tweet in which he agreed to the very same thing. His, and his friends', response: "I'm going to choose to disbelieve these facts and go with my feelings."
So that's what I mean. If we aren't demanding to get to the bottom of this, we are to blame. I'm to blame, too - I gave up. But I'm going to stick with it. Maybe, when the gold-and-orange dust settles, we're all going to get a crash course in incredulity. If we accept it, maybe we'll be much better at this in a few years. But if we let ourselves be ruled by what we want to be true, rather than what is true, don't we deserve what we get?
It's such an intractable problem, isn't it? How we pick and choose what to believe, what to discard.
And I'm as guilty as the next person for lounging back and stating problems but having little constructive input into *solutions.* Lately I've been passing around this article, which I think both speaks to what you and I are mulling over but also offers a way to chip away at what to do about it. It's a bit of a long read, but I'd love to know what you think.
https://georgelakoff.com/2016/11/22/a-minority-president-why-the-polls-failed-and-what-the-majority-can-do/
I'm sad to say that I think you hit the nail on the head. The quoted paragraph is (in my personal experience) 95% of the issue. Even when I grit my teeth and tried to better understand 'the other side', all I received as a response was factoids, and I'm not a big enough man to keep from shutting down at that point.
Yes, I could have done more research (rather than personal interactions) but that sounds dangerously like making an effort.